Bonghits and steroids! Twin towers of scandal! First, Michael Phelps is photographed taking a bonghit at a party in Maryland. Then, A-Rod is found to have tested positive for steroids in 2003.

About Phelps: I don't blame Phelps' sponsors for being upset or for dropping him. When you accept millions of dollars of corporate money to do nothing other than endorse someone's products, you're basically selling your right to act as you choose. Phelps should feel lucky he doesn't have to give the money back.

On the other hand, I think it's incredible that USA Swimming has banned Phelps for three months. What is the reasoning behind this? Certainly, nobody thinks that doing bonghits gives Phelps a competitive advantage in the pool. What right does this agency have to police the recreational drug habits of athletes?

The double standard between alcohol and marijuana consumption is really amazing.  If Michael Phelps were seen drinking at a party, it wouldn't be news. It wouldn't even be much news if he were seen publicly intoxicated. But because smoking pot is illegal, Phelps has to be contrite and apologetic. If he were downing a six-pack a day everybody would be fine with it. Binge drinking certainly wouldn't get him banned from USA Swimming, but smoking pot in between competitions does. 

I grew up in a town where people caught possessing less than an ounce of marijuana were subject to a $5 fine (coincidentally or not, this is the same town where Phelps now resides). If illegality is our sole basis for condoning or condemning one another's behavior, does that mean that Phelps would have to be less apologetic if he were caught in Ann Arbor than in Alabama? At what point does someone who gets wasted every night at the bar get banned from competing or dropped by a sponsor? What would it have to take? Even when Phelps was caught drinking and driving a few years ago, there wasn't nearly as much of an uproar as there is now. Would you have to kill someone first for people to care?

Be honest: how many times have you seen people drink too much and then get aggressive, start fights, get crazy, or exercise extremely poor judgment? I have seen an incredible amount of unpleasant, even dangerous, behavior that was caused in part by drinking, and I don't think I'm at all unique in that respect. And while I've been around a lot of stoners who got stupid or lethargic and were prone to attacks of the munchies and sleepiness, I never once felt threatened by them or saw them get aggressive with anybody. The people screaming at one another or pushing each other in the parking lot outside the bar at two-thirty in the morning are much more of a risk to themselves and others than two Dorito-munching stoners sitting in front of the TV.  No question, I would much rather deal with a jock like Phelps after he's done a few bonghits than one who's blitzed on Coors.

Yet most Americans would prefer to see young people get wasted on beer than take a hit of weed, just because smoking pot is illegal. And that, I think, is pretty messed up.  

As for the A-Rod story, I think it's really a crime that the players taking steroids are considered to be bad guys while Major Leage Baseball as an institution has gotten off scott-free. Is it really possible that people like commissioner Bud Selig had no idea that Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire, Roger Clemens and others were on steroids back in the late 1990s? The use of steroids was banned in baseball in 1991, but there was no testing for them until 2003, and no penalties for a positive test until 2004. Why should anyone be surprised that people would take them?

The truth is, sportswriters and Major League Baseball didn't seem all that concerned about steroids until it became clear that Barry Bonds was going to break Hank Aaron's home run record. Really, if it weren't for the fact that an unfriendly and obnoxious (not to mention African-American) figure like Bonds emerged as our new home run king, we might still have baseball's version of don't-ask don't-tell with regard to steroids.

In my opinion, the folks who were really victimized by the steroids era in baseball were players, particularly the non-superstars, who were forced to choose between their health and their careers. How many players struggling to make it into or stay in the major leagues felt they had to use steroids just to compete with people who were using? Granted, this list doesn't include folks like Bonds, Roger Clemens, and McGuire, but still. Major League Baseball as an institution has failed miserably. It's failed the fans, it's failed its own players, and it's failed the sport. So how is it that Bud Selig still has a job? And why is it just Alex Rodriguez who is forced to answer the difficult questions?  

America has a really perverse relationship with drugs. We're one of the most doped-out countries on the planet, but only the use of certain types of drugs will invite public scorn. Cindy McCain stole Percocet and Vicodin from her charity in the 1990s and it was basically a non-issue in the presidential campaign. What if it had come out that Michelle Obama had been busted for smoking pot fifteen years ago? Steroids, meanwhile, used to be one of the "okay" drugs that nobody cared much about. Even after they were banned in baseball their use was still viewed with such little seriousness that players weren't tested for thirteen years. But now, using steroids is considered one of the worst things an athlete can do (unless, of course, you happen to play in the NFL, the NBA, or the NHL, where steroid use isn't nearly as big a deal as it is in baseball now).

Over the past two weeks, a lot of sanctimonious words have been written about Phelps and Rodriguez, and both of these figures are solely responsible for bringing these problems upon themselves. But really, there's just way too much BS surrounding policies and attitudes relating to drugs in the US right now, and I found the public reaction to both of these scandals an unpleasant reminder of this.