Dreams & Smoke

Three a.m.

'Hello, Andrew,' I said, picking up the phone after stumbling out of the bedroom.

'Do you think anything can be done about the drugs problem?' he asked.

Where was the Armagnac?

'I've been in meetings all day listening to just about everyone telling what a hopeless situation the whole thing is - from trying to stop farmers growing opium, to failures at customs and ineffective enforcement on the streets, poor medical care, no coherent rehabilitation, lack of support for users' families, no money - '

'It can be done, Andrew,' I said.

Silence.

'What?' he asked, eventually.

'The problem can be cracked, if you excuse the expression.'

'How?'

'It's quite simple, but there just isn't the political will,' I said.

'I'm the politician, let me be the judge of that,' Andrew answered, but not without humor.

I paused, trying to think how to begin. Then I got side-tracked thinking about what I was doing trying to solve America's drugs problem at three in the morning on a transatlantic line from Paris.

'Have you ever had a bad habit you wanted to break, Andrew?' I began.

He thought a moment.

'No,' he said.

I could just reach the Armagnac, but couldn't find a glass.

'Okay,' I began. 'A friend of mine said that he was trying to get out of the habit of starting his car before putting on his seat-belt. Someone told him that the best way to do that was to change the whole ritual of what he did once he got into the car. It would be easier to put in an additional step than to try to switch starting the car and putting on the seat-belt. Are you with me?'

'It's not rocket science, Commander,' Andrew said, probably beginning to wonder why he called.

'Well, my friend changed his pattern so he puts the keys on the dashboard, fastens his belt, then picks up the keys and starts the car. It's his habit now. After a few months, he can drop the step of putting the keys on the dashboard.'

Silence, then:

'Okay. . . did it work?'

'Oh,yes.'

'So how does this solve America's drugs problem?'

'You have to shift the focus from drugs to something else,' I said.

'Like what?'

I held my breath.

'Outlaw tobacco,' I said.

'What?!' came the cry from across the Atlantic.

'You're half there already,' I said. 'Smokers are nearly socially acceptable now anyway. By making tobacco illegal, the drugs trade will go back to 1950s levels. The smuggers will start shipping tobacco; the farmers in Colombia will start growing it; it will regenerate Cuba's economy without running up the United States' foreign aid bill, and cigarettes are much easier to find than small packets of drugs. Smoke is easier to see, so users can be caught.'

'But what about the American tobacco industry?'

'Pay them off with the money currently going to people being paid not to grow poppies,' I said.

'That will cost a fortune.'

'More than the cotton industry does now, Andrew?' I asked. The US cotton growers receive more in annual subsidies from the government than the market value of the crop - and doesn't save people's lives.

'Can I get back to you on this?' Andrew said.