FEWER PEOPLE CAN MUSTER THE ENERGY FOR MARIJUANA OUTRAGE

Tuesday morning during our regular news meeting, one of our intrepid
reporters pitched a story about a court decision dealing with
medicinal marijuana.

A variety of local "experts" would surely have something to say about
the Supreme Court decision ruling that restrictions on the sale and
production of medicinal marijuana in Canada are unconstitutional.

"You should ask Michael Phelps what he thinks," came the inevitable comment.

Phelps, the U.S. Olympic swimming hero, is being pilloried worldwide
by pious media types after a photo surfaced of him deftly handling a
bong at a student party at the University of South Carolina.

Of course, newspapers, websites and TV stations breathlessly reported
the news as if Phelps was some sort of wild deviant caught murdering
puppies for fun. His multimillion-dollar endorsement deals were sure
to crumble. His mother would be ashamed. What type of role model
would he be to the dozens of Americans who care about swimming in
non-Olympic years? The horror of it all.

Then a funny thing happened.

Phelps apologized, said he wouldn't get caught in such a compromising
situation again, and that was that.

The International Olympic Committee said it wasn't a big deal. His
major sponsors said it wasn't a big deal. They weren't thrilled, but
his mea culpa was deemed sufficient.

Oh sure, the detractors keep trying to tear Phelps down, each day
trying to get someone to intimate that he is Beelzebub and Hitler
rolled into one, but it just won't take.

Why? Because many people just see a 23-year-old kid, who has trained
harder than most of us can imagine to become the best in the world at
what he does, blowing off a little smoke.

And try as they might, the lunatic fringe can't convince people that
what Phelps did will mean the end of proper society as we know it.

Another colleague sent me this Wednesday morning, from Tunku
Varadarajan, a professor at the Stern Business School at New York
University and opinions editor at www.forbes.com:

"In the hierarchy of life forms on this, our earth, the British
tabloid journalist lies somewhere between the hagfish and the dung
beetle: However, a story Sunday in the News of the World (proprietor:
Keith Rupert Murdoch) has made me scratch my chin and wonder whether
we are, in fact, being a tad unkind to the dung beetle.

"The paper's great coup was to lay its grubby, Little-England hands
on a photograph of Phelps with his mouth pressed firmly into a glass
pipe, or 'bong.' The story's pseudo-declamatory opening line (a
tabloid art form, in itself) was: 'This is the astonishing picture
which could destroy the career of the greatest competitor in Olympic
history.' Given that Michael Phelps' career would have remained
blissfully undestroyed had the paper chosen not to publish the
photograph, one has to marvel at the amoral audacity of the News of
the World: in purporting to 'report' on the potential harm to Phelps'
image and career from having smoked cannabis, the newspaper was, in
fact, 'perpetrating' that very harm."

Nicely put.

Athletes should not be put on pedestals (parents should be the real
role models for youngsters). Athletes are human beings, prone to
mistakes and lapses in judgment like the rest of us. Phelps wasn't
burning a fattie in the middle of a children's festival. And if you
try to use his plight as a lesson for your kids ("you see Jimmy, if
you smoke up, you'll get reefer madness and feel shame like Michael
Phelps") you might get back a question like "how come he can do that
and still be the best in the world?" or "how come the leader of the
Free World admits he has done it?"

I'm not advocating the use of marijuana. It's not my thing and never
has been. But if people need it to battle medical conditions, I'm OK
with it. And if a 23-year-old at a frat party has his hands on a
bong, I'm not going to express outrage.