Like Andrew, I do have to note that the public shaming of 23-year-old Michael Phelps for the sin of getting caught smoking marijuana is entirely ridiculous. You have to love that the Times article makes sure to note that he was inhaling -- not just a Clintonian half-smoke. I recall our current president opining on the issue, when asked if he had inhaled:
I did. It's not something I'm proud of. It was a mistake as a young man. But I never understood [Clinton's] line. The point was to inhale. That was the point.
The point indeed. Phelps, who also ran into some trouble with a DUI at age nineteen, won't lose his ability to compete but could lose millions of dollars in endorsements. It speaks to a nice double-standard on the corporate front: Been drunk driving in the past? That's cool. Picture of you smoking pot? No sir! While I'm not sure I'd encourage Phelps to pull the full Bode Miller, who never apologized for his willingness to "party and socialize at an Olympic level," it would have been nice for him to say, well, something more like this.
On the whole role model front -- think of the children! -- I guess I'd ask this: How many of the impressionable young people who take their behavioral cues from an athlete, famous for two months and famous again for two months four years from now, would even know that Phelps smoked pot if the press hadn't turned some British tabloid's one-off into a national story? Not even to mention that the whole role model interpretation relies on a somewhat misguided view of how dumb teenagers are and what really influences them. But it's much easier to blame a single athlete than consider the failure of our public policy approach to recreational drug use and the major changes that might actually lessen the actual "abuse" of drugs and the various negative externalities that accompany the current model.
-- Tim Fernholz
P.S. Yes I'm referencing this.
