PHELPS A PERFECT SHOW OF MARIJUANA WOES

On Monday, after Richland County, S.C., Sheriff Leon Lott announced
that he did not have enough evidence to arrest Olympic swimmer Michael
Phelps for smoking marijuana at a November party in Columbia, the gold
medalist issued a statement of regret. "I used bad judgment, and it's
a mistake I won't make again," Phelps said. "For young people
especially -- be careful about the decisions you make. One bad
decision can really hurt you and the people you care about."

Phelps' mistake was not smoking pot so much as doing it in front of
someone with a cell phone camera and no compunction about selling the
picture to a British tabloid. And if that mistake hurt him, it's not
because marijuana turned the record-breaking champion into a slacker
or a drug addict. It's because consuming an arbitrarily proscribed
intoxicant can result in serious legal (and therefore social and
economic) consequences, which cause far more harm than marijuana itself.

This reality should be recognized by President Obama, whose own
youthful pot smoking did not exactly hold him back but whose future
might have been very different if he had been arrested on drug charges
in high school or college. The same, of course, could be said for the
two drug-experienced baby boomers who preceded him in the White House.
But there are some indications that Obama may take a less dogmatic
approach to drug policy.

A few days after that photo of Phelps sucking on a bong appeared in
the News of the World, the Obama administration signaled that the
president will keep his campaign promise to stop the Drug Enforcement
Administration's raids on medical marijuana dispensaries, five of
which have occurred since he took office. "The president believes that
federal resources should not be used to circumvent state laws," a
White House spokesman told the Washington Times, "and as he continues
to appoint senior leadership to fill out the ranks of the federal
government, he expects them to review their policies with that in mind."

The week after Lott's deputies, looking for evidence to incriminate
Phelps, raided two houses and charged seven people with marijuana
possession, newspapers reported that Obama had chosen Seattle Police
Chief Gil Kerlikowske to head the Office of National Drug Control
Policy. Kerlikowske is known for decidedly milder treatment of pot
smokers than the hard-line sheriff, who said investigating Phelps was
necessary to avoid "sending a message of tolerance."

Norm Stamper, who preceded Kerlikowske as Seattle's police chief and
now promotes drug policy reform as a member of Law Enforcement Against
Prohibition, said the "one thing I know for sure" about Kerlikowske is
that "if Michael Phelps had bent over that bong in Seattle and not in
Sheriff Leon Lott's Richland County . . . he'd have nothing to fear
but a foolish and fickle cereal maker" (a reference to the widely
criticized decision by Kellogg's to drop its endorsement deal with
Phelps). Although Kerlikowske's personal views on drug policy are
unknown, he has helped implement state and local reforms such as
allowing medical use of marijuana and making pot possession Seattle's
"lowest law enforcement priority."

If you're glad that police arrested a record 873,000 Americans on
marijuana charges in 2007 (the vast majority of them for simple
possession), you can thank zero-tolerance zealots like Lott. The
sheriff said he felt compelled to investigate Phelps, which involved
busting seven people directly or indirectly linked to the party he
attended, to show that "even with his star status, he is still
obligated to obey the laws of our state." In the end, though, this
case worked out the way drug cases usually do: The big shot got off,
and the little guys got shafted.