<p>I agree NSM - if they tax drugs and prostitution, we could really increase tax revenues. Add taxing Viagra to the list and we’ve fixed the economy.</p>
<p>He took a bong hit, but he didn’t inhale!</p>
<p>I find it frustrating. I fail to see why we can’t have a true American hero who is not flawed. Children across the country look up to Phelps and then he has to be so stupid as to get caught smoking pot. What an idiot.</p>
<p>Oh come on! Next thing you know he will be having sex. Razor, your expectations are too high. If you expect your heroes to be perfect, inevitably you will be disappointed.</p>
<p>Just dont tell me anything bad about Taylor Swift. She IS perfect!</p>
<p>I prefer my sports heroes to be human. If he’s that fast in the pool and can party with the best of them, who are we to say he shouldn’t? </p>
<p>American heroes who aren’t flawed in some way are incredibly boring. We like redemption stories. Who gets more praise in our society: Someone who quits doing drugs or someone who never started? Hint: Josh Hamilton.</p>
<p>NJres - you mean except for the fact that she can’t carry a tune! She’s cute though.</p>
<p>What is at stake for Phelps are his endorsements - he signs contracts that speak to his behavior no doubt.</p>
<p>The fact that Phelps ran a stop sign (possibly drunk?) and got stopped by a cop a few years back made my D take his poster off of her bedroom wall. I think his traffic ticket was much worse than this kerfuffle. Let the USA Swimming deal with the pot issue. If he continues taking “hits”, his next drug test results will earn him a nice suspesion from competition. The next Olympics are less than 4 years away.</p>
<p>I also take exception to the assertion that smoking pot is “normal.” I object not because I doubt that pot use is common, but rather because an assertion like that–especially coming from a parent–communicates to young adults that those who don’t engage in illegal, unhealthy, or immoral behavior are somehow abnormal. This is the definition of negative peer pressure and this is why we continue to see alchohol and drug-related deaths among college students, and especially among partiers at fraternities.</p>
<p>The law is the law, whether you agree with the substance of it or not. The law should be respected and obeyed until such time as you succeed in changing it.</p>
<p>Having worked hard is not an excuse. Being young is not an excuse. Being in the public eye is not an excuse. To say it is an excuse diminishes the fortitude of those in similar circumstances who have also been tempted but haven’t succumbed to wrongdoing.</p>
<p>S lives in Baltimore, Phelps hometown, and has heard many unflattering tales from locals about Phelps’ behavior in bars, around women, etc. He’s apparently been an entitled jerk for years. I’m not unhappy that he’s been taken down a peg, though I know this will just roll off him before long.</p>
<p>Smoking pot on a regular basis may not be normal, but I’m sure the number of people that have tried it at all is probably much higher. This site shows that somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of high school seniors, depending on the year, have used marijuana in the past 12 months. It’s higher once you extend the qualifier to “ever used marijuana”… almost to 50 percent, which would be the majority, and therefore, normal. Also, the number of marijuana deaths hovers around zero. Unless you throw a car into the mix or some other, more dangerous drug.</p>
<p>[Bureau</a> of Justice Statistics Drugs and Crime Facts: Drug use in the general population](<a href=“http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dcf/du.htm]Bureau”>Home)</p>
<p>I guess it depends on what your standards are. I don’t expect athletes to be perfect, but a DUI and illegal drugs goes past what I think is “flawed”. I guess my standards are what I’d expect of myself or my children. We are certainly not perfect. I’ve had a bit too much to drink on occasion, but NEVER got into a car and drove that way and would expect the same of my kids. I know that they have had something to drink before attaining the legal age of 21 but would hope that they drink in moderation and avoid drugs.</p>
<p>"I don’t expect athletes to be perfect, but a DUI and illegal drugs goes past what I think is “flawed”. "</p>
<p>I pay so little attention to athletics that I had to Google to be reminded of who Michael Phelps was. I didn’t watch the Olympics, not even the opening ceremony.</p>
<p>Athletes are human just as is everyone else, and will have their flaws. Unless they do something truly reprehensible like spouse abuse, I don’t care what they do in their personal lives.</p>
<p>Marijuana needs to be decriminalized. It’s ridiculous to be wasting time and money prosecuting people for something that shouldn’t be a crime. Plus, we need the tax revenue that it could generate if it were legal.</p>
<p>I don’t use pot, and wouldn’t want my kids to use pot since it’s illegal, but except for fearing that they’ll be picked up by the police, I don’t care if others use pot. I just don’t want them to do so in my presence because I don’t like to breathe second hand smoke of any kind, and I also don’t want to risk being arrested.</p>
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<p>Yes and No. NSM, I agree with you. However – If we decriminalize it, that suggests that growing it becomes OK also. And that suggests that, in order to eliminate marijuana laced with pesticides, etc., growing it should be regulated too. And, while it can be and is grown in the US, presumably importing it from other countries would also be OK. And that suggests that there would need to be standards, testing, etc. – in other words, a whole bureaucracy – to make sure what’s imported is OK. And, in addition, there would need to be sanctions determined for those who broke whatever laws are set up.</p>
<p>I don’t see how you can decriminalize smoking marijuana without having all of the above. It’s not simple.</p>
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<p>Why are my expectations too high (no pun intended)? I don’t have any problem obeying laws (even those laws I actually hate). Why can’t someone be a nice guy who obeys laws? I don’t expect perfection, I expect simple compliance with laws for which all of us are obligated to comply.</p>
<p>What Phelps does not realize is that he is not only a hero to America, he represents America to the rest of the world. When they see Phelps smoking pot, there are many people in the world who form a slightly lesser opinion of America.</p>
<p>Razorsharp, I think people in the rest of the world smoke pot too.</p>
<p>I don’t see why marijuana is so taboo in this day and age.</p>
<p>-It’s less harmful than alcohol and tobacco
-It isn’t physically addictive
-It doesn’t affect perception/motor skills as much as alcohol (I still wouldn’t want someone who is high to drive, though)
-If it was legalized the govn’t could regulate and tax it. This would bring so many benefits it isn’t even funny. It would downsize the “War on Drugs” (saving loads of money in the process), be a big blow to organized crime, make tons and tons of moolah, and allow it to be available for medical purposes.
-It’s no more of a “gateway drug” than alcohol and tobacco are.</p>
<p>It really makes no sense that it’s illegal.</p>
<p>“I don’t see how you can decriminalize smoking marijuana without having all of the above. It’s not simple.”</p>
<p>I agree that there would need to be standards just as there are standards for tobacco. Those standards also would lead to more legitimate jobs.</p>
<p>He certainly won’t be the first Olympic swimmer who is an entitled jerk- Spitz set the gold standard on THAT one! </p>
<p>Taylor Swift is wonderful, CAN carry a tune and writes her own songs. She is currently a little over-packaged, but I’m not complaining.</p>
<p>It was a slow news day. Wasn’t the President photographed sipping champagne?</p>
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I wonder if smoking pot has become so commonplace that people think of it the same way that they think of driving 5 miles over the speed limit, or slowly rolling through a stop sign. If, for example, we learned that Phelps got a speeding ticket for going 66 in a 55 mph zone, would anybody be upset? Probably not, as long as he wasn’t drinking. I still think of smoking pot as a significantly more serious crime than speeding, but what do younger people think?</p>