Peter Hayes QC is dead. Ben Cousins is in rehab.

Sometime this week, the PM’s special adviser on drug policy, Minister for Aging Christopher Pyne, will take AFL chief — and sometime ALP celebrity pre-selection prospect — Andrew Demetriou to task over the league’s harm-minimisation approach to drugs policy.

There’s no room for mamby-pamby, health-focused drug treatment in the PM’s view. The AFL begs to differ. And the Victorian Bar? How is it that when a high-profile member of one profession is found to be in the thrall of illicit drugs it becomes a national cause celebre, and when another high-flying representative of a rather different — but no less influential or well-paid profession — is found in a similar state of dependant chemical infatuation it’s nobody’s business, just the sad, sad end of a great mind laid waste?

Nothing, if not complex. Will the PM be wanting to take a look at the Victorian Bar’s drug code any time soon?