PHELPS' BONG TOKE BLOWN OUT OF PROPORTION

Bang the bong slowly. Michael Phelps is in full dumb-dee-dumb apologia.

I shouldn't have ... I'm sorry ... it won't happen again.

Pshaw, or (inhale deeply here) patooey.

The Aquaman was caught in flagrante delictoke-io, sucking on a marijuana
pipe as if it were a, um, Popsicle, pictures as proof splashed all over
the pulpy pages of News of the World.

Perhaps Phelps was too buzzed to notice a stalking shutterbug capturing
the moment whilst attending a University of South Carolina party last
November.

Maybe he was so mellowed out he failed to sense the danger.

Could be, he was just a normal 23-year-old kicking back with friends, one
of whom opportunistically peddled the pix for the kind of chequebook
payoff that tabloid - highly entertaining and addictive, it should be
admitted - unabashedly rewards.

O, the sanctimony, O, the dope: Olympian, eight times pool-golden in
Beijing, a ganja galoot. Sportsman hero exposed as drug fiend. Role model
to youth betrays kids of the world.

In the view of some, though, just a little less geeky and a whole lot more
human, not quite the robotic freak he has often appeared,
chlorine-scrubbed to pedestal perfection by image spinners and endorsement
leeches.

It's a misdemeanour at worst, folks, meriting no more than a fine for a
first-time offender, even taking into account that 18-month probation
after Phelps pleaded guilty to driving while impaired in 2004, following
another campus social.

In South Carolina, possession is punishable by up to 30 days in jail or a
$570 fine, plus court costs.

That local sheriff who said he'd charge Phelps if he could prove the guy's
marijuana use in his county is just talking through his patrol hat.

A photograph doesn't meet the threshold for possession or use.

Yes, cannabis is a controlled substance. But medical journals show that
more than 40 per cent of Americans have tried marijuana at least once,
including former U.S. President Bill Clinton. It's the antiquarian law
that needs correcting, not the behaviour of 100 million Americans.

Phelps was predictably contrite, with the mea culpa about "regrettable"
behaviour and "bad judgment" and "I acted in a youthful and inappropriate
way."

But Phelps has multi-millions in endorsement contracts to protect.
Sponsors have shown their maturity, a grasp of the real world, in sticking
by their marketing cash cow.

Only Kellogg's and Visa have yet to publicly declare continued support.
Other big-name corporations made soothing noises about the "non-issue"
issue, declining to invoke standard "morality clause" codicils.

Life's tough all over these days, most people concerned about jobs, debt
and losing life savings while Wall Street fat-cats get bailed out of their
greed-created jams on the taxpayer's dime.

The public's response to Phelps' itsy-bitsy transgression has been one big
shrug - except for some sports columnists wagging their fingers: The same
moral stalwarts who routinely get pissed to the gills, sometimes right
after filing their dispatches on Phelps from pool-side.

Phelps isn't Michael Vick or Marion Jones or any number of athletes caught
committing a myriad of crimes, from manslaughter to rape to steroid use.

It's silly to place him among that firmament of felons.

His swim records aren't going to be asterisked - marijuana isn't a
performance-enhancing drug and prohibited only in competition. Remember
Ross Rebagliati's "contact" positive in Nagano.

Conversely, a few are griping over a purported imbalance in outrage,
seizing on race as the muting factor, Phelps allegedly less chastised as a
"tokin' white" guy.

Spare me.

Heroin use, similarly freeze-framed, didn't hurt superstar model Kate
Moss. Cocaine consumption hasn't hindered careers for countless bold-face
types.

A whiff of pot?

Phelps will be fine, if not fined.

Of course, if he had been caught smoking a fag, it would be game over.