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What Michael Phelps Should Have Said
Smoking pot shouldn't be a crime. Or the public's business.
Radley Balko | February 2, 2009

Dear America,

I take it back. I don’t apologize.1

Because you know what? It’s none of your goddamned business. I work my ass off 10 months a year. It’s that hard work that gave you all those gooey feelings of patriotism last summer. If during my brief window of down time I want to relax, enjoy myself, and partake of a substance that’s a hell of a lot less bad for me than alcohol, tobacco, or, frankly, most of the prescription drugs most of you are taking, well, you can spare me the lecture.

I put myself through hell. I make my body do things nature never really intended us to endure. All world-class athletes do. We do it because you love to watch us push ourselves as far as we can possibly go. Some of us get hurt. Sometimes permanently. You’re watching the Super Bowl tonight. You’re watching 300 pound men smash each while running at full speed, in full pads. You know what the average life expectancy of an NFL player is? Fifty-five. That’s about 20 years shorter than your average non-NFL player. Yet you watch. And cheer. And you jump up spill your beer when a linebacker lays out a wide receiver on a crossing route across the middle. The harder he gets hit, the louder and more enthusiastically you scream.

Yet you all get bent out of shape when Ricky Williams, or I, or Josh Howard2 smoke a little dope to relax. Why? Because the idiots you’ve elected to make your laws have, without a shred of evidence, beat it into your head that smoking marijuana is something akin to drinking antifreeze, and done only by dirty hippies and sex offenders.

You’ll have to pardon my cynicism. But I call bullsmurf. You don’t give a damn about my health. You just get a voyeuristic thrill from watching an elite athlete fall from grace–all the better if you get to exercise a little moral righteousness in the process. And it’s hypocritical righteousness at that, given that 40 percent of you have tried pot at least once in your lives.3

Here’s a crazy thought: If I can smoke a little dope and go on to win 14 Olympic gold medals, maybe pot smokers aren’t doomed to lives of couch surfing and video games, as our moronic government would have us believe.4 In fact, the list of successful pot smokers5 includes not just world class athletes like me, Howard, Williams, and others, it includes Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer Prize winners, the last three U.S. presidents, several Supreme Court justices, and luminaries and success stories from all sectors of business and the arts, sciences, and humanities.

So go ahead. Ban me from the next Olympics. Yank my endorsement deals. Stick your collective noses in the air and get all indignant on me. While you’re at it, keep arresting cancer and AIDS patients who dare to smoke the stuff because it deadens their pain, or enables them to eat. Keep sending in goon squads6 to kick down doors and shoot little old ladies,7 maim innocent toddlers,8 handcuff elderly post-polio patients to their beds9 at gunpoint, and slaughter the family pet.10

Tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll apologize for smoking pot when every politician who ever did drugs and then voted to uphold or strengthen the drug laws marches his ass off to the nearest federal prison to serve out the sentence he wants to impose on everyone else for committing the same crimes he committed. I’ll apologize when the sons, daughters, and nephews of powerful politicians who get caught possessing or dealing drugs in the frat house or prep school get the same treatment as the no-name, probably black kid caught on the corner or the front stoop doing the same thing.

Until then, I for one will have none of it. I smoked pot. I liked it. I’ll probably do it again. I refuse to apologize for it, because by apologizing I help perpetuate this stupid lie, this idea that what someone puts into his own body on his own time is any of the government’s damned business. Or any of yours. I’m not going to bend over and allow myself to be propaganda for this wasteful, ridiculous, immoral war.

Go ahead and tear me down if you like. But let’s see you rationalize in your next lame ONDCP commercial11 how the greatest smurf swimmer the world has ever seen...is also a proud pot smoker.

Yours,

Michael Phelps

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2009-02-01-michael-phelps_N.htm
2) http://tinyurl.com/cx28jr (dallasnews.com)
3) http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1821697,00.html
4) http://blog.mpp.org/?p=219
5) http://www.theagitator.com/2008/11/07/successful-pot-smokers-lets-make-a-list/
6) http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6476
7) http://www.reason.com/news/show/123632.html
8) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/us/30lima.html
9) http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1002/albom092602.asp
10) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/130714.html
11) http://blog.mpp.org/?p=219

Source unknown

Phelps is merely the Outrage of the Week (tm).

Last week's Outrage was that lady that gave birth to eight kids, while already having six at home. We've moved on to Phelps this week. And we'll move on to the next Outrage in a day or two.

And no one will ever think about it again.

So, no. It isn't going to tip any balance.

bratboy wrote:

mo' ron wrote:

Source unknown

He's a writer for Reason I think.

Google is your friend,

Using recreational drugs in one's own residence increases danger for others not at all. 

Unlike speeding.

I don't think there is really all that much real opposition to legalizing pot. I have heard plenty of right wing radio and TV pundits arguing in favor of pot on libertarian grounds.

As a side note, the price for a 1/4 oz of incredibly potent pot just fell by half from $30 to $15. So goes the war on pot.

Last edited by Pariah (2009-02-04 6:48 pm)

Pariah wrote:

I don't think there is really all that much real opposition to legalizing pot. I have heard plenty of right wing radio and TV pundits arguing in favor of pot on libertarian grounds.

As a side note, the price for a 1/4 oz of incredibly potent pot just fell by half from $30 to $15. So goes the war on pot.

Really? The guy on my street was charging a lot more

daemon wrote:

As for whether this represents a tipping point, I'd put it along with any given celebrity coming 'out' in their personal orientation to gender attraction. It will tend to legitimate without really making any 'change' per se.

I don't see that. When someone comes out, as opposed to being outed, they avow it. This isn't the equivalent of being outed, as he disavows it as a mistake, implying he won't do it again.

It only partly works even that far because many are sophisticated enough these days to realize he has to do that, if only to minimize the jeopardy to his endorsements, where he probably leads worldwide. (Tiger Woods likely did, but at this point it's unknown when he'll be back, and if so, if he'll ever be the player he once was. In his absence the PGA has become Professional Golfers Anonymous).

BALTIMORE (AP) - Olympic champion Michael Phelps says he is going to have to live with the fallout from a photo of him smoking from a marijuana pipe.

Phelps spoke to The Associated Press on Wednesday about the ordeal outside the pool where he trains. The public comments were his first since the photo surfaced in a British tabloid over the weekend.

"It's something I am going to have to live with and something I'll have to grow from," Phelps said. "I know with all of the mistakes I made, I learned from them and that is what I expect to do from this. By no means it is fun for me, by no means is it easy."

http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/91 … s-it-easy'

It was a mistake. That doesn't negate it, but it does diminish it.

He inhaled the one time, but won't again.

Pariah wrote:

I don't think there is really all that much real opposition to legalizing pot. I have heard plenty of right wing radio and TV pundits arguing in favor of pot on libertarian grounds.

As a side note, the price for a 1/4 oz of incredibly potent pot just fell by half from $30 to $15. So goes the war on pot.

I believe that is partly due to the fact that the cartels have shifted production from Mexico and Central America to the national parks and forests of the U.S.A.

sturner wrote:

I believe that is partly due to the fact that the cartels have shifted production from Mexico and Central America to the national parks and forests of the U.S.A.

It was always cheap when it came from Mexico, too (if you lived in Texas at least).

ShnickyShnack wrote:

Speeding is legal, in reality. The posted limit is actually the posted minimum.

You're making a joke, right?  Because what you're saying is not true.

Phelps' lung capacity must've enabled super-bodacious bong hit capabilities.

Like totally.

Has anyone even considered whether Phelp's was actually training for another sport?
Like say, competitive frisbee or hackeysack?