He is a 14-time gold medalist, a fixture of every girl's sex fantasies and a face of international swimming. But is Michael Phelps also a marijuana user? Yeah, Phelps was caught smoking pot at the University of South Carolina (a University with really interesting media coverage. First, the racist dudes in Borat, now this? They look really good right now). Some people I know, who are friends of hashish, set their Facebook statuses to: "Support Phelps, win one for marijuana." I stopped and thought: Win one for marijuana? What does that even mean?
I just have to assume marijuana is losing. It is an illegal substance, but that's because there is definitive proof that if you try it, you will die, right?
Oh, wait, no, there's not.
The research on marijuana, which was banned in the Union States in 1937, goes both ways. A Duke study conducted a year ago found that marijuana use is linked to gum disease. In a 2003 study, the University of California San Diego reported no long-term mental harm associated with prolonged marijuana usage. A 2008 Ohio State University study discovered marijuana may indirectly reduce memory impairment. In 2006, University of California at Los Angeles researchers said marijuana does not lead to lung cancer.
So the research is remarkably inconsistent. Yet it's the most commonly used recreational drug in the United States, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Our parents loved weed in the 60s, but then they started to hate it again. What gives? Now "definitive" studies are being published to prove marijuana is bad. Look at any drug control Web site and the statistics are alarming. For example, the Greater Dallas Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse lists statistics that include the risk of a heart attack is five times higher than usual in the hour after smoking marijuana, and that the risk of using cocaine is 104 times higher if you have tried marijuana. Therefore, marijuana is evil.
But other drugs, such as tobacco (with 5.4 million deaths per year worldwide) and OxyContin or Vicodin (which, together, claim a higher death rate than illegal hard drugs, like cocaine) are still legal with some age or prescription restrictions.
The same can be said about alcohol: what's the difference between a drunk driver and a stoned driver?
The drunk driver runs through the stop sign and the stoned driver waits for it to turn green.
But I digress.
So is marijuana bad for you? Probably. Is it worse for your health than abusing already legal drugs? Probably not. So why is marijuana illegal? My guess is that marijuana activists are too stoned to work hard to get it legalized. Oh well. I could care less either way.
Should Phelps have his gold medals, sponsorship deals and international love revoked? Psh, he's a 23 year-old American who has spent the greater part of his life training for glory, let him live a little.
Drew Everson is a Trinity sophomore. His column runs every other Friday.
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