Posted on 01/31/2009 3:02:21 PM PST by LucyJo
THIS is the astonishing picture which could destroy the career of the greatest competitor in Olympic history.
In our exclusive photo Michael Phelps, who won a record EIGHT gold medals for swimming at the Beijing games last summer, draws from a bong.
The glass pipes are generally used to smoke cannabis.
And after sporting chiefs announced laws which mean four-year bans for drug-taking, Phelps’ dreams of adding to his overall 14 gold medal tally at the 2012 games in London could already be OVER.
GOLDEN BOY: Phelps at Beijing Those dreams seemed the last thing on his mind when he puffed from the bong during two days of partying with students last November, a quiet time in the swimming calendar when athletes would not expect to get tested for drugs.
One party-goer who witnessed the star’s behaviour told the News of the World: “He was out of control from the moment he got there.
“If he continues to party like that I’d be amazed if he ever won any more medals again.”
Phelps’ aides went into a panic over our story and offered us a raft of extraordinary incentives not to run the bong picture.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsoftheworld.co.uk ...
Oops.
Just think how fast he would have been if he didn't smoke that maryjeewanny.
Prime Prine. I met a man, was a well dressed man. He had a tan from the Yucatan.
The purpose of the Olympics since their inception is to propagandize for various nations on a rotating schedule. Last year it was all about promoting communist China. Now that is what is serious. Serious enough to murder a couple of hundred Tibetans and displace thousands of Chinese to make it all look good.
Ah jeez ... you sound just like my mother, lamenting the "sad loss" of we generation of yutes who did drugs from the 70s through the 80s ... the vast majority of whom matured into level-headed, responsible, smart, contented, productive folks of good character ... with the wistful regret of how much better they may have been ...! When my mother gets into that mode of sighing and regretting, all you can do is roll your eyes.
I lived through the counterculture, too. A lot of us survived just fine *glitch/twitch*, thank you very much!
No, seriously, lighten up. Drugs have always been around and always will. The destruction of the counterculture wasn't wrought by drugs, it was wrought by declining moral values embraced in pop culture, from abortion to unmarried motherhood, to divorce to shacking-up, to the embrace of open homosexuality to the "free love" ethic, to the welfare and entitlement mentality.
Blame something other than the drugs, and you'll be hitting closer to the truth, as this incident with Phelps rather serves to illustrate.
LOL I can’t imagine he’d be a Republican. Isn’t he from some democrat sh!thole like Massachusetts or Maryland?
It is not the harmless drug everyone thinks do to THC levels rising. The new trend is hydroponics other known as marijuana on steroids.
The last thing we need is a star athlete helping add to the stigma that pot is cool and harmless.
How many potheads are saying “he won a lot of gold medals so it must be harmless.”
I too lived through the drug era and have seen the lives destroyed, including a brother who snorted, smoked and drank himself into a very early grave. However, those lives would have been just as easily destroyed with alcohol, or food. Most people who get sideways on drugs are damaged prior to their first drug experience. Most (I’d posit 90+ percent) people who try drugs just as quickly put them down and go on to successful and productive lives.
Idols are never what they seem.
Finny,
I agree with you 100% here. Conservatism can get a bit contradictory on a few issues, and this is one. Personally, I have both tried and sworn off marijuana. Haven’t touched the stuff in ten years. Personally, I cannot stand the typical marijuana ‘culture’ - whether the gangsta, fratboy, damn dirty hippie or the yuppie variant.
That said, I do believe alcohol to be far more dangerous a drug and the statistics and comparitive effects back me up there. The decision to outlaw marijuana and at times impose jail sentences to citizens simply exercising their right to mildly inebriate themselves (as many of us occasionally do with alcohol) is a little overboard. I hate being on the same side as your average dreadlocked liberal douche on this one, but intellectual and logical consistency sometimes hurts.
As for Phelps, he rightly will lose a lot of endorsement money now. As it stands marijuana is illegal and this culture does demand that athletes and those in the public eye (excepting Democrat politicians, of course) be role models. The fairness of that is debatable, but it is reality. He clearly is an occasional pot smoker at the least, evidenced by his familiarity with a bong. That he dominated the Olympics anyway does make a point that occasional use of marijuana (like alcohol) is nowhere near as damaging as hard drugs like heroin or methamphetamine.
I don’t like pot. I generally don’t like pot smokers. But I also don’t like the government regulating and criminalizing personal choices that are nonviolent and private. I find it hard to proclaim that the government should stay the hell out of my business and allow me to say what I please, arm myself how I please and allow me to have a damn Marlboro with my bourbon at my local bar, then turn around and advocate arrest for some idiot with a bong. Make sense?
That is a myth. No pot has higher levels of THC than hashish. Nothing going around today is as strong as Thai stick or Acapulco Gold of the '70s. It's a plant. The alkaloids it produces are the same as they have always been and the threshhold of how much you can coax a plant to produce can only be pushed so far. Those limits were found thousands of years ago.
Phelps was always a typical college guy with typical college guy vices. Remember he got a DUI a while back. He’s doing what most young guys would do if you suddenly gave them status and cash. Party up. Except now all the haters in the media are watching his every move. That’s the price of fame.
Good pick-up...that DOES look like the same watch.
Agree.
I think it's pretty straightforward. We pandered to and subsidized social pathology such as single motherhood, irresponsible fathers, and generational welfare. LBJ, who was FDR's favorite New Deal congressman, screwed us royally.
LBJ's Great Society: 40 Years Later
Townhall Soapbox, 09/12/2005 (via FR thread)
-snip-
In the fifties, although blacks were still struggling for equal opportunities and were on the low end of the economic ladder, the black family was for the most part strong and stable. Two parent families were the rule, not the exception. They attended church together, had strong moral values, and did not comprise a majority of the prison population.
Compare that to the present state of the black community after 40 years of Liberal Socialism.
Our prisons are disproportionately black, unwed mothers and single parent families are the rule, black youths without a strong male role model other than rap stars and basketball players, roam the streets and are drawn into a culture of drugs and crime.
-snip-
Yep, the same watch, definitely a candidate for capital punishment.
(1) The Olympic rule only applies to taking the stuff during the games.
(2)It doesn’t appear to be Phelps if you look closely.
One hundred percent agreed.
He clearly is an occasional pot smoker at the least, evidenced by his familiarity with a bong. That he dominated the Olympics anyway does make a point that occasional use of marijuana (like alcohol) is nowhere near as damaging as hard drugs like heroin or methamphetamine. Yep.
I am getting my info from the DEA.
Where is your information coming from?
I figured he was since he is a hard worker....
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