Well, here's irony for you: somebody claiming that as they break the law, the law is "immoral".

As "unjust" as the current laws might be about marijuana, it remains that the use is clearly, obviously, against the law. Drug trafficking is ripping Mexico apart at the seams now, because Americans want first and foremost to get high. Now, that is "moral" how?

Mexico, no doubt, thanks you.

And, one more time: alcohol is not the poster boy to show me if you're playing "two wrongs make a right". Tens of thousands of dead Americans this year don't make that a success of any kind.

Change the law, don't break it. For just one case, you can use an outstanding example I found with surprise 35 years ago: marijuana grows by the side of the road all over central Nebraska, because it was cultivated there in the '40s for mooring lines for warships. Nebraska farmers treated it as no big deal, because they still had work to do; thus, it wasn't magnified into some huge evil.

By the way - this also can call into question just how much of a hero someone might be because they swim faster than everyone else, much as it is a question about those who play with a ball or drive a car.

>>By the way - this also can call into question just how much of a hero someone might be because they swim faster than everyone else, much as it is a question about those who play with a ball or drive a car.

Radwaste,
Phelps is a dopey example to use for that particular argument.

The reason he swims faster is because for years and years Phelps got out of bed before dawn 7 days a week and honed his natural talent with amazing determination in a local pool. The sacrifices his single mum made were a spur too.

I read a fair amount about his training & background while I was following the Olympics and - yeah - Phelps fits the definition of a young, modern hero.

Pot never should have been made illegal in the first place. The only reason it is illegal is because Big Pharma couldn't make any damn money from it, back in the day. The CEOs figured out if people were medicating themselves with marijuana, which they could grow themselves, they wouldn't buy their pharmaceuticals, thus, they wouldn't be making any money. So they sent a shitload of lobbyists to Congress, armed with "scientific" bullshit, and fought for their right to poison people with their "painkillers." What rankles me is when I'm watching commcercials about the latest drugs, and the voice-over lists potential side effects that are worse than the symptons the drug is supposed to be treating! o.O

I totally, totally agree with you Flynne.

In the world we live in, drug policy has completely warped American policy to the entire continent of South American and a few other places, and sustained a unbelievably violent class of criminal enterprises.

And i's not enough to respond "But it shouldn't have!"

People who take illicit drugs are assholes.

Change the law? How? The government is full of lawyers who honestly believe that the answer to everything is more laws.

These are the same folks who had to be sued to allow the telephone excise tax from ths Spanish-American War to expire. Do you know anyonewho doesn't have electric power? Me either, and we're still funding the TVA.

Change the law? Pray for an asteroid to hit Washington DC, because that's the only way you're going to see freedom from the nanny state in your lifetime.

"Change the law? How? "

We did it in Massachusetts. A great group got the question on the ballot (you need lots of signatures) and the voters of MA passed the change to decriminalize possession.

You can have up to 1 ounce of pot and it's a civil fine, like a parking ticket, not a criminal act. A huge step towards smarter, less corrupt laws.

There was documetary- probably on the history channel- that claimed that Marijuana was made illegal during the depression because it was so popular amoung the Mexicans who were "taking the jobs" that the white people needed. Game the gov an excuse to deport them.

"Gave," not "Game." Sorry. And here's the link for the show, which airs again in a few days: http://www.history.com/shows.do?action=detail&episodeId=303144

Well I say who gives a fuck, I used to swim 6hrs a day to stay in shape for highschool and college, do you people have any idea how many hours that guy has sacrificed since he was 8yrs old?

"Drug trafficking is ripping Mexico apart at the seams now, because Americans want first and foremost to get high."

Drug trafficking is funded by prohibition. US drug laws are a price support mechanism for the drug cartels. The DEA and the cartels are in a symbiotic relationship, because without drug enforcement, there would be no cartels, and without the cartels DEA would have no one to enforce on and there would be no funding. Legalization would collapse the income for the cartels and mean the end of DEA. Can't have that now, can we?

"Now, that is "moral" how?"

Exactly.

"marijuana grows by the side of the road all over central Nebraska, because it was cultivated there in the '40s for mooring lines for warships"

That's hemp, not pot -- and the reason it's no big deal is it's got a psychoactive ingredient content with about the same potency as a glass of water.

Ditch weed was such a disappointment. I clearly remember our excitement at finding the motherlode in the middle of the prairie, only to discover that smoking ten pounds of it only made us cough like coal miners.

>>You can have up to 1 ounce of pot [in Massachusetts] and it's a civil fine, like a parking ticket, not a criminal act. A huge step towards smarter, less corrupt laws.

Gretchen said it!

>>Change the law? How? The government is full of lawyers who honestly believe that the answer to everything is more laws.

MarkD,
Actually, the world is full of lawyers who have smoked pot - and who honestly applaud the law in MA. (Not that it matters, but I've never got on with pot, unlike most of my friends, past and present. And I still don't care for conversations with the stoned, ymmv, natch! - but the laws are nuts.)

I don't think the War on Drugs is the reason why this has been made into such a big story. It's pure envy. 14 gold medals & 100 million dollars worth of envy. If they hadn't caught him smoking pot, they'd have hounded him relentlessly till they caught him doing something else.

Well, you're in the public eye, it's probably not smart to do something illegal, whether you're a senator having sex with hookers or an athlete using drugs. Whether or not you agree with the law doesn't really matter, it's still illegal. And when you're famous, someone's gonna see you and put you on the internet. You shouldn't be shocked when it happens.

Laws and morality are 2 different things. Jim has it right - if the retarded drug laws were no longer in place, the price would plummet and the cartels would be out of business.

Crid said "People who take illicit drugs are assholes.". Talk about misplacing blame. You already admit that it's the drug policy that has warped American policy towards South American countries and sustained a violent criminal class, but it's the users fault? The laws need to change.

Radwaste - it's the laws that are ripping Mexico apart. Mexico exports lots of stuff to us without there being a problem. If it wasn't illegal, drugs would be just another export, with reasonable margins because competition.

What people do in their homes is nobodies business as long as no ones being hurt. If they get out and drive, that's another matter.

Gregg: "All swimmers are stoners, and who cares?"

>> Gregg: "All swimmers are stoners, and who cares?"

Most lax players I ever knew, too...

"People who take illicit drugs are assholes."

Oh good, was wondering when we'd get back to the huge, misinformed, unsupported generalizations. Phew.

Let me guess, crid. Yer a drinker and not a smoker? lol. Gotta love the consistency with which people are prepared to support laws banning whatever behaviour they don't personally engage in.

New York does not have Initiative, Referendum, or Recall. Our political traditions tend to Tammany Hall, not town hall. You want something in this state, better prepare to kiss the rears of the three people who matter - David Patterson, Sheldon Silver and the new guy in the Senate.

In any case, this Phelps story doesn't have any traction here. What will they do, X out his picture on the Wheaties box?

> do you people have any idea how many
> hours that guy has sacrificed since
> he was 8yrs old?

Well, should we care? He didn't do it cure cancer, he did it to pursue his own interests. It's not like the rest of us are financially invested in his ability to fulfill his Wheaties contract or whatever.

It any of us had a contract like that, we wouldn't have been photographed sucking a bong.

>>Well, should we care?...

...Makes you sound like a sneering teen, Crid!

Phelps was by no stretch a nerdy, or even a bright student - so any future cracking cancer was always going to be unlikely.

He devoted himself to doing the best he possibly could with one talent and produced remarkable results. That's not a bad lesson for any community.

"Well, here's irony for you: somebody claiming that as they break the law, the law is 'immoral'."

I cannot help myself.

Please see the careers of M. Ghandi and Dr. ML King Jr. Not much irony there, to my mind, but a great deal of heroism, tragedy, triumph and, oh, civil disobedience.

That last phrase is something you might want to compare to your sentence.

Why pot is illegal is beyond me. I understand why that swimmer grovels to protect his lucrative contracts, though.

Me, I wish he would laugh and say, "Yeah, I smoke pot. So what?"

"People who take illicit drugs are assholes."

Almost forgot - this one is funny coming from the prophet of small government. Illicitude is a function of legislation - government - and nothing else. Talk about "papa government".

He devoted himself to doing the best he possibly could with one talent and produced remarkable results.

But that just begs the question. Why is this a talent for anyone else to get excited by? Who cares who's the best swimmer? Swimming - unlike lots of other sports - is not even fun to watch. It doesn't do much for anyone else, so why should we care?

Somebody needs to check their "Big Pharma" gland against when pot was outlawed.

"Big Pharma" is exactly the people you would be buying from if pot was legalized, because they're already set up for the quality controls on chemicals necessary for legal interstate commerce.

Kishke -

That's really a pretty stupid point, because quite a lot of people got very excited over Michael Phelps this past summer. He's a great athlete, and people seem to like that. I think football is boring as shit, but I'm aware that most Americans don't agree with me there. Your opinion is not universal.

@Sam:
So you're saying that b/c a lot of people got excited about Phelps, it's stupid to say there's nothing to get excited about. Well, thanks for setting me straight there.

"Big Pharma" is exactly the people you would be buying from if pot was legalized, because they're already set up for the quality controls on chemicals necessary for legal interstate commerce.

They weren't back in the day, Raddy. The 1930s was when Harry Anslinger began his highly succesful campaign against pot. Here, check him out. He was not a well man:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Anslinger From the article:

Some of his critics allege that Anslinger, DuPont petrochemical interests and William Randolph Hearst together created the highly sensational anti-marijuana campaign to eliminate hemp as an industrial competitor. Indeed, Anslinger did not himself consider marijuana a serious threat to American society until in the fourth year of his tenure (1934), at which point an anti-marijuana campaign, aimed at alarming the public, became his primary focus as part of the government's broader push to outlaw all drugs.[7]

Hence my feeling towards Big Pharma.

Also, my greatgrama told me about when she was young, and cocaine and heroin were available over the counter at your local "drug" store, where you could also sit at the soda fountain, eat an aspirin and drink a coca-cola, and get high from that. And she also showed me an old (very old) Sears Catalog that had sets of glass syringes in very pretty wooden boxes for sale. Besides, marijuana isn't a "chemical" per se, rather, it contains tetrahydra cannibanol, which is the active "chemical" ingredient in pot. Which is where concentrated THC (in pill form) came from back in the 70s.

> You can have up to 1 ounce
> of pot and it's a civil
> fine, like a parking ticket

Decriminalization is mostly about freeing resources for pursuit of bigger dealers. It won't help the little guy enjoy his weekly bong hit, and it won't protect the cops (or our national morality) from greater violence. The big guys have stronger motivation to protect their enterprise, whether by gunplay or graft.

> I also think famous people
> are entitled to private
> lives.

Not entirely... Many of them gain ground in our mindspace by presenting themselves as exemplary, and it's important to know how they handle stress & weakness. See the 6:28pm comment. (The tabloids —whether they're pestering a young Paris Hilton or mocking a saggy Sharon Stone— understand that payback and comeuppance are essential components of the Hollywood product. We want to see these people hit the wall, and we deserve to.)

> Legalization would collapse the
> income for the cartels and mean
> the end of DEA.

As would sobriety.

> only to discover that smoking
> ten pounds of it only made us
> cough

Dude, I thought you looked familiar... Jasper County, Indiana, June '77, right? Sure. I still have your 8-track of Houses of the Holy in a shoebox around here somewhere...

[More, dodging spamfilter.]

> it's the drug policy that has
> warped American policy towards
> South American countries and
> sustained a violent criminal
> class, but it's the users fault?

First of all, I didn't really admit that, and if I did, I take it back. Partly. Our policy towards SA is all fucked up, but that doesn't mean taking drugs in such a circumstance is excusable. If you walk by a dead guy on the street, he won't mind if you steal his wallet, but you shouldn't do it.

The fact that it's in our nature to take drugs doesn't mean when have to listen to our nature. It's in our nature to rape and pillage too, but we don't do that. (See the 2:41PM comment on the 9th.)

Young stoners like the idea that the world is about market forces... They can't buy weed at McDonald's, but the neighborhood dealer is just as reliably open for business. And nothing's more important than appetites, right?

But if you don't participate in a market, the market will cool. Dope dealers are organized crime. Organized crime is arguably the world's greatest challenge over the next two hundred years. There's just nothing that excuses giving money to those people.

> Yer a drinker and not
> smoker?

For the last 3+ decades...

> lol.

Don't be glib.

> Gotta love the consistency

And don't be a snarking doofus schoolboy. The fact that these appetites can't be muted completely doesn't mean they can't be confined. As Paglia put it when she heard of teenagers caught huffing aerosols:

| The longing for alteration of
| consciousness is a virtual
| universal in human life,
| especially during eras of
| spiritual emptiness. Give those
| pathetic, scrounging teens
| tobacco and beer, for pity's
| sake!

Say what you want about Budweiser, those fuckers paid taxes (at least when they were American-owned). I like the idea that alcohol has a strict age limit. The fact that it often seems to be ignored doesn't mean much; the law tells kids that there's something special about inebrients, which is a good point for society to make. In that respect, we may be —with respect to policy— approaching the best possible boundary between liberty and responsibility.

(Unless anyone wants to argue that the Saudis do it better... Hmmm? No? Very good then.)

> any future cracking cancer
> was always going to be
> unlikely.

Jo-dee, I gotta know... You're a writer, fer cryin' out loud... When you deliberately miss the point like that, hammering the specifics when I offer an abstraction or vice versa... Are you doing it just to fuck with me? Or are you honestly trying to be evasive?

The point isn't that we wanted Phelps toiling at a microscope, the point is he didn't go to all those practices for our benefit. He was pursuing his own interests. The 'results he produced' meant zero, zilch, to me. He was a new face on People magazine, like a wacky neighbor on a popular sitcom. I've never thought the Olympics were worth attention.

> this one is funny coming
> from the prophet of
> small government

You flatter the shit out of me, Jimbo. I'm a fuckin' Reagan over here, with Rand and Friedman mixed in.

> Illicitude is a function
> of legislation

And inebriation is a function of drug consumption. Perhaps you've never seen someone behave badly while high. Most people have, though, and that's why society has boundaries.

> You can have up to 1 ounce
> of pot and it's a civil
> fine, like a parking ticket

And Crid's response?

>>Decriminalization is mostly about freeing resources for pursuit of bigger dealers. It won't help the little guy enjoy his weekly bong hit...

Receiving a parking fine punishment for a misdemeanor amount of weed - rather than the albatross of a criminal blot on your record - is specifically of benefit to the little guy and his bong stash.

I honestly can't figure out why you would argue otherwise?

No weedsy, no smokesy.

"Big Pharma" is exactly the people you would be buying from if pot was legalized, because they're already set up for the quality controls on chemicals necessary for legal interstate commerce.
~Radwaste.

Actually, if pot was legalized people would just grow it in their backyards and hook-up their friends. It isn't like Xanax or Vicodin where it must be chemically manufactured in a lab somewhere. It's much simpler: Buy a bag, collect the seeds, plant them, harvest them and voila the cycle continues! No need for corporate involvement of any kind.

I believe everything would function much as it does now, but without the penalties attached.

Radwaste, what makes you think that the system would change or that stoners would even allow it to? Many stoners grow their own or know where their stuff is grown. Legalization won't eliminate that. "Big Pharma" only exists because of demand. The same demand wouldn't exist for pot because of the nature of its culture.

Also-- Once you get to be a grownup, doctors will give you almost any drug you want if you don't cross your eyes when asking for it and don't give them worries about getting sued or whatever. They're not stupid about it, but does anyone want to be stupid about it? The drugs are manufactured with as much QC as anything in the United States... Six Sigma and all that. Very few medications from your local pharmacy get stepped on as do the wares from your neighborhood punk on the corner. Legal is a good way to go. And it's legal.

And I feel bad for the kids who can't pull it off, but there's always beer.

Y'know, the "lol"-ing snark people annoy not because they take a thoughtful, libertarian position of responsibility, or even because they're all reductive and simplistic. They annoy because they talk about drugs as if it should be totally OK for any imaginable percentage of society to be incapacitated, perhaps permanently and brutally, by drug consumption. As is that could be good for anyone, whether a family member or not. 'Hey Man, ain't nobody's business....'

My dope days ended during the Carter administration, and I haven't missed them. But when Ecstasy was making the rounds a few years ago, the initial press sounded great, because nobody was talking about bad effects. It was all just kids at parties, listening to stupid music and playing with glow sticks and feeling warm emotions. It seemed like fun! Several friends did it a lot, but being old and cranky and busy with stuff, I just never found the time. So a few years later we learned that after a dozen exposures, most people face permanent mood disorders and memory problems.

PERMANENT. They'll be on SSRI's for the rest of their lives, and that's just to keep them from spending all day in bed. It won't make their conversations at work worth listening to.

Anybody spotting a pattern here? It's not just Baby Jesus who wants you to be sober. Charles Darwin wants you to be sober, too.

A tabloid published a picture of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps at a party taking a huge hit from a bong. I think there’s an important lesson to be learned here: Kids, never share your pot with someone who has the lung capacity of a dolphin. - Conan O'Brien

>>No weedsy, no smokesy.

Sorry, I'm still being dense, Crid.

Weedsy is everywhere, you do know that?

Look, let's leave it. I'm inconsistent on this anyway. I believe misdemeanor-amount dope possession should never collect more than a fine but I've only ever met one dealer I liked and - for various reasons -I've met tons. Most are pricks.

>>I've never thought the Olympics were worth attention..

Fine. Your favorite band sucks too.

Problem is, Crid - and yeah, Phelps-as-unlikely-cancer-cure-boffin was a disingenuous trifle of mine - you still could not have picked a worse example than this guy as a worthlessly self-interested celeb. He's a phenomenally inspiring athlete who also happens to be a big, funny, sweet, jug-eared, modest, lug who struggled painfully in school, cherishes his mum and sisters...wait, there's more!

Just about the best bit of the Olympics was when the French male relay swim team made some fabulously OTT and ill-judged boasts about how they were going to totally crush, annihilate and humiliate Phelps and the US guys in the final. It was such an outrageous breach of the Olympic etiquette. (The French are surprisingly good at swimming.)

The American response was so fucking cool. It was a quiet one-liner, something like: "We'll be taking care of business in the pool."

And they did, Crid!

But only in the last billionth of a second, by one skin cell and largely thanks to Phelps' so-fast-it-was-a-blur second to last length. (Thus getting the adorable lug his 47th gold medal or whatever).

God, the faces of the French team!!

>> it's the drug policy that has
>> warped American policy towards
>> South American countries and
>> sustained a violent criminal
>> class, but it's the users fault?

>First of all, I didn't really admit that, and >if I did, I take it back. Partly.

You should take it back Crid, because while I didn't quote you word for word, it's close enough.

>They annoy because they talk about drugs as >if it should be totally OK for any >imaginable percentage of society to be >incapacitated, perhaps permanently and >brutally, by drug consumption. As is that >could be good for anyone, whether a family >member or not.

Whether we think it's ok for people to be under the influence of drugs is beside the point. The point is that we don't think it's governments job to tell us what we can or can't do to ourselves. I certainly don't want someone else with their own agenda deciding for me what is good for me. If you don't want people permanently incapacitated, then legalization would allow some government control over quality and the age at which people could easily obtain it (teenagers have to do a little more work to get drunk than you or I). Actual education on the subject instead of the propaganda would be helpful too.

Cue the banjoes, enter Sheriff Billy Bob Headlineseeker:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/03/sheriff.phelps.marijuana/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

> Weedsy is everywhere, you do
> know that?

Then what's anyone worried about? Why is there a network of organized crime to provide something that's "everywhere"?

The important thing is that in 1977, Gog & I happened to have met up here on the way to Zep concert in Soldier Field in Chicago. We thought we'd found a smoker's paradise of wild weed by the cornfield. Remember "Strawberry Cough" from Children of Men? This stuff was "Buttered-Kernel Hack". He accidentally dropped this in my car when he threw open the door during a coughing fit... Weed isn't that plentiful.

> the faces of the French team!!

Sounds like great television. But it's just television.

> we don't think it's governments
> job to tell us what we can
> or can't do to ourselves.

Druggies often do things to other people, and people expect defense from government

Drugs!

Who took and sold the picture, I wonder? A good bit of scorn should be directed at that individual, I think. Someone decided to trash an Olympic athlete for some spare cash. That's pretty low, isn't it?

>>...Then what's anyone worried about?

Crid,
Some of us are "worried" about the criminal penalties for personal use of a commonly available recreational drug. (The topic that kick-started this thread is how athletics star Phelps should be regarded for smoking a bong of weedsy).

(The quote marks around "worried" are appropriate here, btw).

You did it again.

If this stuff is "everywhere", why would anyone bother to pass, let alone enforce, a drug law?

[More]

And if the stuff is "everywhere", why would anyone bother to get into the drug-dealing business?

[I'm going the extra mile to be clear here.]

> Someone decided to trash an
> Olympic athlete for some
> spare cash.

Or maybe just for fun.

Listen, the fabulousness of athletes doesn't register in my heart... I just don't care. They're not using their superpowers to nourish animals who've been hit by trucks on distant highways, or teaching retarded children to read, or curing cancer. They're like any other self-interested individual, like an insurance salesman or a car mechanic or busboy in a restaurant. They're just likely to be a little younger and prettier as a function of their fitness.

Focused as on they are on their bodies, there's a component of narcissism in their conduct that rivals what you can find in their fellow celebrities from Hollywood. Offhand, I can think of only two athletes who ever moved into politics, Bill Bradley and Byron White.

They make their living on our innate capacity to identify with distant figures. But we don't have to be slutty about it: We don't owe Phelps an especially broad bubble of privacy.

Druggies often do things to other people, and people expect defense from government

Lock up those Ho-Hos everyone

~~~

If this stuff is "everywhere", why would anyone bother to pass, let alone enforce, a drug law?

Not all drugs are created equal. As far as the Law is concerned Weed is the same as Coke, as Heroine, as Meth. Even just going by the processing involved, all the others are a lot more chemicals & time to make the drug. Weed ... pick it, dry it, smoke it. A pot head won't sell your tv for more pot, they shrug & wander off to watch cartoons.

>>If this stuff is "everywhere", why would anyone bother to pass, let alone enforce, a drug law?

Exactly, Crid!!

Okay, that was mean.

But what do you mean by "a drug law"?

I've pretty much, I think, kept my drug law comments on the topic of the misdemeanor possession of weed - which is a specific application of the many, many laws about illegal drugs.

And - as Gretchen? pointed out upthread - "a drug law" relating to personal possession in MA differs from "a drug law" elsewhere.

Which means recreational users can be tarred as criminals in some states, and ho-hum scofflaws in others.

If you want to scribble tons of arrows on a whiteboard linking Michael Phelps and, say, the lovely prof I know who tokes affably with colleagues at the weekend here on Long Island with machete-wielding coke thugs prowling the central American border with Columbia, go ahead.

But my response shall be...tomb-like!

Oh bliss, Crid!

You've just mentioned retarded children!!

Yes, Michael "water bong" Phelps has swum with retarded children!

Have you?

> Exactly, Crid!!

> Okay, that was mean.

No Jody, it was nonsensical. What are you trying to say? We do have laws intended do limit the distribution of weed & drugs & so forth. We do that because they're not everywhere, and we want to keep them out of the places they are not.

> Have you?

Actually yeah, but I didn't make a point of it... They just happened to be in the pool (that's a winter pic, it's prettier in the summer).

When Phelps swam with them, did it cure their headcolds and straighten their teeth or something?

I just don't care about these guys...

>>When Phelps swam with them, did it cure their headcolds and straighten their teeth or something?

Now you're saying Phelps should have been a dentist??

>>We do have laws intended do limit the distribution of weed & drugs & so forth.

Back attcha with the "nonsensical," Crid.

The law in some states - jesus, how many times can I say it - relating to POSSESSION - not "distribution of weed etc etc" - acknowledges that just having a baggie of weedsy is no biggie.

Which is fabby!!

You're spazzed.

> jesus, how many times can I
> say it

Say it until it matters. Again, decrim is all about going after the big boys.

What did you mean when you said "exactly"? (Type slowly as you reply.)

Phelps didn't spend those years in the swimming pool practicing dentistry for retarded kids with head colds. He spent it preparing to sign a contract for Wheaties.

Then he went swimming with some kids once.

There's just no point in worrying about this weasel. He has resources that other people don't have. Perhaps there's some injustice to the manner in which those resources are being withdrawn... But he was tremendously reckless with them anyway.

He's not a hero: he's not a guy who's made tremendous sacrifices for others. He's just a typically self-interested guy. He's in the business of being on a Wheaties box. Guys who want to be on Wheaties boxes shouldn't smoke dope. He's defeated himself.

>>He's just a typically self-interested guy.

Oh please, Crid.

8x Olympic gold gong winners are, by definition, not typical.

"8x Olympic gold gong winners are, by definition, not typical"

Their self-interest is.

Word

>>"8x Olympic gold gong winners are, by definition, not typical"

>>Their self-interest is.

Fair point, kishke!

Let's all remember Phelps, then, as the world's most self-interested gold medal Olympian.

Who also once smoked pot!

He spent it preparing to sign a contract for Wheaties.

I'm sure he kept a pen inked for the Speedo contract, too.

Guys who want to be on Wheaties boxes shouldn't smoke dope. He's defeated himself.

Simply put, yes. Although Phelps did no real harm to anyone but himself by being photographed smoking dope, he should have known how sensitive the public is to these things.

Parents work hard at keeping their kids out of things that could have an adverse effect on them later in life (jail, addiction, short bus classes). They get rather irked when a grinning Michael Phelps shows their kids that everyone cool is smoking weed.

In an age when athletes are becoming increasingly viewed as spoiled and self-indulgent, Phelps should have realized that he would need to walk a fairly straight line for the next few years to keep that endorsement money flowing.

Phelps not only chose not to, he allowed his deviation from that straight line to be photographed in a You Tube world.

Did he not see what happened to Bode Miller? Michael Vick? Darryl Strawberry? Mike Tyson? Maurice Clarrett? Ben Johnson? Marion Jones? Pete Rose?

The object lessons were there. Phelps chose not to pay attention.

> he should have known how
> sensitive the public is to
> these things.

Yeah... Or at least how sensitive the cereal marketers can be. It's kind of how it felt when hearing that Clinton and Spitzer we being blown by women other than their wives. No skin off my nose... But jeez, dude, what were you thinking?

And you're right about the later point too. If someone told me I'd be given $XX million dollars to avoid sin until my 30th birthday after which I could cut loose like a rampaging beast, the 20's would have been a different time.

Meanwhile, Jody thinks Phelps has atypical appetites, special feelings that come only to athletes at the the highest levels of achievenent, desires which society must allow to be quenched.... Not like what happens to a busboy or a bus driver.

"The important thing is that in 1977, Gog & I happened to have met up here on the way to Zep concert in Soldier Field in Chicago. We thought we'd found a smoker's paradise of wild weed by the cornfield. Remember "Strawberry Cough" from Children of Men? This stuff was "Buttered-Kernel Hack". He accidentally dropped this in my car "

Still laughing -- 8 track Houses of the Holy? That's just sacrilege! Of course, it could have been worse:

http://www.uaw-chrysler.com/images/news/phono.htm

>>Meanwhile, Jody thinks Phelps has atypical appetites, special feelings that come only to athletes at the the highest levels of achievenent, desires which society must allow to be quenched.... Not like what happens to a busboy or a bus driver.

The fuck I do, Crid.

Spare me the fake sympathy for busboys or bus drivers. What the hell do you care for anyone who gets a criminal rap for a baggie just because they bonged in the wrong state?

You really come off like such a pursed old fart about Phelps. Frankly.

> The fuck I do

Gosh, Jody, you're gettting all pissed off!...

...As if someone had taken some tangential, unstated, unintended meaning from one of your sentences and offered it as the core of your argument!

I can sympathize. I hate when that happens!

>>...As if someone had taken some tangential, unstated, unintended meaning from one of your sentences and offered it as the core of your argument!

When you've finished chortling at your own barnacled wit Crid, do tell me which sentence of mine was the one you managed to wring your synopsis from?

You could look it up yourself... But seeing as you took the bait, it doesn't really matter, does it?

I'm with Crid-and I don't watch olympics either-the guy is no damned hero. Who cares if he can swim fast? WHo cares about his endorsements? He should have, but the rest of us, no.

I love how people say pot is no worse than beer. It may not be, I've not studied the subject and have never smoked it. I have had tons of friends who did though. The ones who did it occasionally were normal. The potheads were idiots incapable of being productive, or making a coherent sentence. It has a lot of chemicals in it. Even if you aren't smoking it and inhaling tar, you are still filling yourself full of crap.

You aren't ever going to see pot sold in pharmacies. Get over it. And if you have some, it stands to reason you bought it, from a dealer. A dealer hooked into a network that causes serious violence at some point in the distribution plan. A dealer who's supplier may have had a kid accidently shot in a turf war. You cpntributed to that. The dude down at the circle C buying michelob did not. So how can you decriminalize the person buying it but not the seller? Decriminalize the seller, too, but what about the "importer"? The drug lord in mexico, where most weed still comes from? Just never going to happen. You are not going to see some corporation with vast weed farms in kansas stocking all the corner bodegos. Suck it up, we all have laws we don't like, and give up your little high.

>>You could look it up yourself... But seeing as you took the bait, it doesn't really matter, does it?

He baits me, he baits me not, he baits me, he baits me not...where will it end?!

"Decriminalize the seller, too, but what about the "importer"? The drug lord in mexico, where most weed still comes from? Just never going to happen."

Please, Mom, use a little logic, will you? Why in the hell would people import weed from Mexico when it grows anywhere you want it to like a .....
... wait for it .... "weed". The reason it is imported is that people don't want their house raided, dog shot, and kids shoved up against the wall in the middle of the night by the local SWAT team for that coupla plants in the yard. This ain't the 70's anymore, when it was almost legal.

Pot will eventually be legal (and I don't have a dog in this fight (he got shot by the SWAT team, haha), and at that time nobody will have any reason to fly, transport via boat or unmannned sub. pot into the US, push it on anyone, or have gang wars over the cash. The same would go for any other drug made legal.

Crid, you're a freakin' idiot. I know you can write creatively, but it doesn't help you when you don't know enough about the subject. Get a job. Yeah, you smoked pot in the 70's, you got divorced and lived happily ever after - how can I imagine this when I see you as a 16 year old posting on the computer in your family's rec-room?
I can't.

Would that Phelps had as much guts as muscle and lung capacity, so he'd have written a letter like Mr. Balko's. I'd be his fan forever, and even buy a few boxes of Wheaties (I may still doodle in a joint on the picture, but I do that as a habit anyway)

> where will it end?!

Jody you've done that to me a hundred times!!!

> you're a freakin' idiot

Don't be bitter. Without me, you're nothing, understand?.... Nothing!!!

"Without me, you're nothing, understand?...."

not really. Elaborate, please.

Well, you didn't leave me much to work with either, only vapid insults... But it's important that none of Amy's guests go away feeling unloved!

Next time, if you present a thoughtful complaint with tiered logic and shades of reflection, we'll see what we can do.

This is a topic that I will be getting increasingly active in, as I work my way further and further through school. I'm studying psych to go into addiction research eventually, so mostly I will be focusing on the effect of our drug policies on our social and political addiction paradigm, but I am occasionally writing about the more practical considerations.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, if you want a reasonable synopsis on the impact of our drug policies on our addiction paradigm, click on my name. In short, we are allowing our war on drugs to prop up a completely failed addiction treatment paradigm.

Puritans 1, 21st century 0

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7873669.stm

But that's in America. The IOC comes to a different decision:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7865295.stm

Nobody can actually prove that what he was smoking was pot. It only shows him smoking something...

I thought that most of the pot that winds up in the US comes from Canada (more specifically from B.C.).

Canadian snowboarder Ross Rebagliati lost his gold medal for 1 day because of pot, but he got it back.