My first thought when I heard this was “Oh, no, why did you let yourself get caught?”
I don’t care if he smokes the stuff, but if he’s going to he’s got to be more careful. It’s going to hurt him right in the wallet if nothing else.
I saw it reported as “apparently at a house party” at some college. They said “someone” caught him on camera – but no mention if by paparazzo or bystander with cellphone camera.
Poor form for getting caught. I have no problem with pot but work to get it legalized. Advocate. Then smoke it.
Those of you who say it’s no big deal agreed but if an employer can fire someone for smoking up people can take away contracts and the right to be an olympian can be taken away from him.
This thread is the definition of hypocrisy.
I’d like to know who provided the papers with the photo, why they did it, and if they got paid.
How so?
Anyway, over the past couple of months there have been three sumo wrestlers who have had to quit after testing positive for pot. At least in that sport it could be considered a performance-enhancing drug.
I have the impression from things I’ve read that the Japanese are open and nonchalant about drugs like methedrine but attach a serious stigma to pot/hash, etc. Yes?
Would be about the only thing I’ve heard of more bass-ackward than our own acceptance of alcohol as our national “drug of choice”.
I don’t know of any way for the IOC or USOC to to strip an athlete of his or her medals because they smoked pot. Do you know of such a provision, or are you just indulging in hyperbole to amp up the hysteria?
As for endorsement contracts – that should be covered in any morals clause, or will be something to influence re-negotiation if the contract is to be re-upped. Really, Phelps should have known all about that crap beforehand, since he would’ve had to sign those contracts in the first place.
And he’s not employed by anyone; although he is an employer of people. And apparently the business partner of his coach.
Man, I wish someone would get Fred to do a bong hit
Is that so? Tell me, how am I being a hypocrite? Do you know what “hypocrisy” is?
Hey Lightray. Go read my response again. No hysteria or hyperbole. An analogy and support of legalization. Pick a more contrary response to jump on.
Who has been a hypocrite? Granted I disagree with most of the replies, but I don’t find them hypocritical.
It’s the “the right to be an olympian can be taken away” I’m interested in. There are a limited set of things that can get an athlete’s medals taken away from him or her – none of them, to my knowledge, include using banned substances when not competing. I’ve never even heard such a thing threatened.
Although I suppose the USOC could take away his chances to be an Olympian again. There was an eastern European country this Olympics or last that dropped someone from their team for a past in porn.
At least a couple of sponsors are saying “so what?”
Michael Phelps’ Sponsors Sticking With Him After Bong Photo
Good. He never should have had to apologize.
I think this thread is the the first Pit thread in the SDMB history to mention the last name “Phelps” and not have it refer to Fred Phelps.
If you had given this advice to someone in 1969, they’d have now gone forty years without smoking.
Fuck that.
I think you’re wrong (although a couple of those just mention Michael Phelps incidentally, and why the hell did I just waste five minutes searching for that?).
Ok, I feel like a total square now, but is methedrine the same as meth?
I don’t think it’s so much that one is open and one is forbidden, but rather it seems like all of them are simply labeled ‘DRUGS’ and treated as equally forbidden. So while the punishment for possessing an ounce of cocaine may seem relatively low, the punishment for an once of pot would seem inordinately severe, since the law treats them as ‘one ounce of illegal drugs’.*
What makes it hard to tell is that, other than pot, the newspapers never say what drugs were found. It’s always either marijuana or ‘illegal stimulants’.
Of course, it’s always possible that some drugs forbidden in the US may be open and legal here just because the legal system hasn’t noticed it. Magic Mushrooms were perfectly legal here until about 2002.
*This is all talking out my ass here, as I am neither a lawyer nor a consumer of illegal drugs. I never got into anything beyond alcohol, so I don’t have any good information on legality or popularity. I do know, though, that even fair quality pot will run you somewhere around US$60/g. Screw that, I’ll stick with single malt.
About the sumo wrestlers, at the time there was a fair amount of grumbling that it was just a witch hunt to clear out some of the foreigners who’ve been rude enough to keep getting promoted into the upper ranks, since the two who were caught were both Russian (a Japanese wrestler was booted a few months later as a face-saving exercise after enough people pointed out that he’d failed the test as well but was never punished).
Whoops, not enough time to add what I wanted to say at the end.
About the sumo wrestlers, at the time there was a fair amount of grumbling that it was just a witch hunt to clear out some of the foreigners who’ve been rude enough to keep getting promoted into the upper ranks, since the two who were caught were both Russian (a Japanese wrestler was booted a few months later as a face-saving exercise after enough people pointed out that he’d failed the test as well but was never punished). This is just gossip, but some say that the whole pot hunt was an attempt to distract media attention away from the allegedly rampant steroid use going on.
They end up swimming in the slow lane.