TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Olympic great Michael Phelps has acknowledged ”regrettable” behavior and ”bad judgment” after a photo in a British newspaper showed him smoking marijuana.

In a statement released to The Associated Press, the swimmer who won a record eight gold medals at the Beijing Games conceded the authenticity of the exclusive picture published Sunday by the tabloid News of the World.

Phelps said: ”I engaged in behavior which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment. I’m 23 years old and despite the successes I’ve had in the pool, I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner people have come to expect from me. For this, I am sorry. I promise my fans and the public it will not happen again.”

via Phelps Apologizes for Marijuana Use – NYTimes.com.

Youthful and inappropriate.  Childish things, as our president might say.  ”It will not happen again.”  Not to get all Clintonian on you, Mike, but does “it” refer to “smoking marijuana” or does “it” refer to “photos surfacing in newspapers showing you smoking marijuana”?

I’ll never understand the mindset that accepts as rational the idea that these world class athletes – Michael Phelps, Ricky Williams, Ross Rebagliati, those Russian sumo, etc. - can dedicate their entire lives to eating right, working out, honing their bodies and minds to the pinnacle of their sport, but should they wish to relax and unwind, they’re forced to ingest a hard liquid drug that has noticably deleterious effects on health and athletic ability (Max McGee notwithstanding) rather than a mild herb that doesn’t seem to  have affected their abilities whatsoever.

Even more perplexing is the notion that, in the name of “sports medicine”, these athletes are accustomed to taking all manner of narcotic pain killers and other pharmaceutical cocktails that aid performance or mitigate injury, but are addicting (Brett Favre, *cough*,) and wreak havoc on the liver and kidneys, yet if we catch them smoking weed we have to mete out severe punishment (Santonio Holmes, notwithstanding).

As I look at the coverage on Huffington Post (admittedly, a liberal website) almost all comments are “it’s well past time to legalize it” and “so what” and “didn’t hurt Phelps’ performance any”.  Oh, an Obama brother pot bust and an eight-time gold medalist bong photo following ten days of growing drumbeat over President Obama’s non-response to the Tahoe Raid… somebody really did get me a swell birthday present!

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UPDATE: Based on reporting from a Stasher in the Comments, it seems the Rachel Morningstar Hoffman story will air on Dateline NBC this Friday, Jan 23, at 10pm ET.  Unless, of course, a plane lands in a river. — “R”R

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Download the NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2009-01-12

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Wow, I got the Stash in with one minute to spare!  What do you suppose the chances are of that?  (Uh, zero, since I modified the post date.  But I wouldn’t want to mess up the RSS feed for Tuesday, would I?)

Today’s Stash features a two-part interview with former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper who was kind enough to talk at length about Barack Obama’s lack of response to the Change.gov questions on legalization, and why cops are saying yes to the formerly unthinkable “L”-word.

And now, I go off to bed to make some more platelets.  ’Night!

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State’s offbeat moments lightened year :
State and Regional News : Knoxville News Sentinel
In McMinnville, [Tennessee,] police in May said they arrested a man who misdialed and ordered marijuana from a sheriff’s deputy.

Investigators said Deputy Jason Rowland answered his cell phone and someone asked if he had any “smoke.” Rowland played along and the caller ordered $40 worth of marijuana.

The buyer showed up and police charged him with solicitation of drug sales.

Misdialing your dealer and getting the police isn’t stupid,  it’s unlucky.  But calling a cell phone number to order weed in the first place, that’s stupid.  Every call you make is not only a log of who ordered what from whom and at what time, but also a triangulated position of everyone involved in the call.  And cell signals are pretty easy to intercept even without a warrant.

Naw, I changed my mind.  It’s stupid, period.  Even if you are making this ill-advised call, you don’t use some sort of code and identify the person you are speaking with first?  Bad form.

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