The will to succeed
…with weed

by RAF KATIGBAK

Olympic champion swimmer Michael Phelps admitted to “regrettable behaviour” on Sunday after a picture surfaced in a British tabloid allegedly showing him smoking marijuana at a party.

The News of the World published a photo this weekend of a man with a ball cap pulled backwards taking a hit from a bong, claiming it was Phelps. The picture was reportedly from a November house party near the University of South Carolina.—CBC.ca

Now, as you may know, I’m not what you’d call a big pot smoker. In fact, I hadn’t ever even touched the stuff until a few years ago when a friend slipped me some cookies made with leftover pot shake and I spent the night panic-stricken, convinced that I could stop my own heart just by thinking about it.

As some of my more dedicated readers may remember, I wrote a column a while back about how one of the reasons pot hasn’t been accepted in society is that the culture surrounding it is basically the corniest thing ever. Not that I have anything against smoking weed per se, and there are plenty of good reasons to legalize or at least decriminalize marijuana, but it’s just that wearing a shirt featuring an alien in a Cat in the Hat hat sparking a roach on a low rider bicycle is not gonna earn anyone’s respect, unless you’re at some outdoor rave or watching a Sublime cover band.

And yet, even though I find popular weed culture a knuckle-biting cringefest, when I read the news about Phelps’s bong smoking incident (btw, how glad are you that CBC used the correct terminology instead of calling it a marijuana pipe?), I couldn’t help but feel bad for the guy. The man has won 14 Olympic gold medals, the most by any Olympian, and by the end of last year, he held seven world records in swimming. Has he not earned the right to “smoke a doobie joint” or whatever kids are saying these days?

But to the credit of the Canadian press, most of the kafuffle centred not so much on the fact that he smoked marijuana, but about how the incident would affect the $100-million in potential sponsorships he might have secured. But perhaps the Phelps camp shouldn’t be too disheartened. Maybe the companies could spin it in a positive light. For example, here’s a commercial I’d like to see:

The scene opens in some run-down tenement building in a non-descript inner city, possibly a crackhouse in West Baltimore. In a grimy, stained-walled room, rats scurry into corners and there is junk , garbage and flies everywhere. Sitting at a table, you see the back of a head facing a sketchy tough guy flanked by armed bodyguards.

Mysterious back of head guy: trying to sound tough. You got the stuff?

Obvious drug dealer dude: looks at his body guards unimpressed, drops a duffle bag on the table and opens it to reveal bricks of marijuana. This is the finest BC hydro on the planet, my friend. This shit is so strong, you’ll be able to see through time; it’s the real deal. Shit, it’s so powerful, it even makes Jamie Kennedy funny. So ya, I got the stuff. You got the fucking money?

Cut to the drug dealer point-of-view, showing the mysterious back of head guy is Michael Phelps, sitting uncomfortably, still wearing his tracksuit and all the medals he won from the last Olympics.

Michael Phelps: Do you take plastic?

The drug dealer looks at his cronies and then looks back at Phelps, disappointed. Cut to the exterior of the dilapidated tenement building with sounds of someone getting beaten unmercifully. Slowly the modified tag line appears: “Visa. Accepted Everywhere You Want to Be.”

Even though the World Anti-Doping Agency views pot differently than performance-enhancing drugs and only sanctions athletes for a positive test that occurs during competition periods, perhaps it’s time they actually did take a stand on recreational drugs and make an example of athletes who get stoned. Of course there’s really only one way you can do that: start an All-Drug Olympics.

Sure, swimming after an ounce of weed would be pretty boring with all those people underwater looking at their hands and pretending that they’re dolphins, but I would love to tune in to watch Greco-Roman wrestling on ecstasy or a 67-hour crystal meth relay race. Maybe you could add obstacles like contaminated needles for them to jump over. Best of all: you could still hold it in Vancouver in 2010 since that’s pretty much what it’s like downtown already!

RIFF-RAFF@SYMPATICO.CA