You would think that with all of the recent media hoopla covering professional athletes who smoke a bit of the doobage in their downtime, that a correlation between a rash of recent criminal activity must be associated with all of these high-paid potheads.
I mean, historically, ganja and crime go together like oil and water.
Last week, two NBA rookies, Mario Chalmers of the Miami Heat and Darrell Arthur of the Memphis Grizzlies made the news because of their involvement with two girls and a nonexistent bag of weed.
Mario Chalmers is the kid who, five months ago, tossed up a buzzer-beating three-pointer against Memphis that hit nothing but net and sent the Kansas Jayhawks into overtime in the 2008 NCAA Men’s Championship game. Kansas would eventually win the game and the national title.
Last week, Chalmers and Arthur attended the NBA Rookie Transition Program in Rye Brook, New York. The NBA symposium is required of all newcomers entering the league and focuses on issues such as handling finances, life skills, the importance of character and image, dealing with the media and legal matters.
According to reports, around 2 a.m., there was a knock on Arthur’s hotel room door. It was hotel management responding to a smoke alarm that had gone off in Arthur’s room. When he opened the door, reports say management noticed the smell of marijuana emanating from the room. Arthur refused to let management enter, so security was brought in. When they entered Arthur’s room, they found two girls, no pot and no paraphernalia; just the “scent of marijuana.”
David Stern, current commissioner of the NBA, apparently flipped his lid. More than one witness described him as being furious. He kicked both of the rookies out of the seminar, requiring them to return next season to complete the course and fining them $20,000 each. An impending suspension now looms over both of their heads.
In a statement that was released by Chalmers he said, “About the marijuana, I didn’t have any,” he told The Commercial Appeal. “I didn’t have anything to do with marijuana or anything like that… I used bad judgment by bringing girls in and violating rules. It was a bad mistake. I’m not a bad kid or anything. I just put myself in a bad situation. I want to apologize to the GM, the owner and all the fans. You won’t hear my name in anything like this from here on out. It’ll be straight and narrow from here.”
Our government’s infatuation with cannabis sativa is egregious, and its stance needs to be softened. Can anyone of us see a group of seven-foot multi-millionaire men, baked out of their gourds, running amok in society, knocking over 7-Elevens across the country, stealing Twinkies and slushy machines, and raping and pillaging along their merry way?
Of course not. It’s ludicrous.
One fan’s post summed up what most of the posts on the NBA.com message board seemed to convey: “If the man is doing his job, legally considered an adult and isn’t harming anyone but himself… get over it! Let the kid smoke a J in the privacy of his own home and then just go ball.”