I'm thinking that if the government really wants to stop kids from using drugs or smoking or drinking or some other fun but generally foolish activity, what they really need to do is change their tactic with the warning labels and commercials. Frankly, most kids couldn't give two shits about low fetal weight or lung cancer or brain damage or even death. The angry disenchanted youth can't imagine why low fetal weight is a concern (even after they have pumped out their second child by age nineteen), lung cancer is something only old people get, brain damage sounds kinda cool and hey, everybody has to die sometime.

What they need are side effects they can understand and desperatley want to avoid. This should work. One little warning label in teeny, tiny print just mentioning anal leakage stopped people from eating Olestra laced potato chips. Chips! And you think cigarettes are addictive. I think Ghandi would have been licking salt off his tips if you stuck a bowl of Ruffles in front of him, but even a group of drunken frat brothers at a Super Bowl party would do everything possible to avoid just one bout of anal leakage.

Speaking of anal leakage, and really, it's too fun a subject NOT to speak of it, they never did clarify how bad you might leak on an Olestra binge. Is it an annoying little drip drip drip like a bad faucet in a crappy hotel room (yeah, it's intended), or is it more like the spray from a faulty shower head, a blast off to the side every time you need to drop trou? Then again, does it really matter? I think anything leaking from my ass has got to be a bad thing, regardless of direction or volume. And I know women don't want their $35 panties looking like the garage floor underneath a 1975 Pinto.

Sorry, I digress. And I suppose I should be sorry for that particular diversion.

How about some truly scary side effects? Use of this product has been shown to cause uncontrollable flatulence, nostril pimples, pubescent balding, hairy backs, impotence, and a nervous twitch like "Sammy," that special-ed kid from junior high who used to drool a lot and eat out of the trash.

Then again, maybe that wouldn't work. Continued use of Marlboro Reds results in extreme halitosis, rotting teeth, hacking cough, blackened mucus, and public ridicule (at least in Southern California). Budweiser has been shown to cause uncontrollable vomiting, stupidity, bloody noses, sex with ugly people, and frequently, unwanted pregnancy. Besides, it makes you fat. People have known about this for a while, but it hasn't seemed to cut into their sales.