MICHAEL PHELPS SHOULDN'T BE HELD TO A DIFFERENT STANDARD

The N word Michael Phelps shouldn't be held to a different standard
Michael Phelps should be able to smoke weed if he wants. Yes, I said
it, and I am not a weed smoker.

Some of you might think that I am crazy, but I firmly believe that
what people do privately is no one else's concern.

I get it. He's the greatest Olympic athlete of all time, with lots of
endorsements and a lot of kids looking up to him, so he should know
better and yes, he should do better.

However, just because he has won eight Olympic medals does not make
him a deity; remember he is actually human and he is young.

Michael Phelps got caught smoking marijuana.

I chuckled when I saw the photo because of all bongs, he was smoking
the biggest and the brightest.

It wasn't like he was posing for the photo.

Some jerk, who obviously was not that high, took the
photo.

Now all hell is breaking loose because this stellar athlete is not a
stellar individual. Now everyone is trying to make an example of him.
S.C. authorities are thinking about bringing charges against him.

Really. I hope that they plan to charge everyone who was at the party,
including the person who took the picture.

Why are they singling him out? If indeed there is that one photo,
there are others, and if they pursue charges against Phelps, they
should do the same for all involved.

I guess the authorities have more time on their hands than we
thought.

I would suspect if you raid any college campus in the United States,
any day of the week, they would find students smoking weed, getting
drunk and engaging in a lot of other illegal activities. If they were
really interested in stopping the flow of marijuana on college
campuses, then they would perform random raids to dissuade students.

They don't. Why? Because of privacy issues.

Plus, any good lawyer worth her salt can beat a charge obtained in
that way. This may sound crazy, but I do believe that if a young man
who sacrificed most of his childhood to pursue the greatest goal of
all time wants to smoke weed in his time off, he should be allowed to
do so. How soon we forget the parts of his story that folks lapped up
when he was "the man." He was tall and lanky, had a speech impediment
and not many friends because people made fun of him. The guy who
probably couldn't buy a date and had to work really hard to make
friends is suddenly the most popular guy in the class, not to mention
the most famous athlete in the world.

You know how this story goes because you've seen this Hollywood
narrative before.

As a young person, of course he's going to want to fit in and be with
the "regular" folks, where he is now the Superstar. Does that make it
right?

No, but it is what it is. I could see if he was smoking marijuana
during competition. He wasn't. I know that marijuana is illegal and a
gateway drug, so you should not smoke it under any circumstances. I
get that. But he was on a college campus, with students in his age
group, doing what college students do. Where is the uproar over the
University of South Carolina students who were at the party? There is
none. Why? Because they're just being students. I've heard folks going
off about if Phelps were black, he'd be stripped of his medals,
suspended and under the jail, especially in South Carolina. They're
probably right.

Just because the authorities railroaded Marion Jones does not mean
that they should railroad Phelps. For those of us with fuzzy memories,
Jones never tested positive -- never, ever, even during competition.
Fortunately for Phelps, he isn't black.

He will get another chance -- just like he did after being caught
driving drunk.

Why? Because he is a young man who is not perfect.

All this talk about weed has me wanting to paraphrase one of my
favorite "weed-smoking" celebrities -- Method Man. In a documentary on
Notorious B.I.G., he tells kids to let their parents be their role
models and reminds us that he's just there for entertainment. Perhaps
we should take his advice? Instead of trying to make athletes and
public figures role models, maybe we should serve as role models at
home?

It has been proven time and time again -- athletes and celebrities are
not reliable. Why? Because they are human beings just like us. I
suspect that the parents of all of those students who were smoking
weed and drinking at that party have been great role models; yet and
still, their children are still doing what they probably were not
raised to do -- drink alcohol and do drugs. Young people make mistakes.

Michael Phelps is young and obviously made a mistake that has only
hurt himself.

Do I think Phelps should get special treatment?

No. I don't think that he should be held to a standard different from
the other students that attended the party because he has won eight
Olympic medals.

And yet people have ordained him as a deity instead of the young
person that he is.