cannabisnews.com: Michael Phelps, Hypocrisy, & American Drug Policy





Michael Phelps, Hypocrisy, & American Drug Policy
Posted by CN Staff on February 02, 2009 at 16:45:30 PT
By John V. Santore
Source: Huffington Post
USA -- Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps was recently photographed using a marijuana bong at the home of a friend. The photographic evidence made a denial impossible, which led to release of the following statement today:"I engaged in behavior which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment. I'm 23 years old and despite the successes I've had in the pool, I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner people have come to expect from me. For this, I am sorry. I promise my fans and the public it will not happen again."
Not too long ago, Chris Matthews reviewed transitioning public attitudes towards marijuana by reviewing the statements of past presidential candidates about their own drug use, from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama:And during the last campaign, Stephen Colbert made light of the supposed "hope bong" then-candidate Obama was making available to the public:All of this would be little more than an interesting and amusing cultural trend were it not for realities such as this:A study released [in April, 2008] reported that between 1998 and 2007, the police arrested 374,900 people whose most serious crime was the lowest-level misdemeanor marijuana offense. That is more than eight times the number of arrests on those same charges between 1988 and 1997, when 45,300 people were picked up for having a small amount of pot......Nearly everyone involved in this wave of marijuana arrests is male: 90 percent were men, although national studies show that men and women use pot in roughly equal rates. And 83 percent of those charged in these cases were black or Latino, according to the study. Blacks accounted for 52 percent of the arrests, twice their share of the city's population. Whites, who are about 35 percent of the population, were only 15 percent of those charged -- even though federal surveys show that whites are more likely than blacks or Latinos to use pot.Among the pretty large population of white people who have used pot and not been arrested for it is Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Asked during the 2001 campaign by New York magazine if he had ever smoked it, Mr. Bloomberg replied: "You bet I did. And I enjoyed it." After he was elected and his remarks were used in advertisements by marijuana legalization advocates, Mr. Bloomberg said his administration would vigorously enforce the laws.While marijuana laws have changed over time, and while past administrations have attempted to show that the situation isn't as dire as it appears to be, drug policy in the United States is immensely hypocritical and destructive. Today, public figures justify past drug use as "youthful indiscretions" and the matter is dropped. But huge numbers of ordinary Americans are introduced to the jail system because of minor drug offenses, and as the records show, the overwhelmingly disproportionate nature of drug arrests creates a justified perception of injustice and both economic and racial bias.Will Michael Phelps have to go to court for his actions? No. (Nor should he have to.) Will any law enforcement jurisdiction in America conduct a systematic raid of a college dorm at a prominent university with the goal of arresting everyone in possession of marijuana? Of course not. If such an action was taken on a broad scale, the arrests would likely be in the thousands. At the same time, will poor Americans, overwhelmingly minority in ethnicity, continue to be arrested by local police for the possession of small amounts of pot? Absolutely.Before he was president, Obama indicated that he was well aware that marijuana laws needed to be reformed and that the mythology of the "war on drugs" was nothing more than a fairy tale:But this is only part of the problem. A 2006 ACLU report documented the difference in sentencing between the possession of crack and of cocaine:The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, passed during the media frenzy following the death of University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias, established mandatory minimum sentences for possession of specific amounts of cocaine. However, it also established a 100-to-1 disparity between distribution of powder and crack cocaine. For example, distributing just five grams of crack carries a minimum five-year federal prison sentence, while distributing 500 grams of powder cocaine carries the same sentence. The discrepancy remains despite repeated recommendations by the U.S. Sentencing Commission to Congress to reconsider the penalties. Because of its relative low cost, crack cocaine is more accessible to poor people, many of whom are African Americans. Conversely, powder cocaine is much more expensive and tends to be used by more affluent white Americans. The report includes recent data that indicates that African Americans make up 15 percent of the country's drug users, yet they make up 37 percent of those arrested for drug violations, 59 percent of those convicted, and 74 percent of those sentenced to prison for a drug offense. More than 80 percent of the defendants sentenced for crack offenses are African American, despite the fact that more than 66 percent of crack users are white or Hispanic.In the past, Obama has spoken out against the continuation of policies like this one. From a 2007 interview:Asked if he would eliminate discriminatory laws that punish crack cocaine possession so heavily that it would take 100 times more in powder cocaine for the same sentence, Obama started off by saying the law was a mistake. He talked about his record in the Illinois Senate."I want to point out that I fought provisions like this and in many cases voted against provisions like this, knowing the way they could be exploited politically," Obama told the Trotter Group of African-American newspaper columnists last week after addressing the National Association of Black Journalists. "I thought it was the right thing to do. Even though the politics of it was tough back in the '90s, as a state legislator I took some tough votes to make sure we didn't see the perpetration of these kinds of unjust laws."......He said that if he were to become president, he would support a commission to issue a report "that allows me to say that based on the expert evidence, this is not working and it's unfair and unjust. Then I would move legislation forward."In that same interview, Obama linked drug problems to larger issues of economic and opportunity disparities in America: Obama asked if he could make a "broader" point. "Even if we fix this, if it was a 1-to-1 ratio, it's still a problem that folks are selling crack. It's still a problem that our young men are in a situation where they believe the only recourse for them is the drug trade. So there is a balancing act that has to be done in terms of, do we want to spend all our political capital on a very difficult issue that doesn't get at some of the underlying issues; whether we want to spend more of that political capital getting early childhood education in place, getting after-school programs in place, getting summer school programs in place."Obama claimed, "I'm not suggesting it's an either/or but I'm suggesting that an even higher priority for me is getting young men and increasingly young women to stop getting involved in the drug trade in the first place. And that's going to require pretty heavy lifting. That's going to require some billions of dollars of expenditure that aren't there right now."Addressing the economic and social situations which encourage people to use and sell drugs is critical. But it is also important to take advantage of changing public attitudes in order to do away with hypocritical drug policies that undermine public faith in an impartial justice system and disproportionately harm segments of society which are already teetering on the brink of collapse. Public apologies like those issued today by Phelps ring hollow because he will not be persecuted for his actions by either a court of law or the court of public opinion. The fact the he feels he must apologize is simply an effort to pay homage to past American mores that no longer impact private behavior. But those mores still impact drug policies, policies that continue to hurt citizens to this very day. Some steps to mitigate the worst impacts of these broken laws, like those governing sentencing for crack/cocaine offenses have been taken in recent years. Let's hope that President Obama, who saw the impact of bad drug laws first-hand in Chicago, will continue these reforms. John V. Santore - Obama campaign organizer, frmr congressional speechwriter.Source: Huffington Post (NY)Author: John V. SantorePublished: February 1, 2009Copyright: 2009 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC Contact: scoop huffingtonpost.comWebsite: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/URL: http://drugsense.org/url/prLpxXeKCannabisNews -- Cannabis Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml 
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Comment #15 posted by dongenero on February 03, 2009 at 10:12:18 PT
Dumb laws and dumber sheriffs
I don't really think Phelps is calling the shots here. There are a lot of people latched on to his gravy train. They are calling the PR shots most assuredly. Phelps doesn't really have the perspective of age and experience to know what he should do here. He's just a 23 year old taking a hit on a bong. One thing that is not missed by our youth however, is the hypocrisy of our laws and societal positions on marijuana.And the sheriff in SC should just put his head back up his  $$. 
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Comment #14 posted by Vincent on February 03, 2009 at 09:39:02 PT:
Michael Phelps Apology
  Good morning everyone, it's me again, Vincent, about to flap my gums again. When I first entered this board I made a mistake and ran my mouth, causing a misunderstanding. As I clarified my remarks, I wrote that sometimes I can be rather extreme in my positions. Well, this is one of those times. I can't believe that the major media, the so-called "liberal media", is making a big stink about Michael Phelps alleged Bong-smoking. But, if that wasn't enough, that stupid, phony apology that the athlete made is just killing me. I mean, why couldn't he just admit it, and be proud of it? Such hypocrisy!
  Did he expect those prohibitionist lowlifes to accept his apology? Frankly, I couldn't care less what some Bible- banging Republican thinks of me. And what does he get for his "regrets"? Some brainless sherriff from South Carolina, where the incident occurred, has threatened to file charges against him! That's what he gets! 
  
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Comment #13 posted by dongenero on February 03, 2009 at 07:39:22 PT
key statement
"The fact the he feels he must apologize is simply an effort to pay homage to past American mores that no longer impact private behavior."Of course Phelps is just a 23 year old "kid". What do you expect? He should have been more careful about exposing his activity, but hey, the guy is 23 years old. His PR people are guiding him through damage control here.He's taking more heat than our President or Bloomberg. These marijuana laws are as goofy as the hypocrisy surrounding them.
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Comment #12 posted by BGreen on February 03, 2009 at 07:08:39 PT
Mornin' runruff
A couple of guys I used to buy cannabis from in high school were on the track team and set several school records and one state record in a relay race.I knew right then and there that I had been lied to about the dangers of cannabis.I'm really sick and tired of the lies.The Reverend Bud Green
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Comment #11 posted by runruff on February 03, 2009 at 06:47:56 PT
#9,#9,#9,#9
I laughed! Funny post!Mornin' Rev!
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Comment #10 posted by OverwhelmSam on February 03, 2009 at 02:35:40 PT
Role Models?
Wrong. People who don't mind their own business are bad role models. So I guess people who drink alcohol and coffee, smoke cigarettes and pop an occassional vicodin are bad role models too. Welcome to humanity. Interesting to note how big corporations and media call for apoligees and the lose of endorsements. The cool thing this time that's unique, his sponsers like general mills and spedo say they don't care. The common thing these days if your rich and famous is to just apoligize. Progress, albeit pain stakingly slow. In the future, no one will care about drug consumption and everyone will acknowledge their bi-sexuality.
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Comment #9 posted by BGreen on February 03, 2009 at 00:38:16 PT
Michael should say "Yeah, I'm an adult and ...
I smoke marijuana to relax. I also smoked every competitor I faced in the Olympics.""Go ahead and tell me how it ruined my life and then you can show me YOUR gold medals."Yeah, that's what he SHOULD say. What he DID say was exactly what I expected. :(The Reverend Bud Green
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Comment #8 posted by augustwest on February 03, 2009 at 00:19:45 PT:
Who dosen't smoke?
The best olympic athlete, the superbowl mvp and the most popular celebrated president ever all smoked the sacrament. I guess the prohibs need to see the pope puffing a blunt before they realize thier fight is futile.
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Comment #7 posted by Hope on February 03, 2009 at 00:02:29 PT
Michael Phelps
I was thinking of him this evening and his big eyebrows and thinking he must be sad and more than a little dismayed at times to think how many people are so very, very, even raving, unhappy with him... maybe even despising him. That's got to be painful on some level. You know it is.Yes. Pot smokers get despised easily... and for no other reason than using cannabis. I'm talking Hated. Despised. It's wrong. But that attitude is out there... as many of us know. It's not right. But it's real. Not every one is like them. Thank God. But there are lots of them. Don't ever doubt it.It doesn't matter who you are or what you've accomplished. They despise you for consuming that plant. They may even despise you for even thinking that you might even think that you might enjoy cannabis.It's wrong. It's ridiculous. But it happens. It really is unreasoning and hysterical hatred. Very dangerous stuff for both the hater and the hated.(I kind of tried to put myself in Michael Phelps's shoes... and instead of shoes... I instantly got the eyebrows.:0)It's true.)It is wrong the way he's being treated for many reasons. All this "Role Model" brouhaha is not really about being a real role model... it's about those companies selling the impression of a roll model. They can't "sell" one, yet, in the squeaky clean department that smokes pot. It shouldn't be that important. But right now, to some people, it still is.
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Comment #6 posted by Hope on February 02, 2009 at 23:36:10 PT
Comment 4 Really?
I'm sort of secretly, well not really secretly, now... half-way or less, kind of sort of glad. This monitor is smallish and hard for me to see. My laptop is bigger. I hope I can get a bigger one when this one croaks. Probably though, I'll have to drag out one of the old Big Bertha monitors that I'm afraid is stored away somewhere.It hasn't done it again since last night.Thank you, though, John Tyler. I suspected that, but wasn't sure.
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Comment #5 posted by afterburner on February 02, 2009 at 21:36:35 PT
NikoKun #2
"I hope we see at least some positive coverage on this in the main stream... I'd be happy seeing just one prime time news show defend him... Anyone seen that yet?"I haven't *seen* any positive media coverage yet, but I have *heard* some. A disc jockey on Q107 FM Toronto asked the listeners what they thought of the British tabloids and their Michael Phelps cannabis pictures. The audience was unanimous in their support for Phelps. Most said cannabis is "no big deal" and one even attacked the tabloids for trying to destroy Michael's career over a trivial matter.
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Comment #4 posted by John Tyler on February 02, 2009 at 21:09:20 PT
pink monitor
Hope
If your monitor is showing signs of pink or reddish tints, your monitor is going bad, especially if it is a CRT monitor. (Check your color tint to see if it can be adjusted, but that probably won’t fix it.) They are not repairable. I’m afraid it’s time to get another one. 
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Comment #3 posted by John Tyler on February 02, 2009 at 20:57:01 PT
rocks of truth
The Michaels story tells us that cannabis users can be good athletes and good people. The prohibitionists’ lies are dashed on the rocks of truth once again.    
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Comment #2 posted by NikoKun on February 02, 2009 at 17:02:25 PT
ridiculious media outrage..
Really burns up me to see all the media criticizing Phelps and demanding an apology, or saying he's a bad role model.
First, we shouldn't be so dependent on the lives of famous people, that we break down when one of them does something un-role-model-like... They are just as free as everyone else. They are who they are, and they will do what they want to do, not what you want them to do. And they should not have any obligation to meet your idealistic standards.I hope we see at least some positive coverage on this in the main stream... I'd be happy seeing just one prime time news show defend him... Anyone seen that yet?Phelps should come out publicly and say he did nothing wrong, and that people shouldn't look down on his actions. What he did is CERTAINLY no where near as bad as an athlete drinking a beer. LOL
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on February 02, 2009 at 17:02:24 PT
Related Article from AlterNet.org
Michael Phelps Has No Business Apologizing for Taking Bong HitsBy Tony Newman, AlterNetFebruary 2, 2009URL: http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/124793/
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