After swimmer Michael Phelps won a drawer full of Olympic gold, he signed a deal with Kellogg’s to promote Frosted Flakes. Stupid move. Tens of millions of parents know that Frosted Flakes make their kids bounce off the friggin’ walls. Part of this healthy breakfast, my ass. All Phelps had to do was align himself with brands selling healthy living and he could have smoked the finest Maui Wowee, in Maui, for the rest of his life. Anyway, Phelps got caught doing bong hits. A smart handler would have used the opportunity to strengthen the Phelps brand. “Michael is obsessed with fitness. He doesn’t drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. He regrets using an illegal herbal drug for relaxation. He is now exploring yoga and other alternatives. He encourages his millions of fans to learn from his mistake, as he has.” Let the Mary Jane debate begin! Anyway, Phelps signed a million dollar deal with Mazda to promote the brand in China. (Huh?) When the swimmer got busted, they somehow convinced him to make this entirely bogus, po-faced apology. It manages to make both Phelps AND Mazda look stupid. Yes?
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I think the whole thing is fairly stupid. He was drug tested while in the Olympics, so he obviously wasn’t using then (not that I can imagine any way in which pot would be a performance enhancing drug), and he managed to train harder than any other swimmer in the years leading up to the Olympics, so, even if he was toking, it obviously didn’t hurt him any.
Phelps promoting Mazda in China is odd as it is, but this is just ridiculous.
I wish they’d lay off Phelps. If anyone should be allowed to take a hit off a bong, it should be a guy that won a shitload of gold medals.
Does he have apologies for each country?
I just don’t see why this is that big of a deal…
I mean we respect him for his athletic ability not his recreational habits, right?
I have read that Phelps eats 12,000 calories a day when he is in training. Having had a couple of swimmers growing up in my house, I believe it. Swimmers don’t follow the same diets that starlets and fashion models recommend in the newspapers*. They can’t.
I was happy to see the Frosted Flakes endorsement. At least it was real. And I don’t care if Phelps does what other kids his age do at parties. It is none of my business.
* The real Hollywood diet of cigarettes, amphetamines, laxatives and ipecac is also out of the question.
Yeesh
This is not car related, but I am going to come out of my swimming retirement and beat Michael Phelps.
I’ll start right now by promising each and every one of my endorsements that I never have and never will smoke pot.
I want to be on the “Wheaties” box. With the caption, “I came, I saw, I smoked my competition. And nothing else!”
Now there’s that little training issue to get over, and I’ll have it all sewn up!
Remember that article here at TTAC about the execution vans in China? Well….I’m sure it wasn’t Mazda China that makes him apologize. Its the Chinese government I’m sure. Don’t do it, and the bus pulls up to Phelps’ house.
You know the Chinese could get big bucks selling his organs….
I’ve heard from friends that know friends of Phelps at UM that he’s a complete douche (yes, that’s MSM calibre sources there).
That being said, what bothers me more than him toking is that everyone makes him apologize for toking, when – let’s get real here – he’s obviously only sorry he got caught. I don’t know why this is such a newsworthy item. People think he’s the first college athlete to ever hit a bong? Really? If it wasn’t plastered all over the news no kids would have learned of his “negative influence”. Instead the MSM makes a big deal and he’s forced to give a fake apology.
Will the real news please stand up?
Back to cars: Phelps in a Demio (aka 2) strikes me as quite funny.
Legalize it already. As Adam Carolla says, pot isn’t any worse than that S’mores cereal that Kellogg’s sells as a daily breakfast item for kids!
I don’t think his Chinese deal has a chance of survival and he better not make good on his promise to “return to China soon.”
China is taking a very dim view on drug use. Dealers, foreign or not, often get the death sentence.
As far as China goes, the Mazda deal never happened. China Daily writes today: “Phelps didn’t get through the scandal unscathed, though. USA Swimming suspended Phelps for three months in the wake of the photo, and Kellogg Co. said it would not renew its endorsement deal with him.” Mazda? Never heard of it.
Remember, in the US you’re excused of just about anything—possibly excepting communism—as long as you find Jesus afterwards. Is there a similar psychosocial “get out of jail free card” in China?
Oh c’mon.
It’s not that big of a deal. He’s a beast.
They execute MARIJUANA dealers in China?
That sounds made up.
However, that would explain why it’s so hard to find bud last time I was there. (I keed I keed)
qusus:
there are ‘several’ countries where drug trafficking is sentenced by death…
I imagine that dealing / possession of a significant amount of weed would get you a very tough sentence.
for a foreigner – not the death penalty
but for a local peasant – probably yes.
They execute MARIJUANA dealers in China?
Several countries, whether because they want to suck up to normalize policy the US (like, say, the Phillipines, or because they view drug use as a threat to controlthrough internalising morality (China) have very stiff penalties.
And yes, death is not unheard of, though foreign nationals usually get extradited or imprisoned, unless the drug charge is just a way to get rid of what the authority views as a subversive or irritating person.
While it’s not really a valid statistical correlation, it is interesting that the countries that score the highest in quality of life measures tend to have the most lenient social policies when it comes to substance use, sexuality and relative morality, preferring treatment and openness to punitive measures and control.
psarhjinian:
Countries with a high quality of life tend to be wealthy countries. Governments of wealthy countries realize they can institute policies that concentrate a large degree of wealth, power, and influence among a small group of statist elites without large objection from a populace otherwise engaged or pacified by their recreational pursuits.
Makes me wonder why the USA hasn’t liberalized their substances policies long ago.
Countries with a high quality of life tend to be wealthy countries. Governments of wealthy countries realize they can institute policies that concentrate a large degree of wealth, power, and influence among a small group of statist elites without large objection from a populace otherwise engaged or pacified by their recreational pursuits.
Yes, that would be the “Virtuous Poor” image that people use to justify marginalizing poor people as lazy, stupid or morally bankrupt, instead of unlucky or, well, actively screwed. It’s a nice mythology, and only a step or two above the “natural order” philosophies of used to justify the inherent superiority of an aristocracy.
Last time I looked, drugs are abused as escapist measures much like alcohol or, quite frankly, television. This is why uncontrolled abuse (as opposed to controlled or theraputic use) is so rampant among the poor.
I think you need to examine what people are trying to escape.
Makes me wonder why the USA hasn’t liberalized their substances policies long ago.
Because going back on the War On Drugs means both dismantling a huge, cumbersome legal and enforcement machine that’s staffed by people with a vested interest in that not happening, and admitting that, basically, a half-century of propaganda is wrong.
Drug abuse is a legitimate problem, but it’s really a public health issue, not a Law and Order one. Addicts are sick and need treatment, not evil and in need of incarceration. Treat them, get the addiction controlled, break the cycle and the criminal industry that leeches off them goes away.
Phelps looks stoned as hell in this little video.
But he obviously hasn’t been too much of a stoner
or his lungs would be shot.
these guys are held to impossibly high standards.
did he or did he not cause the Star Spangled Banner
to be played on foreign soil?
these guys are held to impossibly high standards.
did he or did he not cause the Star Spangled Banner
to be played on foreign soil?
Not only are the standards high, but they’re relative. Western Europe doesn’t give a shit, Canada** is mildly amused, the US disturbed and East Asia horrified.
Of course, professional athletic associations have been turning a blind eye, if not actively encouraging, much more harmful drug use in the form of steroids and doping agents. Where’s the War On Roids?
** I remember when Ross Rebagliati—the Canadian freestyle snowboarder—tested positive for marijuana use. My thought, at the time, was this: “He’s a snowboarder from British Columbia. I’d be concerned if he tested negative”. Most people here thought the same. Of course, the IOC and the Japanese at Nagano had a different view and he was stripped of his medal. It was, sensibly, overturned as we’re not exactly talking performance-enhancing drugs, here.
It may not be considered performance enhancing, but I always snowboard better after. It should be pointed out that none of these companies had a problem with his DUI, a crime that actually endangered other people. A boycott has been started over this: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article5708830.ece
Even more interesting is the story of the founder of the cereal company, Harvey Kellogg, a raving lunatic. Google his name, his story is crazier than you can imagine.
Minor quibble, psar: I believe Rebagliati competed in a snowboard slalom event, not freestyle. Nagano was the first Olympics in which snowboarding made an appearance, but freestyle wasn’t included until a later Games.
This whole Phelps thing is ridiculous. The attitude of Americans to minor drug use and exposed nipples is so overwrought it is funny. Meanwhile, you can watch dozens of violent acts on network TV between 7-10pm every night.
A smart handler would have used the opportunity to strengthen the Phelps brand. “Michael is obsessed with fitness. He doesn’t drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes…”
The problem with this suggestion that is by all accounts Phelps is a major boozer.
Minor quibble, psar: I believe Rebagliati competed in a snowboard slalom event, not freestyle.
Yep, you’re right. My bad.
It should be pointed out that none of these companies had a problem with his DUI, a crime that actually endangered other people.
That’s true, and a very good point. We overlook DUI far too often, probably because a lot of powerful people do it. As far as I’m concerned, a DUI should mean automatic, instant jail time and a corresponding criminal record.
Note that I don’t actually smoke. I sincerely wish I could, but it makes me ill. Which, truthfully, puts a real kink in my being a artsy commie hippie pinko, and is probably the reason I really suck at snowboarding.
Rosetta Stoned should be apologizing to Phelps and the people of China for not producing a product capable of enabling him to offer such an apology in Chinese.
And yeah try a 12000 calorie a day diet without the munchies, weed is performance enhancing to him at least.