Ok, I'm finally annoyed enough to bring up the Michael Phelps bong ripping picture. I was hoping that it would just blow away quickly and not be a part of the news but alas he's been dropped from his Kellogg's dumped him as a sponsor and the US Swimming Association suspended him for 3 months (which my guess is a completely meaningless suspension cause their events are probably in the summer). Now let me preface this rant with two things, first I'm not the biggest Phelps fan in the world and second I myself have never smoked up before (why is a story for another day). When you were in college, what percentage of your friends tried pot? 50 to 75 Percent Maybe? 95 Percent if you were in school in the 70s. Did you yourself try it? Probably. So why kill a kid in his lower 20s for smoking up when chances are good you did the same thing at his age.
And what about pop culture? Are people ignorant that 95% of rock or rap artists have at least one song on their last album that had to do with some form of drugs? We even have songs on pop radio stations that are solely about smoking up. Think "I Get High High High High" or "Because I Get High". It's ok for little kids to sing "I was Gonna Clean Me Room Until I Got High", but it's not ok for Phelps to smoke up once or twice. Your kids are going to smoke up when they get to college, and it won't be a picture of Michael Phelps with a bong that leads them to do so.
If I've got a problem with anything in this story it's with whoever took the picture. How much money did you get paid for selling that picture? Apparently he's never seen Scent of a Women and Pacino's speech on snitching.
Just in case you really want to put this in perspective, if the leader of the free world can smoke up "frequently" as a kid and still be ok to win the election, than I think Phelps will be able to swim just fine.
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