What Michael Phelps should of said

[gopolks]

"Found this posted on another forum"

Dear America,

I take it back. I don’t apologize.

Because you know what? It’s none of your goddamned business. I work my ass off 10 months a year. It’s that hard work that gave you all those gooey feelings of patriotism last summer. If during my brief window of down time I want to relax, enjoy myself, and partake of a substance that’s a hell of a lot less bad for me than alcohol, tobacco, or, frankly, most of the prescription drugs most of you are taking, well, you can spare me the lecture.

I put myself through hell. I make my body do things nature never really intended us to endure. All world-class athletes do. We do it because you love to watch us push ourselves as far as we can possibly go. Some of us get hurt. Sometimes permanently. You’re watching the Super Bowl tonight. You’re watching 300 pound men smash each while running at full speed, in full pads. You know what the average life expectancy of an NFL player is? Fifty-five. That’s about 20 years shorter than your average non-NFL player. Yet you watch. And cheer. And you jump up spill your beer when a linebacker lays out a wide receiver on a crossing route across the middle. The harder he gets hit, the louder and more enthusiastically you scream.

Yet you all get bent out of shape when Ricky Williams, or I, or Josh Howard smoke a little dope to relax. Why? Because the idiots you’ve elected to make your laws have, without a shred of evidence, beat it into your head that smoking marijuana is something akin to drinking antifreeze, and done only by dirty hippies and sex offenders.

You’ll have to pardon my cynicism. But I call bullsh*t. You don’t give a damn about my health. You just get a voyeuristic thrill from watching an elite athlete fall from grace–all the better if you get to exercise a little moral righteousness in the process. And it’s hypocritical righteousness at that, given that 40 percent of you have tried pot at least once in your lives.

Here’s a crazy thought: If I can smoke a little dope and go on to win 14 Olympic gold medals, maybe pot smokers aren’t doomed to lives of couch surfing and video games, as our moronic government would have us believe. In fact, the list of successful pot smokers includes not just world class athletes like me, Howard, Williams, and others, it includes Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer Prize winners, the last three U.S. presidents, several Supreme Court justices, and luminaries and success stories from all sectors of business and the arts, sciences, and humanities.

So go ahead. Ban me from the next Olympics. Yank my endorsement deals. Stick your collective noses in the air and get all indignant on me. While you’re at it, keep arresting cancer and AIDS patients who dare to smoke the stuff because it deadens their pain, or enables them to eat. Keep sending in goon squads to kick down doors and shoot little old ladies, maim innocent toddlers, handcuff elderly post-polio patients to their beds at gunpoint, and slaughter the family pet.

Tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll apologize for smoking pot when every politician who ever did drugs and then voted to uphold or strengthen the drug laws marches his ass off to the nearest federal prison to serve out the sentence he wants to impose on everyone else for committing the same crimes he committed. I’ll apologize when the sons, daughters, and nephews of powerful politicians who get caught possessing or dealing drugs in the frat house or prep school get the same treatment as the no-name, probably black kid caught on the corner or the front stoop doing the same thing.

Until then, I for one will have none of it. I smoked pot. I liked it. I’ll probably do it again. I refuse to apologize for it, because by apologizing I help perpetuate this stupid lie, this idea that what someone puts into his own body on his own time is any of the government’s damned business. Or any of yours. I’m not going to bend over and allow myself to be propaganda for this wasteful, ridiculous, immoral war.

Go ahead and tear me down if you like. But let’s see you rationalize in your next lame ONDCP commercial how the greatest motherf*cking swimmer the world has ever seen...is also a proud pot smoker.

Yours,

Michael Phelps


http://www.reason.com/news/show/131438.html

[Ryan Thomas]

I agree with that. You couldn't see what was in the bong anyway, it could of been anything!

[Lacertae]

The only problem with drugs is what it means worldwide. Millions of people are working in drug business, or should I say held hostage working in drugs business ... thousands of people are killed every year just because of drugs wars in streets or at the the frontier towns (some slaughtered or beheaded in Mexico last year), tens of thousands are corrupted by immoral and heartless people, and the list goes on for long.

I don't deny the right to any one who wants to smoke a bit of dope to do so, but if it's not your own grown dope, stop thinking egoistically and imagine all what's behind it. Smokers, in a sense, you are part of that killing spree. And for what ? Just a "relaxing/numbing" moment ?

I don't say such things to make you feel guilty but to make you think a bit, that's all ...

[Vertigo]

the thing is, lacertae, this is why it should be legalized - so that people can grow in their back yards, thereby nullifying the criminal elements attached to it.

unfortunately, this says more about the US' tendancy to support the status quo, even the the face of logic. you see political leaders who arent very religious proclaiming the word of god as their own. and you see umming and arring about marijuana use, despite the evidence for it being relatively harmless.

[tgsnoopy]

I understand that one of the main reasons they have never legalised it, is the inavailability of roadside testing to indicate how stoned someone may be.

It seems that if they had a way of testing on the spot, how under the influence of THC one was, then it may already have been legalised.

It actually makes sense.

Others will try to give you the impression they are concerned it will act as a stepping stone to harder drugs, with the criminal element moving from an easily produced natural product to a nastier un-natural chemical product. That is true too, but not as much of a concern as some might like you to beleive.

Legalising THC containing products gives a larger tax take, something I suspect they will jump at given the chance to accurately police people under it's influence.

Prohibition existed once, look how much tax they make of it these days!

But, always remember, smoking a certain illegal green substance is way more carcinogenic than tobacco.

It'd be interesteing to see where it stands in 10 or 20 years.

[Vertigo]

But, always remember, smoking a certain illegal green substance is way more carcinogenic than tobacco.

this has been thrown around a lot in recent times, but honestly, there is evidence both ways. i have no opinion on it, except that neither assumption is correct. at this stage.

[tgsnoopy]

Most smokers smoke cigarettes through a filter which removes most of the tar and subsequently the included carginogens.

Can't say I've observed THC indulgent people smoking joints with filters on them.

I'm sorry, but I am of the opinion that tobacco is the lesser evil long term health wise.

[Myself]

The only thing I'm turning my nose up at is illiteracy - "What Michael Phelps should of said"; "it could of been anything".

It's like been stabbed through the heart with a knife rubbed in cannabis resin whenever I bear witness to such horrendous English.

[Ryan Thomas]

English was never one of my strong subjects

And if people want to slowly kill themselves and have a shorter lifespan, there's nothing wrong with that as its not affecting other people..