One toke over the line sweet Jesus

Maybe I’m a little late to weigh in on this but what the heck. Recently Michael Phelps our most recent Olympic superhero went and did something unforgivable. Are you ready? Sitting down? Strapped in and braced for impact? He smoked some weed out of a bong at an actual party. Hang on, I’m sweaty and my breathing is shallow. Can you even imagine such a thing? A young man with his whole future ahead of him callously throwing it all away. It’s heartbreaking. Actually it would be heartbreaking if I could muster up even the slightest amount of concern for Michael Phelps.

I couldn’t care any less about this story. On a scale of one to ten I rate this as a "didn’t even care to rate it because I was so unbelievably not concerned." Which I guess equates to a zero minus. Really, who cares at this point? Maybe the funniest aspect of this all is that people were actually talking about taking away his Olympic medals. Some thought he was a bad example, some thought he was undeserving of such honors and one guy even claimed marijuana could technically be considered “performance enhancing.” When I read that last bit I actually began giggling uncontrollably.

For my whole life I was told that weed would corrupt my mind and destroy my body. Now they are telling me that it could help my athletic ability. Who knew? Talk about sending a weird message to kids. And that’s another thing. Phelps is 23 friggin years old. We expect him to be a role model for kids when he is almost still a kid himself. And what kids are so into swimming that they are influenced by the actions of a famous swimmer? None that I know. Most kids I know are influenced by movie stars and rap artists. Look around when kids stop wearing ass revealing pants and start sporting Speedos than we might have a problem.

I’m not here to tell people to smoke or not smoke weed. Or to do or not do any other drugs for that matter. I can’t be bothered with what other adults do in their private lives. Simply can’t be bothered. Personally aside from tobacco and the occasional drink of alcohol I don’t do any drugs. I don’t even like taking aspirin. That being said, why do I care what someone else does in their home? And let’s not even start on the, “would you want your doctor to smoke marijuana” argument. Some short sided individual always brings this nonsense up.

“But Jay, if weed is legal, what is to stop your doctor from coming to work stoned?”

Um, I don’t know. Maybe the same thing that stops him from coming in to work drunk or hopped up on red bull. What do they call it? Oh yeah, personal responsibility. And by the way, I couldn’t care less if my doctor smoked a little in his private time. I think they might call it private time for that very reason. It’s private. As in, mind yours, I’ll mind mine. I’m going to take a quick mental poll here. Let’s see…How many of my friends, associates or co-workers smoke on occasion? Hmmm…Approximately a million skillion. How many of them are degenerate losers. Hmmmm…One, maybe two. That’s right. Nearly all of them get up, go to work, take care of their kids and generally live their lives. Trying hard to think of people I know who have thrown their lives away for pot. Hmmm…give me a minute, or a week depending on how much time you got to wait. Oh yeah, let me contrast that with the number who have screwed up or damaged themselves with alcohol, cigarettes, fast food, sugar or any number of legal products. Hmm…quite a friggin few. Well that was fun. I’m going to do a bit of research real quick, be right back.

Ok, that didn’t take long. I just wanted to see the number of people who have died from pot smoking in the past ten years. Hmm…interesting there were approximately..(carry the two)..zero. Oh I see. And from alcohol? Roughly 1.5 million. Cigarettes? 4.3 million. Prescription drugs? Over 1 million. Vending machines? About 20. So in other words, you are statistically more likely to die being crushed by a vending machine than by smoking marijuana. Krikey, I wonder if the I.O.C has any idea of how many vending machines Phelps has used.

Ok, I have rambled. I’m not here to evangelize for any sort of illegal drug. If that’s your thing, do em’ If it’s not, don’t. Let’s just move past all the nonsense. If a 23 year old 8 time Olympic champion wants to smoke a bong now and again, what the hell do I care? Actually, I hope Michael Phelps grows up to be a doctor.