I want to care that baseball's new drug policy actually has a baby tooth or two in it. I really want to.

But after long and careful consideration, I don't. Not at all. I don't care if guys are hooking up in the outfield on national television, snorting up the third base coach's box or taking the field with a water pipe in one hand and a barrel of Chee-tos in the other.

	Baseball's substance-abuse policy hath no fury like an unforgiving New York baseball fan.

I have, frankly, given up and decided to take a more libertarian approach, which is a lofty way of saying, "Screw it.'' Nature finds its own balance, and wreaks its revenge on those who mock it.

Like, say, the New York Mets.

This is not the traditional athletes-are-role-models argument, as you can see. In fact, I have publicly advocated the mandatory use of performance-enhancing drugs, just because the debate has become so tedious, and if everyone's on, then we don't have wonder who isn't.

So, when the news broke that the new labor-management agreement has a suspension component in it, and fresh off the news that the Mets are once again Little Jamaica, I -- and the rest of America, as it turns out -- was overcome with ennui.

For one, nobody gives a hairball about the new labor agreement because we had to live with it for six months. We'll worry about it again when the deal comes up again, so back off, Miss Grundy.

For two, we know that most players who use drugs are far more careful about their concealment than, say, Randy Moss, so that the policing will remain as spotty as it is in the other sports.

And for three, let's see some players go down before we decide whether this makes any sense.

Over the years, we have come to realize that most sports' drug policies are wallpaper, catching the really careless and stupid while keeping the moderate and careful safe. You know, just like life itself.

And somehow the knowledge that baseball's new drug policy has the same amount of gum power as the others changes nothing.

Frankly, if the idea is to scare civilians from using stuff, a lot of athletes will have to O.D. right out in the open where we can see the full horror of their choices. And if the idea is to keep the P.R. tidy, well, we've become too cynical and disbelieving a nation for any of that.

Besides, if what has been reported about the Mets is true (and so far, the denials have been tepid at best), maybe having a terrible year and becoming the laughing stock of the nation's most vibrant and least forgiving city is sufficient deterrent on its own.

I mean, Bobby Valentine has been fired, and Steve Phillips has been mocked as a fraud and a poser in the daily prints. Fred Wilpon has had to buy out Nelson Doubleday at far more than superficial market price in exchange for Doubleday's silence on the way baseball does its real business. The Yankees are still the Yankees, and the Mets are catching more grief than the Devil Rays.

I'm thinking all that might convince a player to put down that big fatty and spend a little more time in the cage. That seems like a much better deterrent than whatever it is the baseball police can do.

See, the power of ridicule is greater than any of us want to admit. Every player who says he (or she) doesn't read the paper or listen to the radio or watch the tube is either lying, has a sizable enough contract to hire media surrogates, or has a very attractive and attentive spouse.

And nothing is quite as ridiculous as having to explain why you got high while your team was finishing behind both the Expos and Marlins.

Now that's drug testing at the root. Use this, and people will laugh at you. Don't use it, and people might still laugh at you, but at least you'll be trying to convince them that you're doing your best.

This will not convince everyone to go clean, but it will put their reputations in their own hands again. That, too, is a better deterrent than some suspension that (A) doesn't get everyone, and (B) doesn't cure anyone who doesn't feel like being cured.

After all, we can only guess at the number of parents who have been telling their kids over the last week or so, "Clean your room. It looks like a Met's been living in it.''

Ray Ratto is a columnist with the San Francisco Chronicle and a regular contributor to ESPN.com