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It's hell being a celebrity, especially if you're young and find yourself at a party, where marijuana and cameras should never mix.
And it's not exactly heaven being sheriff of a county with escalating drug crimes and pressure to treat all offenders equally.
Thus it is that Olympian swimmer Michael Phelps and Sheriff Leon Lott of South Carolina's Richland County are being forced to treat seriously a crime that shouldn't be one.
As everyone knows by now, Phelps was photographed smoking from an Olympic-sized bong during a University of South Carolina party last November. As all fallen heroes must -- by writ of the Pitchforks & Contrition Act -- Phelps has apologized for behavior that was "regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment," and has promised never to be a lesser role model again.
Check.
Lott, meanwhile, is threatening action against Phelps because ... he has to. Widely respected and admired as a "good guy" who came up through the ranks, Lott is in a jam. Not one to sweat the small stuff, he nevertheless has said that he'll charge Phelps with a crime if he determines that the 14-time gold-medal winner did, in fact, smoke pot in his county.
The sheriff's job will be made both easier and tougher by evidence that includes a photograph of Phelps with his face buried in a smoke-filled tube and what Lott has called a "partial confession." Phelps has said that the photo is legit. The only missing link, apparently, is the exact location of the party.
What's tough is that Lott probably doesn't want to press charges because it's a waste of time and resources. He's got much bigger fish to fry, but several recent drug-related crimes -- including at least two high-profile murders -- have captured community attention.
And the law is the law. Therein lies the problem.
Our marijuana laws have been ludicrous for as long as we've been alive. Almost half of us (42 percent) have tried marijuana at least once, according to a report published last year in PLoS Medicine, a journal of the Public Library of Science.
The U.S., in fact, boasts the highest percentage of pot smokers among 17 nations surveyed, including The Netherlands, where cannabis clouds waft from coffeehouse windows. Among them are no small number of high-ranking South Carolina leaders (we knew us when), who surely cringe every time a young person gets fingered for a "crime" they themselves have committed.
Other better-known former tokers include our current president and a couple of previous ones, as well as a Supreme Court justice, to name just a few. A complete list would require the slaughter of several mature forests.
This we know: Were Phelps to run for public office someday and admit to having smoked pot in his youth, he would be forgiven. Yet, in the present, we impose monstrous expectations on our heroes. Several hand-wringing commentaries have surfaced the past few days, lamenting the tragic loss for disappointed moms, dads and, yes, The Children.
Understandably, parents worry that their kids will emulate their idol, but the problem isn't Phelps, who is, in fact, an adult. The problem is our laws -- and our lies.
Obviously, children shouldn't smoke anything, legal or otherwise. Nor should they drink alcoholic beverages, even though their parents might.
There are good reasons for substance restrictions for children that need not apply to adults.
That's the real drug message that should inform our children and our laws, rather than the nonsense that currently passes for drug information.
Today's anti-drug campaigns are slightly wonkier than yesterday's "Reefer Madness," but equally likely to become party hits rather than drug deterrents. One recent ad produced by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy says: "Hey, not trying to be your mom, but there aren't many jobs out there for potheads." Whoa, dude, except maybe, like, president of the United States.
Once a kid realizes that pot doesn't make him insane -- or likely to become a burrito taster, as the ad further asserts -- he might figure other drug information is equally false. That's how marijuana becomes a gateway drug.
Phelps may be an involuntary hero to this charge, but his name and face bring necessary attention to a farce in which nearly half the nation are actors. It's time to recognize that all drugs are not equal -- and change the laws accordingly.
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If you want to read that it's okay to take bong hits because you're 23 and the best swimmer in history, cast your eyes elsewhere, because that's not going to be the position taken here.
Michael Phelps, of his own free will, decided to trade on his image to the tune of 0 million or so, an image that surely doesn't include drunk driving and getting high. This isn't fine print; it's in big block letters: DON'T SCREW UP! This is what Phelps agreed to, implicitly, when he signed on with AT&T, Visa, Hilton Hotels, Kellogg's, Rosetta Stone, Speedo and Nestle, among others: to conduct himself without scandal . . . all the time.
It doesn't matter that "everybody else is doing it," because my bet is that everybody else smoking pot at that student party at the University of South Carolina doesn't have endorsement deals worth 0 million. They haven't courted the concept of being a role model and selling cellphones and cereal to mothers and grandmothers and little children. I'm annoyed over reading my friend Sally Jenkins's column justifying that Phelps "periodically needs to bust out of the confines of the pool and of his too-coy image," because he already busted out in 2004, when he was caught drinking and driving.
Phelps promised after that much more serious transgression that he wouldn't be guilty of such irresponsibility and inappropriate behavior again. Now, after stupidly taking a bong hit essentially in public, Phelps has issued a similar mea culpa, saying: "Despite the success I have had in the pool, I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner that people have come to expect of me. . . . I promise my fans and the public -- it will not happen again."
So how many times does Phelps get to act irresponsibly before Sally and a whole lot of other folk hold his feet to the fire a bit?
Three times? Five? Sally suggests in her column yesterday that people are holding Phelps to superhuman ideals if they don't accept his apology.
No, we're not. You want to get blatantly practical about this? If Michael Phelps wants to get high, then he should do it in the privacy of his own home, far away from cellphone cameras. At the very least, these incidents represent serious lapses in judgment.
I've never seen so many excuses for doing something so stupid, considering the stakes:
· Athletes have extreme training methods, extreme goals and therefore extreme rewards. As an example, Sally wrote that she "once watched Andre Agassi drink an entire bottle of Chianti -- at lunch." (Did he do it during Prohibition? If not, it wasn't illegal.)
· Phelps is driven by a case of boyhood ADHD.
· Everybody does it, so it must be okay. (No Sally, all of us haven't done it, and didn't do it in college, either.)
Stop it. People who stand to gain so much from their talent and image had better know by the age of 23 that a standard of behavior is expected of them that isn't expected of other people their age. Of course, it's a double standard, but Phelps is making 0 million for having to live through it every day.
Even people who don't have a squeaky-clean image have consequences to pay for certain acts. My dear friend Charles Barkley, as you might have noticed, has disappeared (I hope temporarily) from TNT after being arrested for drunk driving. I love Barkley. He's helped my career and bank account by making me editor of his last two books. I'd do almost anything for him. But he doesn't get a pass for drinking and driving.
There should be zero tolerance for that, and Phelps doesn't get a pass for that, nor for his bong hit. The latter, in and of itself, certainly isn't heinous. But it is stupid, given what's at stake. And everybody excusing it, Sally, doesn't help Phelps get the message that he'd better be careful and vigilant. Being granted a pass at every turn usually breeds a sense of being bulletproof, as we saw in the much more serious case of Michael Vick, who actually squandered 0 million or more. And Phelps isn't cast in the role of bad boy or tough guy. His marketing representatives have set him up to be the guy who walks the straight-and-narrow.
I have no idea if News of the World is a legit news organization or not, but the British tabloid also reported that Phelps's handlers offered all kinds of perks to the outlet if it didn't publish the photo of Phelps taking a bong hit. I wonder if Phelps's camp, in addition to all the sharpies, includes anybody with enough guts (and job security) to sit him down and get in his face, which is what most 23-year-olds need. Is there anybody in that camp who's going to tell Phelps that he's one more strike from ruining all the years of hard work? Are any of the embarrassed sponsors on Phelps's roster going to tell him, "Michael, this isn't the image we signed on for"?
Sally asks in the lead of her column if anybody is really surprised that Phelps dived headfirst into the bong water? I realize her tongue was firmly planted in cheek, but yes, I'm surprised. The kid I've observed is aware enough to know that he's different than other 23-year-olds, that he's more gifted, that the rewards and experiences have been greater for him than the average college kid, that his wealth and riches have to be protected, first and foremost, by exercising common sense. To do that, Phelps is going to have to keep his wits about him, and the best way to do that, whether anybody's watching or not, is to keep his face out of the bong water.