by Charlie Jaworski

Created on: February 09, 2009

This has become so overblown by the media, based on a photo, which if used in a court of law would not be enough to convict him of a crime. I feel like sometimes the media would rather have a scandal on their hands, no matter how minor, no matter what cost to the person involved, no matter how squeaky clean this person was until the scandal hit. To the media it's a scoop and they seem to pounce on these types of stories no matter how minor a lot of us think they may be, simply because it brings in ratings for them. Happy stories don't bring in near the ratings that a good scandal does

This obviously didn't affect him positively or negatively during his Olympic run last summer. If it had been steroids, or something addictive and destructive like cocaine, meth or heroin, I could see this as being a problem. But honestly, I would bet there aren't many 23-24 year olds who haven't tried marijuana at some point or another. Not to mention, to just lump this in with every other drug on the planet, most of which do destroy lives and are extremely addictive, is preposterous in itself. I wouldn't go so far to claim that marijuana is harmless, but compared to all the other drugs it is unfortunately categorized with, marijuana isn't even close.

I personally feel bad for the guy. Considering he's dedicated his entire life to becoming the best swimmer in the world, possibly the best to ever exist. He used a $1 million bonus check he received from Speedo to start the Michael Phelps foundation, which promotes water safety and youth swimming, in the hopes of inspiring young people to pursue their dreams and set goals for themselves in and out of the pool. To take away from that based on a picture of him having one minor blip of bad judgement is unfair and unjust. Nobody is perfect, whether it's world class athletes, religious leaders, politicians, not even the pope himself. The only thing people can do is learn from their mistakes. Considering the amount of goodwill and all the positive things Mr. Phelps has done in his life, I believe these far outweigh the mistakes he's made as a young man.

I do agree with the 3 month suspension upheld by USA Swimming, as I believe the punishment does fit in this instance. In my opinion, that would probably be the standard response by any sports governing body with respect to this violation. But for Kellogg's to relinquish their endorsement deal over this incident? That's a little harsh (no pun intended) in my book. The ironic twist is the announcement by NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) and it's members to boycott Kellogg's products. Their products are not limited to just cereal either. They include Pop Tarts, Cheez-Its, Keebler's Cookies, Eggo Frozen Waffles and Famous Amos Cookies, among others. I don't know about you, but when I think of "munchies", these foods are definitely high on the list. I'm not sure, but a boycott of this magnitude could do some serious damage to their profit margin if this catches on. I think Subway made the right choice in keeping their endorsement deal with him based on that alone.

In all seriousness, I think too many Americans should be more focused the "real" problems our country is facing, rather than keeping tabs on every little celebrity scandal. If we quit paying attention to some of this drivel the news media likes to cram down our throats, maybe they won't be as inclined to retort to this type of journalism in the future and concentrate more on what we should be worried about. Like our current economic crisis, rising unemployment, home foreclosures, and the situation in the middle east.

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