I hate this story. Who cares if Michael Phelps, Olympic Champion, smokes weed? I surely don't. And why does it matter? He is still a great swimmer, right? And all this business about criminal charges??? Really????? C'mon. Give me a break.
Let's look at this logically. He took a bong hit...a BONG hit. Did he hurt anyone (maybe himself)? Is he drug dealer? A lot of successful people smoke weed. Now, I'm not saying that doing drugs is okay (your government and medical community say that everyday), but must we vilify anyone who makes a mistake? The crime of 'doing drugs' does hurt the user (and their family to some degree), but is it something that should be punished with jail time? Non-violent offenders should not be imprisoned. What will it benefit them? It will turn them into hardened criminals and aid in the quest for more drugs. If we really wanted to help people, maybe rehab/drug counseling is the best answer.
One cop agrees that Phelps should not be prosecuted for a picture of him 'taking a bong hit'. I say, how can we know that there was weed in that bong? It could also be used to smoke tobacco (a legal drug). Hell, if you take a picture of me drinking alcohol (another widely used legal drug) and then driving, can I go to jail for a DUI?
This writer is for arresting Phelps. How dumb is that? No law enforcement official witnessed the crime. It is a tough sell in court to convict someone on a photo that DOES NOT contain evidence of marijuana. I am highly annoyed with this whole saga. I won't tell you how should think or call you silly for wanting Phelps head on a platter, but we have to remember that weed was only made illegal in 1936 (before that is was widely used) due to back from the oil, tobacco, and paper industries (at least their lobbyist). Therefore, let's have some perspective. And don't throw the "well slavery was legal once too" argument at me. That is ignorant. Slavery harmed an entire segment of people, while weed harms no one (in and of itself) to that degree.
Look, I am tired of those who have issues casting blame on everyone else (I include myself in this at times). We shouldn't judge each celebrity or athlete. Give them a break. They are human beings who make mistakes. If your buddies took a photo of you trying or smoking weed and posted it on Facebook it wouldn't be news at all. Cops wouldn't care or anything. But because Phelps is a "hero" we have to jump on his case. How does this make sense? Get over it America, our "heroes" make mistakes. It's like if we found out that Ben Carson had smoked weed. Does that make him less of a neurosurgeon? NO! He would still be a great doctor, the proof is in his work. Move on...
7 comments:
The difference is Phelps has a lot of influence. If we post a picture online smoking weed, it may only effect our list of friends (and their friends by tagging pictures). When Michael Phelps smoke weed it is heard around the world. He wasn't just a champion this year and America knew... it was the Olympics. He's now a "figure". Him winning those medals on the world stage influenced many a young person to take up swimming, whereas if we won a little race in the middle of Oklahoma nobody would care.
On the other hand WE put him up on the pedestal. By putting him up there he was bound to get knocked down. To me this kills his appeal completely. I admired him and now he's pretty lame to me. just truth.
How does smoking weed make him lame? I know people who have smoked (and now don't and those who still do). I don't think smoking it makes you lame. President Obama smokes cigarettes. Does that make him lame? Tobacco and marijuana are both plants (drugs). In fact, the marijuana folks smoke has less harmful additives than the processed tobacco products. But that is neither here nor there. The point is that if my kid adored Michael Phelps and wanted to be a swimmer when he grew up, I still wouldn't be mad. I would tell my kid the truth. People smoke weed. People make mistakes. Just because Phelps smokes doesn't mean you have to smoke. Same thing I would tell them about Obama and cigarettes.
I would help them get as much information as I could and then when they are old enough to make their own choices, I would allow them to do so. That is what I hate about our society. We want to sugarcoat everything and say all human heroes are perfect. They aren't. We preach abstinence and properly educate our youth. I can't control others decisions, but an informed decision vs. one made out of fear and/or peer pressure sits better with me.
And it does kill Phelps appeal. It shows he is human just like us. He got a DUI awhile back and no one is up in a huff about that. But smoke weed and its the end of the world (DUIs kill people, weed smoking does not).
I still admire Phelps. Why? Because he owned up to his mistakes. Did I expect him to be perfect? No. He's human, people make mistakes. In fact, I like him better now.
I think it is hypocritical say that a 23-year old man is now "lame" because he smokes weed (honestly not trying to offend you, just my opinion about your statement). I am turning 26 this year, and I look back at things I did three years ago, and I can name COUNTLESS things I did that were stupid, and illustrated poor judgment as I am sure you and many other people can. In today's society, the margin for error we give our celebrities and heroes has shrunk to nanometer scales. The scrutiny has reached levels that have NEVER before been seen. The problem is as you mentioned yourself: WE put him on a damn pedestal.
Hero worship is a terrible thing in our society. Michael Phelps is the greatest swimmer known to man, that fact cannot be disputed. Since when does that make him a role model or a model human being? Why are we constantly searching for the next hero to prop up and worship, and subsequently tear down? This situation REEKS of hypocrisy. We claim that our society values honesty and "goodness." That's a flat out lie. The only thing our society truly values at the end of the day is what the media tells us to value and how the media wants us to value it. Here are examples: Michael Phelps gets torn down for smoking weed. Paris Hilton becomes an overnight celebrity for having sex on the internet. Barack Obama admits to smoking weed, and he becomes "hip." Cheech and Chong make movies strictly about smoking weed that are STILL classics today.
What does this say about our society? I think it says: 1. We are really just looking to be entertained, and looking for something to stir us up; 2. Instead of teaching our kids to learn from mistakes of others, we teach them to ridicule the people making the mistakes 3. We are hypocrites because we will shout down a person for making a mistake that we would have made ourselves, and then say, "well, he/she's a celebrity, that's what he/she asked for," when the reality is, we asked them to step up on the pedestal and be a "hero."
Is this really the society we should be promoting and complimenting? I think Michael Phelps should actually be commended for the way he's handled the situation. He's stood up and took it head on, and faced the music. I'm not saying he's a great role model, I'm saying we should have realistic expectations of him. Quite honestly, I did not think any less of him after the story came out, and my opinion of him has improved after I've seen him respond to the hoopla.
I'mma have to agree with the boys here, Lexi. Everyone makes mistakes. I'm pretty sure you can think of a few things that in your own eyes would have made you a lame three years ago. I don't think it makes him lame. Matter of fact I expect it more from him. I'm pleasantly surprised when "heroes" stay clean and stay up there while at the same time being skeptical. (It isn't a matter of them being "good", just that they haven't been caught being "bad".) Why do people keep putting their inhuman expectations on human people, while they themselves don't have it together.
It's like finding out that MLK had cheated on Coretta. I'm still thanking God that people weren't privy to that info long ago or we might still be being treated like crap because he didn't hold to the high standards. In the same way that his message was golden and the presidency of Clinton was effective, Phelps is talented and that has no effect on his moral stance just like our jobs don't have an effect on our moral stance.
Heck, people should be madder at King. He was more hypocritical than Phelps. And Phelps even stood up to admit his mistake.
Alright. Ever-belatedly...
I think one of the problems with us as Americans is that we spend a ridiculous amount of time and energy trying to identify the heroes among us. On top of that, our rubric is skewed. If someone excels at a sport, hits a note most can't, can pretend to be someone else to the point that it evokes emotion in others, they're suddenly a hero.
We all know that people in the limelight become either role models or media fodder (or both), but we constantly buy into that.
Phelps is a kid. A kid who's won a record amount of Olympic gold, but a kid all the same. He made a mistake that, according to some poll, 50% of Americans have or are still making.
The idea of criminal charges is idiotic, so I'm not going to delve into that. The photo is circumstantial at best, because he certainly wasn't arrested with weed in his possession.
Anyway. We know America is going to continue on this path because we always have to blow molehills into mountains while bulldozing the mountains to dust that the general public never gets a chance to see.
Phelps is cooler than ever because of this shit IMO. Let the man do what he wants in his free time. Marijuana is a casual, relatively harmless drug that people use to relax. There's a difference in a burnout stoner on the couch wasting his life away and an olympic athelete honing his body. All of you anti-weed people using the "You'll hurt yourself" argument will find that completely deflated in this instance. I say leave dude alone. I'm amazed that he did that shit though considering that USADA(united states anti-doping act) will ban you for three years and strip any medals you won if banned substances show up in your system after a random test. Must've been during his off-season.
Oh, and best believe that a dude who's taking a bong rip like that isn't making a "mistake". That dude smokes trees no doubt about it. Probably still does. This wasn't a peer pressure moment. What you're really hearing from this "apology" are his lawyers and publicists. What's funny s the level of hypocrisy in our pseudo-moral American society. If you guys were from the Netherlands, and Phelps was from there as well, this wouldn't even be a news story. It's laws that make behavior "wrong". I don't even see it as right and wrong anymore, just violations of statutes.
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