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Friday, February 06, 2009

Do drugs! Win medals and make amazing catches and become President! 

America needs to get the fuck over it. I think we are. But not fast enough.

I'm talking about the pot thing. Specifically, I'm fed up with this Michael Phelps "ordeal."

OK, he's a dolt for getting caught on camera. No one to blame for that but himself. But you know what? No one should be looking, reporting on, or caring about this stuff. If we stopped, maybe these stories would go away, and pot would stop being such a forbidden, exciting fruit for kids.

What's more, our puritanical social mores aren't even being applied consistently! To wit: After Bill Clinton "didn't inhale," the country elected an alcoholic, drunk-driving, cokehead PRESIDENT in 2000, before Barack Obama came right out and said he smoked pot and experimented with cocaine as a youth.

So I guess you can be Commander-in-Chief if you did drugs, you just can't be a "real" role model. And of course, you can't keep your Kellogg's sponsorship.

Likewise, are we a country that gives second chances? Yes for Clinton, Obama and Bush. No to Phelps, who is dubbed a fuck-up after one bong hit. Or do the rules of forgiveness and looking at the "big picture" simply not apply to athletes?

And you can learn all kinds of lessons from overhyped pot arrests -- none of them the ones the puritans intend. In Phelps' case: "I can smoke pot at a party and still win eight gold medals!" Or in the case of the also-recently-busted Santonio Holmes, "Wow, pot gives you incredible body control! I can be Super Bowl MVP!"

I am not promoting drugs. In fact, I've never done them. I disagree with them personally. For me. And I don't believe it's in anyone's interest to use them to excess. But let's continue the process of changing the marijuana laws in this country. We apparently are fine with teaching our kids the difference between a glass of wine with dinner, and eight beers while operating heavy machinery. Yet apparently if your child smokes pot at a party in college, he's going to turn into Amy Winehouse or Rush Limbaugh, and we need Big Government to step in and stop that.

Speaking of Rush, I also like to fall back on an old standby argument utilized by our friends on the Right: I don't want my tax dollars spent on this bullshit.

If I'm going to subsidize something in Santonio Holmes' life, it's going to be Heinz Field, dammit.

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