In Barry Case, the Double Standard Is Alive, Well

Marion Barry’s real problem is not that he chose drugs, but that he chose the wrong profession.

If he had chosen football, baseball or basketball over politics, he would have very few problems right now.

In fact, he would be the object of sympathy instead of scorn.

Barry, the mayor of Washington, D.C., was arrested Jan. 18 and charged with misdemeanor cocaine possession. According to the many, many leaks--if the FBI were a ship, it would be under water by now--the FBI has a videotape of Barry smoking crack. The crack was provided by the FBI.

Now, Barry has voluntarily entered a substance treatment program. His aides say it is for alcohol abuse, but they may be saying that on the advice of Barry’s lawyers. They may feel his entering a cocaine abuse program with charges pending against him would amount to self-incrimination.

But let’s put Barry’s true guilt or innocence aside. Nobody believes he is innocent. And everybody is equally sure he is through as mayor. Even if he does not resign, it is generally assumed he will not run for reelection, or that if he does run, he will be trounced.

In other words, Barry must leave his chosen profession. Which just shows what a dope he was to choose that profession in the first place.

Barry’s big mistake was not becoming an athlete in college. Instead he became a student. Very, very short-sighted.

While others were working out on tackling dummies, Barry was working in the chemistry lab. He had a master’s degree in chemistry from Fisk and was working toward a doctorate at the University of Tennessee when he quit to go to work full time for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1965.

Six years later, just about the time Barry should have been going after a Super Bowl ring, he screwed up again: He was elected president of the D.C. Board of Education.

His downward slide continued. Instead of doing commercial endorsements for shoes and soft drinks, Barry was elected to the D.C. City Council. And then, in 1978, instead of making the All-Madden Team, he made mayor.

No imagination, this guy.

Now compare Barry to another famous drug abuser: Dexter Manley.

Manley, the former defensive end of the Washington Redskins, was caught abusing drugs for the third time last year, yet he is not the least bit ruined.

When he was caught the first time, it was no problem. He said he wouldn’t do it again. When he was caught the second time, still no problem. He was suspended for a whole 30 days, said he really, really wouldn’t do it again, and then went right back to earning $600,000 a year. He also spoke out against the evils of drugs, of course.

So when Manley was caught abusing drugs for the third time, he was suspended from football “for life,” which should mean for about one year. His agent predicts it might even be less “if everything goes all right.”

And Manley got an added benefit: He has never been charged criminally with using drugs. No FBI informant led him to a hotel room for a good time; no FBI agent sold him cocaine while the videotape was rolling.

Media support for Manley was swift and sure. Drug abuse is a sickness, we were reminded, and a sickness shouldn’t be punished. Further, since drugs should be legalized anyway, what had he really done so wrong? Isn’t it enough that Manley sought treatment? And when that treatment is over, shouldn’t he be allowed back into his profession?

See what I mean, Marion? You just picked the wrong line of work. (And if you had picked football, you could have picked a new first name, too. Something like Bruiser or Bubba.)

We certainly have a right to expect higher standards of behavior from our politicians than we do from our athletes. But how can you say Dexter Manley was a helpless victim of drugs and then say Marion Barry was not?

How can you say Manley should get his job back after treatment, but that Barry should resign? If crack cocaine is as addictive as we have been led to believe--one puff and you are helplessly in its grip--then how can you blame Barry for being a drug abuser? Even Dan Rather admitted using heroin once.

The buzzword for the ‘90s is treatment . There is a program for everything: drug abuse, gambling abuse, embezzlement, infidelity, cellulite, you name it. And a cure is a cure, isn’t it? If getting cured of drugs makes Dexter Manley a better person ready to advance in his profession, why doesn’t it do the same for Marion Barry?

Besides, if drugs were legalized in America, Barry would be in no trouble at all.

It would be legal for mayors (or governors or senators or the President) to use drugs. It would be just like alcohol.

We drink, politicians say now, but we don’t let it affect our work.

We use cocaine, politicians of the future might say, but we don’t let it affect our work.

Won’t that be swell?

But that is the future. Today, drugs are illegal. And we punish people for using them.

Some people, anyway. Some people who are goofy enough to choose the wrong profession.

Marion Barry worked hard because he thought it was important to have something on the ball.

Instead, he should have just run with one.