Three months after he won eight gold medals in Beijing, Michael Phelps was photographed sucking on a bong, allegedly smoking marijuana, which got him suspended for a few months. This week, Phelps said he struggled with depression, after the Olympics and at one point “didn’t want to be alive anymore.”
Back in 2016, Anthony Papa of the Drug Policy Alliance, used Phelps as a poster child of someone who uses recreational drugs, with no problems.
“Michael Phelps is an American hero who proved to the world that people who smoke or have smoked marijuana can be functional and successful in their lives,” said Papa writing in a HuffPost blog. ” … Maybe the record 28 medals he has won will lead the way to a change in the way people think about recreational drug use.”
Talk about smoke on the water.
For some time now, doctors have warned that smoking pot with today’s high THC levels can cause mental illness, depression, and psychosis.
So don’t take at face value the “happy highs with no downside,” of recreational marijuana. Whatever troubles Michael Phelps has encountered in life, weed didn’t make it better and might have made it considerably worse.
Take a lesson from the “if it feels good do it” crowd — they’re mostly dead or having flashbacks in nursing homes — and ignore the “legalize” crowd, “the war on drugs is lost” crowd, the “harm reduction” nebbishes and so on. They don’t necessarily have your best interests at heart.
