Phelps

[justplugit]

Another great example for our kids to look up to.

DUI 2 years ago and now the bong.

[BrianS]

So he smoked some pot...

such a terrible thing... if anything, its proof that you CAN smoke and be an olympic champion!

hell.. imagine how well he would of swam if he wasnt an "Alleged" pothead...

hehe.

[Raven]

Even President OBAMA smoked weed...

it didn't stop him from achieving the presidency

and he's still a role Model for all kids....

[fishbones]

Originally Posted by Raven

Even President OBAMA smoked weed...

it didn't stop him from achieving the presidency

and he's still a role Model for all kids....

Obama's a role model for all kids? That's a crazy statement to make. Pass the dutchie, Raven.

[justplugit]

Originally Posted by BrianS

hell.. imagine how well he would of swam if he wasnt an "Alleged" pothead...

Ya, imagine that!! A World Champion that represented the USA to the world and kids without breaking our laws.

I guess you think being arrested for DUI is cool too.

[spence]

The DUI is a 1000X worse than taking the bong hit. Hell the only reason it's a big deal is because he probably signed ethical behavior clauses when he raked in millions from sponsors.

He's a bit of a dope for potentially ruining a good thing, and at the age of 22 should have known better to protect his image as he is a role model. But the idea that this could scuttle his olympic bid in 2012 is pathetic if you ask me.

-spence

[FishnGrega]

what the hell is he doing going to a College campus in the first place?!? He has millions of dollars, a nice house why not throw a party at his place!? If some jack@ss takes his picture of him taking a hit off a bong at his house he can narrow it down and single him out later on. Dealing with college kids is a totally different story you don't know anyone but a select few. so your pretty much screwed. just pure dumb, see what home schooling does to you!

[RIJIMMY]

maybe if we just legalized dope the whole issue would go away?

[Raven]

legalization with implemented taxation

[Clammer]

In the scope of things /IMO ..its no big deal ;;


he,s 22 Y/O, & even thru he has accomplished so much / he,s a kid & after training 24/7 he deserves to be a kid for a while . the biggest mistake was trusting the people he was with /
Cell phone camera,s have put many people in awkward positions ;;

I,ll give him much more credit for being a great athelic [sp\] than the super heroes in the olymipics & pro sports / that take / took / drugs the would adhance their bodies & abilities ]]

Proabition [sp] Booze was off limits >> but how many drank ... Made it legal & now its OK to be a drunk /
Just as long as you don,t break the law while being there ;;

Smoke >. wait til its legalized //
IMO there will be far fewer pots heads with horror stories than there are with legalize drinking <<< oh do I mean liquid drugging ><><

[striperman36]

The kid is being a kid, he screwed up just like Nancy Kerigan screwed up at Disney after the Olympics.
It probably will cost him alot in endorsement, particularly if the media continues to hype it.
I don't understand, if he has an agent, what the hell he was doing on campus like that anyway.
Now what I think was funny is the 2004 Olympic Village ran out of condoms!!!
I don't think that happened last year.

[Backbeach Jake]

The only thing that I haven't done that he has( as far as I know) is win Olympic Gold metals. Get off his friggin back, he effed up , so what?

[JohnnyD]

How does being an Olympic Champion make him into a role model. He's a 22 y/o... how many people in this thread can say they *never* did anything like he did when they were in their 20s.

I don't think he woke up one day and said "hey, I'd like to be a role model to youths everywhere. I'm gonna go out and try to win a ton of gold medals to accomplish it."

Athletes don't make themselves role models, the media and public do.

[Squid kids Dad]

I dont believe he inhaled....

[Raider Ronnie]

I can see the replies about 10 years from now.
"He was just doing heroin, give him a break"

Society is in the %$%$%$%$ter and getting worse every year !

[BigFish]

I am with you Ron! Zero Tolerance!

[Raider Ronnie]

Originally Posted by BigFish

I am with you Ron! Zero Tolerance!

Larry,
"zero tolerance" or not society has gone way beyond repair from how we knew it when we were kids !

[leo33]

first off why is he a role model because he can swim?and second no one has complained that he has been partying his ass off in Vegas and getting drunk. i guess hitting on cocktail waitresses and getting drunk is a good role model these days?

[BigFish]

Alcohol=Legal and he is of age. Pot=Illegal

[spence]

Originally Posted by BigFish

Alcohol=Legal and he is of age. Pot=Illegal

To claim legal vs illegal and then lump pot in with Heroin is pretty silly.

Perhaps if we're really concerned about the messages we send to our kids, we should really think about what's important. Alcohol is a much more destructive drug than pot, which just about everybody has smoked at one time or another.

-spence

[BigFish]

Not the BigFish! Drug free for every minute of my 44+ years! Spent my time drinking like a big fish though! Really don't anymore?

Oh....and I never mentioned heroin?

[spence]

Originally Posted by BigFish

Not the BigFish! Drug free for every minute of my 44+ years! Spent my time drinking like a big fish though! Really don't anymore?

Oh....and I never mentioned heroin?

RR did, and you agreed.

And if you've done your drinking, then I hate to say that you're far from drug free!

-spence

[JohnnyD]

Correlation does not imply causation.

Just because someone smokes crack now and smoked pot before, doesn't mean the pot was the doormat welcoming them to a life of addiction. Not to mention pot does not have any chemically addictive properties.

Again, numerous studies have show that marijuana is *not* a gateway drug. Here's just one study:
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/study...rug-12116.html
"This evidence supports what’s known as the common liability model, an emerging theory that states the likelihood that someone will transition to the use of illegal drugs is determined not by the preceding use of a particular drug but instead by the user’s individual tendencies and environmental circumstances."

[The Dad Fisherman]

The only reason Alcohol is legal and Pot is not........is Money.......and paranoia.

Both have been legal in this country and both have been illegal in this country at one time or another.

Personally i Think Alcohol is way more destructive than pot.......Drunks get Disoriented, Verbally Abusive, Physically Destructive, and Physically Worn Down.....Pot Heads get Stupid and Hungry for 4 hours, then take a nap.

That being said it IS Illegal. Now Phelps made a choice...to pick up the pipe. He got caught and now has to live with the Consequences....hopefully next time he makes a better choice. I'm not going to crucify the kid for making a bad choice.....my life was riddled with them when I was a kid.......didn't smarten up til I was probably 25....but I eventually Smartened up.

and this Whole "The Country has Gone to Hell" thing can sometimes be rediculous......Ever Since Man has walked the earth he has had a Monkey along for his back.

Your Grandparents and Great Grand parents had their demons just like the kids today have theirs......Only Difference (and RIJimmy is gonna love this) is the Media....people see it more readily than ever before. Pot, Drugs and Alcohol have been around for 1000's of years....do you think that Addiction has only been around for 50....

This is good article about what led up to it becoming illegal in the 30's......I especially love the quotes by the guy Anslinger......real McCarthy type stuff.

But All in All it was Money that drove it

In 1930, a new division in the Treasury Department was established -- the Federal Bureau of Narcotics -- and Harry J. Anslinger was named director. This, if anything, marked the beginning of the all-out war against marijuana.

Harry J. Anslinger

Anslinger was an extremely ambitious man, and he recognized the Bureau of Narcotics as an amazing career opportunity -- a new government agency with the opportunity to define both the problem and the solution. He immediately realized that opiates and cocaine wouldn't be enough to help build his agency, so he latched on to marijuana and started to work on making it illegal at the federal level.

Anslinger immediately drew upon the themes of racism and violence to draw national attention to the problem he wanted to create. He also promoted and frequently read from "Gore Files" -- wild reefer-madness-style exploitation tales of ax murderers on marijuana and sex and... Negroes. Here are some quotes that have been widely attributed to Anslinger and his Gore Files:


"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others."

"...the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races."

"Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death."

"Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men."

"Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing"

"You smoke a joint and you're likely to kill your brother."

"Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind."
And he loved to pull out his own version of the "assassin" definition:

"In the year 1090, there was founded in Persia the religious and military order of the Assassins, whose history is one of cruelty, barbarity, and murder, and for good reason: the members were confirmed users of hashish, or marihuana, and it is from the Arabs' 'hashashin' that we have the English word 'assassin.'"

Yellow Journalism

Harry Anslinger got some additional help from William Randolf Hearst, owner of a huge chain of newspapers. Hearst had lots of reasons to help. First, he hated Mexicans. Second, he had invested heavily in the timber industry to support his newspaper chain and didn't want to see the development of hemp paper in competition. Third, he had lost 800,000 acres of timberland to Pancho Villa, so he hated Mexicans. Fourth, telling lurid lies about Mexicans (and the devil marijuana weed causing violence) sold newspapers, making him rich.

Some samples from the San Francisco Examiner:


"Marihuana makes fiends of boys in thirty days -- Hashish goads users to bloodlust."

"By the tons it is coming into this country -- the deadly, dreadful poison that racks and tears not only the body, but the very heart and soul of every human being who once becomes a slave to it in any of its cruel and devastating forms.... Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke marihuana cigarettes for a month and what was once your brain will be nothing but a storehouse of horrid specters. Hasheesh makes a murderer who kills for the love of killing out of the mildest mannered man who ever laughed at the idea that any habit could ever get him...."

And other nationwide columns...


"Users of marijuana become STIMULATED as they inhale the drug and are LIKELY TO DO ANYTHING. Most crimes of violence in this section, especially in country districts are laid to users of that drug."

"Was it marijuana, the new Mexican drug, that nerved the murderous arm of Clara Phillips when she hammered out her victim's life in Los Angeles?... THREE-FOURTHS OF THE CRIMES of violence in this country today are committed by DOPE SLAVES -- that is a matter of cold record."
Hearst and Anslinger were then supported by Dupont chemical company and various pharmaceutical companies in the effort to outlaw cannabis. Dupont had patented nylon, and wanted hemp removed as competition. The pharmaceutical companies could neither identify nor standardize cannabis dosages, and besides, with cannabis, folks could grow their own medicine and not have to purchase it from large companies.

This all set the stage for...

The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937.

After two years of secret planning, Anslinger brought his plan to Congress -- complete with a scrapbook full of sensational Hearst editorials, stories of ax murderers who had supposedly smoked marijuana, and racial slurs.

It was a remarkably short set of hearings.

The one fly in Anslinger's ointment was the appearance by Dr. William C. Woodward, Legislative Council of the American Medical Association.

Woodward started by slamming Harry Anslinger and the Bureau of Narcotics for distorting earlier AMA statements that had nothing to do with marijuana and making them appear to be AMA endorsement for Anslinger's view.

He also reproached the legislature and the Bureau for using the term marijuana in the legislation and not publicizing it as a bill about cannabis or hemp. At this point, marijuana (or marihuana) was a sensationalist word used to refer to Mexicans smoking a drug and had not been connected in most people's minds to the existing cannabis/hemp plant. Thus, many who had legitimate reasons to oppose the bill weren't even aware of it.

Woodward went on to state that the AMA was opposed to the legislation and further questioned the approach of the hearings, coming close to outright accusation of misconduct by Anslinger and the committee:


"That there is a certain amount of narcotic addiction of an objectionable character no one will deny. The newspapers have called attention to it so prominently that there must be some grounds for [their] statements [even Woodward was partially taken in by Hearst's propaganda]. It has surprised me, however, that the facts on which these statements have been based have not been brought before this committee by competent primary evidence. We are referred to newspaper publications concerning the prevalence of marihuana addiction. We are told that the use of marihuana causes crime.

But yet no one has been produced from the Bureau of Prisons to show the number of prisoners who have been found addicted to the marihuana habit. An informed inquiry shows that the Bureau of Prisons has no evidence on that point.

You have been told that school children are great users of marihuana cigarettes. No one has been summoned from the Children's Bureau to show the nature and extent of the habit, among children.

Inquiry of the Children's Bureau shows that they have had no occasion to investigate it and know nothing particularly of it.

Inquiry of the Office of Education--- and they certainly should know something of the prevalence of the habit among the school children of the country, if there is a prevalent habit--- indicates that they have had no occasion to investigate and know nothing of it.

Moreover, there is in the Treasury Department itself, the Public Health Service, with its Division of Mental Hygiene. The Division of Mental Hygiene was, in the first place, the Division of Narcotics. It was converted into the Division of Mental Hygiene, I think, about 1930. That particular Bureau has control at the present time of the narcotics farms that were created about 1929 or 1930 and came into operation a few years later. No one has been summoned from that Bureau to give evidence on that point.

Informal inquiry by me indicates that they have had no record of any marihuana of Cannabis addicts who have ever been committed to those farms.

The bureau of Public Health Service has also a division of pharmacology. If you desire evidence as to the pharmacology of Cannabis, that obviously is the place where you can get direct and primary evidence, rather than the indirect hearsay evidence."
Committee members then proceeded to attack Dr. Woodward, questioning his motives in opposing the legislation. Even the Chairman joined in:


The Chairman: If you want to advise us on legislation, you ought to come here with some constructive proposals, rather than criticism, rather than trying to throw obstacles in the way of something that the Federal Government is trying to do. It has not only an unselfish motive in this, but they have a serious responsibility.

Dr. Woodward: We cannot understand yet, Mr. Chairman, why this bill should have been prepared in secret for 2 years without any intimation, even, to the profession, that it was being prepared.
After some further bantering...


The Chairman: I would like to read a quotation from a recent editorial in the Washington Times:
The marihuana cigarette is one of the most insidious of all forms of dope, largely because of the failure of the public to understand its fatal qualities.

The Nation is almost defenseless against it, having no Federal laws to cope with it and virtually no organized campaign for combating it.

The result is tragic.

School children are the prey of peddlers who infest school neighborhoods.

High school boys and girls buy the destructive weed without knowledge of its capacity of harm, and conscienceless dealers sell it with impunity.

This is a national problem, and it must have national attention.

The fatal marihuana cigarette must be recognized as a deadly drug, and American children must be protected against it.
That is a pretty severe indictment. They say it is a national question and that it requires effective legislation. Of course, in a general way, you have responded to all of these statements; but that indicates very clearly that it is an evil of such magnitude that it is recognized by the press of the country as such.
And that was basically it. Yellow journalism won over medical science.

The committee passed the legislation on. And on the floor of the house, the entire discussion was:


Member from upstate New York: "Mr. Speaker, what is this bill about?"

Speaker Rayburn: "I don't know. It has something to do with a thing called marihuana. I think it's a narcotic of some kind."

"Mr. Speaker, does the American Medical Association support this bill?"

Member on the committee jumps up and says: "Their Doctor Wentworth[sic] came down here. They support this bill 100 percent."
And on the basis of that lie, on August 2, 1937, marijuana became illegal at the federal level.

The entire coverage in the New York Times: "President Roosevelt signed today a bill to curb traffic in the narcotic, marihuana, through heavy taxes on transactions."

[EarnedStripes44]

Well said Karl.

[Swimmer]

ban cigarette smoking inside of every public building, and more recently most public places like parks, but we make marijuana smoking and possession legal. You can get in more trouble for lighting a cuban cigar up in Morton's in Boston than you could if you smoked a bone on the sidewalk out front.