triple quoted strings as comments

[dmh2000]

I recently complained elsewhere that Python doesn't have multiline
comments. i was told to use triple quoted strings to make multiline
comments. My question is that since a triple quoted string is actually
a language construct, does it use cause a runtime construction of a
string which is then discarded, or is the runtime smart enough to see
that it isn't used and so it doesn't construct it?

example

def fun(self):
  """doc comment
      comment line 2
  """

  x = 1
  y = 2

  """does this triple quoted string used as a  comment
      cause something to happen at runtime beyond
      just skipping over it? Such as allocation of memory for a string
      or worse yet garbage collection? or not?
  """
  z = x + y

...

dave howard