Reports of marijuana smoking, DUI arrests and other past chemical indiscretions didn't seem to have an impact on the last presidential election. Is there a sea change in the American public's attitude towards candidates' past drug use? PNS associate editor Walter Truett Anderson is the author of "The Future of the Self" (Tarcher Putnam, 1997).

While we try to sort out the confusion of the 2000 presidential election, at least one point comes through clearly: evidence of past drug and alcohol use had little or nothing to do with the outcome.

This indicates a striking change in American public attitudes about such matters.

Anybody old enough to remember the political campaigns of a few decades back can get a healthy chuckle out of imagining what might have happened if, in 1956, it became general public knowledge that Dwight Eisenhower had been a heavy user of liquor and cocaine in his younger days, while Adlai Stevenson had been known to light up the occasional joint. Or if in 1968 we found out during the campaign that both Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew had been arrested for drunk driving.

Throughout those years, the public seemed to tolerate very little deviation from the mainstream American image of what constituted the desirable characteristics of a national leader. A politician's worst nightmare was the sudden revelation of some unflattering piece of past history, like the campaign-shattering discovery that George McGovern's running mate, Missouri Sen. Thomas Eagleton, had been hospitalized in the past for "nervous exhaustion" and, in one case, treated with electroshock therapy. Although some of Eagleton's supporters countered that an occasional spell of mental illness really isn't all that abnormal, the story stayed on the front pages until Eagleton gave up the nomination -- and the McGovern campaign went down in flames.

Yet there is no evidence that the various leaks this year about past chemical indiscretions of our candidates had any impact on the election whatsoever.

There were certainly enough rumors and news stories of the sort that might once have billowed up into full-scale scandals: a former friend of Al Gore claiming the vice president had been a heavy and consistent marijuana user; countless reports of George W. Bush's close friendship with liquor and cocaine; the late-in-the campaign break that Bush had once been arrested for drunk driving in Maine, with the kicker that running mate Richard Cheney also had a DUI record. All these floated through the media with a resounding ho-hum from the voters.

Another indicator of changing attitudes was the 1990 gubernatorial candidacy of Lawton Chiles in Florida, when it came out that Chiles had a history of depression and Prozac use. Nobody -- neither the media nor Chiles' opponents -- made much of the story, and Chiles went on to win the election.

Three conclusions could be drawn from these various pieces of recent political history. One is that many people are developing a more complex and mature concept of character, recognizing that it is possible for a competent leader to have problems and weaknesses and a less-than-spotless past. A second is that it's getting harder and harder to keep a secret. And a third is that attitudes about drugs are becoming a touch more sophisticated, shifting away from the simplistic "drug-free America" vision of how to deal sensibly with the whole cornucopia of mind-altering chemicals -- legal and illegal -- that have become so much a part of contemporary life.

All of these are interlinked. None, except perhaps the point about secrecy, is easy to prove in any final way. The passage of Proposition 36 in California, mandating treatment instead of jail for nonviolent drug offenders, seems to be another indicator that the consensus is crumbling under the war-on-drugs mentality.