I am absolutely disgusted at the treatment Michael Phelps has received after being photographed smoking marijuana. First, forced to make a humiliating public apology, then suspended for three months by USA swimming.
Half of Americans use marijuana. Far more than half have tried it. I have smoked it. President Obama has smoked it. Ex-President Bush has smoked it. Is this a felony for which people should be punished with prison?
Anyone with half a brain will notice that smoking marijuana didn't stop Michael Phelps from being the best swimmer in human history - arguably the best athlete on Planet Earth. Richard Feynman, probably the smartest physicist of the 20th century, smoked marijuana, so it doesn't stop you from being a Nobel-winning genius either. And California, where "medical marijuana" has decriminalized the drug in all but name, has not appeared to suffer.
Marijuana is a weak drug; the effects are less mind-altering and disabling than alcohol. Marijuana is also less addictive than alcohol, and cannot cause death from overdose. And yet not only do we humiliate normal Americans who use this weak recreational drug, we throw many of them in prison. This is a waste of national resources and a gross violation of individual liberty.
William F. Buckley, one of the architects of modern conservatism, used his final column in the National Review to urge America to legalize marijuana. So this is an issue on which liberals and libertarian conservatives agree. It is time to end the prohibition on marijuana, and live up to our moniker of the "Land of the Free."
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