You know how I feel about drugs.  OK, perhaps you don't.  Essentially I feel the drug war is a miserable failure, that marijuana should be legalized, taxed and treated like alcohol, and that drug possession should be decriminalized.  I feel that what someone does to their body, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else, is no one else's business.

That being the case, I don't fault dearest Kate or think that she did a bad thing.

But — and here's the catch — she's a very public figure who got caught with her hand in the nose candy jar.  And she got caught on film.

Yes, the companies are overreacting, but remember that America is in the throes of a prolonged conservative movement, so they risk alienating the general population, their customers, if they don't distance themselves from her.  Doing otherwise could be perceived as supporting — or at least being tolerant of — cocaine use and, to a larger degree, illicit drug use in general.  They can't run that risk, and now is not the time to rock the financial boat, so they responded.

Ultimately?  She made a mistake and is being tried and convicted in the court of public opinion.

She's a public figure who is supposed to represent, if not actually be, a role model.  While her role in society comes with lots of money, it also comes with responsibility, whether real or perceived.

Personally, in her shoes, I'd have made sure no one — absolutely no one — could have seen what I was doing, even more importantly that they couldn't snap a picture of it.  Her failure in judgment is now her problem.

It's a stupid mistake (getting caught, not doing drugs).  She did something illegal, even if we don't agree with it being illegal.  Oops.  But worse than that, she got photographed while doing it.  What else could she expect?  And what was she thinking?  Get a room!  Don't use the studio where, surprisingly, there are other people around.

[adapted from an e-mail to Jenny]