The Buzz gets no satisfaction player hating those who regularly spark the leaf. But we’re in favor of a just application of the law when it comes to marijuana. As Stanton Peele writes in today’s Wall Street Journal, “Arrest Michael Phelps!”—unless the kid glove, superstar treatment is going to be applied equally to African Americans arrested every day for blessing the herbal sacrament.
Kudos to the normally staid Journal for taking on the racial double-standard that clouds an otherwise peripheral controversy surrounding Phelps, the Olympic champion turned corporate spokesmodel, and a justice system that somehow allows Wall Street swindlers to walk while a severely disproportionate number of African Americans are serving prison time when their only crime is being like Mike.