Scripting News - Latest Comments in Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

Jeff — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:54:08 -0000

The problem with your arguement is that this in fact was Michael Phelps second chance. First the DUI at 19, now the pot at 23. That shows a trend in his character. While I will agree that he is young and will make mistakes, Kellogg did the right thing by dropping him as a sponsor. To do anything differently would be condoning the action and saying to the youth of America, many of whom eat Kellogg cereal, that it's okay to smoke pot and drive drunk as long as you win 9 gold medals.

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

steve ross — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:40:03 -0000

The press release was the problem for me, they could have said nothing. they didnt have to notify every reporter they had a micheal phelps bong statement. They are not concered about disapointing the kids or exposing them to marijuana, if that was the case they would have just let the contract run out and not made a bid deal out of it. They held a press conference to get publicity, they think a strong anti drug stance makes their company seem wholsome. I could care less about micheal phelps but this company just made a public stance against marijuana, i have to concider them the enemy.

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

nwankama — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 19:26:17 -0000

Everyone needs a second chance. Michael Phelps should learn from his mistakes and be allowed to move on (Nwankama).

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

The Log Maker — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 06:09:08 -0000

His only mistake was getting so stoned that he didn't notice someone take the photo :)

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

Scheister — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 04:03:47 -0000

The problem is bad publicity=loss of revenue, and that is simply all they wish to avoid. Parents buy the kellogs cereals for their kids and they dont want their kids smoking dope (even if they did when they were young). I do agree with your points though and a nice alternative would be to add a bong to mikes hand and make a new product - Hemp Flakes. Brilliant!

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

Dank — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:19:39 -0000

Nice thoughtful post,

I personally was disappointed that Phelps did not tell the world to mind their own business. I have never had to endure that much public scrutiny but the whole "I'm contrite, please forgive me.." shtick is not going to change anything.

No one stands up for what they believe, they DO what they believe, but then they apologize for it after.

It changes nothing but our tolerance for apologies.

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

Jim Kerney — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 08:23:22 -0000

Very well said, but you didn't convince me not to boycott Kellogg and tell others to boycott at every opportunity.

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

Yule Heibel — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 01:30:15 -0000

I was glad I could use my Massachusetts absentee ballot to vote in favor of decriminalizing minor possession of marijuana in that state. OTOH, I'm also a Canadian citizen and live in British Columbia's capital city, Victoria, where I can inhale first hand the effects of living in 'marijuana export central.'

We have pretty relaxed laws about pot smoking here. One of our recently-elected city councilors, Philippe Lucas, is "the founder and director of the Vancouver Island Compassion Society, a Canadian non-profit therapeutic cannabis research and distribution center; and founder of Canadians for Safe Access, the nation's largest medicinal cannabis patients rights organization."

It's, like, no big deal that a marijuana advocate is a city councilor.

Nearly 7 years after my return to BC, I find I'm a bit at odds with this. When I live in the US, I'm in favor of liberalizing drugs laws; strangely enough, though, when I live in Canada (BC in particular), I get a little conservative around these issues.

At the end of the day, I think I'm against the zealots - the people who get all religious about the issue, whether it's pro or con marijuana use. Being over-zealous about usage (of anything, really) gets you off the rails as easily as anything. For example, my daughter's gr.12 Biology teacher is rabidly anti-nicotine. The other day he told his class in all seriousness that if they're ever offered the choice between nicotine or heroin, they should choose the heroin. That's just whacked, if you ask me.

Bottom line: it's not a good idea to get so bent out of shape about cigarettes that you give grade 12 pupils the "advice" to "choose" heroin because you think nicotine is so evil, and (this is to Americans), by the same token, don't get so crazy about being anti-pot that you're willing practically to bankrupt state economies to keep jails going or to eviscerate an entire generation of youth in some crazy quest to extirpate pot smokers.

To the legalization advocates, I'd say take a look at this Tyee article (from Vancouver), "A cost-benefit analysis of BC gang warfare" (http://tinyurl.com/dyzbqf) - growing marijuana is a booming piece of the economy (at least of our economy here in BC). Some might say, "make it all legal and all will be well," but I see our hundreds of addicted street people daily here in the city, and while they're not in the mess they're in because they're pot-smokers, it's also not the case anymore that the pot you buy these days is the harmless stuff I smoked as a teen. Precisely because it is such a big piece of the economy, there's a huge incentive to maximize its effects, to use additives, to augment it in whatever way so that the high is higher, the buzz buzzier. A window-sill pot plant of your very own is not going to be a "gateway" drug, but some of the stuff coming out of BC's pot industry might well be. The point of it is to get you into stuff that has even more profits attached to it - crack cocaine, heroin, etc. That's where there's even more money to be made. So on the legalization question, you have to ask, 'where do you stop?' Does everything become legal? In which case why have laws that interdict selling cigarettes or alcohol to minors? Simply legalizing pot isn't going to take the incentive away from growers who "design" their product to be potent beyond what the plant in its natural state could achieve.

And if anyone suggests a government regulatory agency to oversee the 'purity' of pot, like an FDA for hemp, then please kill me now. I've had it with government oversight - remember, I live in Canada (not that any government agency here does such a stellar job of oversight, but that's another issue...).

Maybe people should have to get licenses to grow pot for personal use, but not more. <jk> That might address the problem of industrial scale grow-op production...? ;-)

The Tyee article, which I referenced above, focuses on the ineffectiveness of anti-marijuana laws and offers the following information on the scope of the industry's role in the BC economy:
QUOTE
...the marijuana industry, which now, according to one reliable source, creates 5 percent of the B.C. gross domestic product, employing 150,000 British Columbians.

Marijuana, most of it exported to the United States, generates $6 billion a year in wealth. By comparison, B.C. forestry and logging totalled $2.96 billion in 2007.
UNQUOTE
Not exactly chicken feed... Not exactly a simple problem.

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

Bill — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 23:06:25 -0000

No way boycott Kellogg’s let them know you are doing it. Tell them to stop supporting the propaganda and lies of prohibition.

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

mike halwa — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 10:06:36 -0000

Alcohol is legal but pot is illegal? What a joke. Alcohol causes far more problems in society and is not only legal but glamorized. Time to stop the hypocrisy people. If Barry Bonds and A-Rod can take steroids and be overpaid superstars that openly lie about it then Michael Phelps can certainly smoke some pot.

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

Phil Windley — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:44:50 -0000

Sorry Dave, not buying this one.

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

Joshua Francis Whalen — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 18:55:59 -0000

You know, it's extra-absurd to still have these silly laws on the books in our current situation.

Hemp was a staple crop of virtually every civilization on earth until DuPont developed Nylon back in the 20's and began lobbying for it to be outlawed, because hemp fiber was the only natural fiber that competed effectively with their new product, and had superior resistance to UV degradation as well. With help from the oil industry, a massive propaganda campaign led to the marijuana tax act and the establishment of the DEA under DuPont's son-in-law, Harry J. Anslinger.

A single hemp crop can produce, from the same plant:
ethanol, methanol, fiber (for rope or cloth, both bio-degradable), paper, oil (for cooking and bio-diesel), and medicine. Not to mention recreational uses. For all but it's drug value, it can be grown in the worst of soils, and for all but it's drug and food uses, would be an excellent way to detoxify brown fields, a major environmental headache.

The drug application is a (ahem!) smokescreen. The real reason it's unlawful is that it competes with too many of the oil-chemical industry's products, and is in most cases superior.

Heck, we're all geeks on this bus! This good technology, going to waste (no pun intended) while we're drowning in the waste of the oil-chemical economy. Why aren't we all making more of a stink about this (myself included in said criticism), when we have the loudest voice on the planet right about now. We can out-shout the print media, and within a year to two years, I predict, we'll be stronger than tv, too.

Meanwhile, remember when this was funny:

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

We've all grown up a lot since then, of course, but this was something of a national pass time in those days, and I think it's worth noting that a majority of today's leaders and innovators indulged quite a bit in the days. We've all been conspicuously silent on this for way too long. It's not about getting high like when we were kids, it's about doing what makes sense: taking advantage of one of our most valuable resources to solve our most pressing problems.

Thanks, Dave, for bringing this up.

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

Fleebler — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 18:41:34 -0000

wait, what? i am not a fan of either man, but what laws (specifically) did they break? do you have any evidence to substantiate the notion that they are criminals who ought to be arrested?

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

kathleen — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 18:08:16 -0000

Kellogg's has bigger things to worry about. Their product is counter-trend. aka, part of our national obesity problem. So Phelps indulged in recreational pot...what would be worse for him is if he ate gobs of corn flakes.

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

malatmals — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 12:27:04 -0000

Here's my attempt at a mashed up new box cover for a new cereal, Marley Flakes.

http://www.flickr.com/photo...

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

achernow — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 12:25:15 -0000

Heh. I don't think they should have dropped him. I mean, come on, he's 23. That's what most kids that age are doing...or at least the ones I hung out with anyway. I haven't myself, but only because I'm very sensitive to any kind of smoke. And frankly, I don't care if friends smoke pot. I'd only be worried if they were using harder drugs.

Oh..and I had a friend who complemented Mr. Phelps on his choice of bongs.

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

dave — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:54:09 -0000

Okay then I assume it's okay with you if we send the FBI to arrest Bush and
Cheney. The law is the law.

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

Klark — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 08:12:17 -0000

No one is perfect. True. But what he did was illegal. I understand you want the law changed... but the law is the law.

(I've never smoked pot)

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

MissM — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 08:09:04 -0000

The local police in South Carolina are pursuing prosecution. Info here http://www.charlotteobserve... I definitely agree with Dave about the dichotomy between the convictions of war crimes vs. drugs.

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

ickledot — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 02:57:57 -0000

I agree. Kellogg's could have boxed much cleverer on his one.
Trouble is, I don't particularly like any of their products. And anyway, it's cold. Eat porridge.

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

Mat — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 01:46:13 -0000

As a parent of a stepchild who has gone through the hell--and financial expense--of trying to reduce a drug sentence when his child was caught smoking pot by the authorities, I lack the sense of humor about Phelps' situation. I wholeheartedly support Kellogg's decision. I say this knowing well that Kellogg is somewhat hypocritical when it markets sugar-laden desserts as nutritious breakfast food (do they really have children's interests in mind?) and believing personally that pot should be legalized--which is a legitimate issue as opposed to boycotting cereal.

Phelps will do just fine without Kellogg, but I don't support the glorification and commodification of an Olympic swimmer to lure children to buy crappy food. Nor do I wish my child to get the message that says: hey: doing illegal stuff is cool and you can do anything and achieve success while smoking pot.

There are already enough contradictory messages out there for our children, we don't need another.

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

theodp — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 01:17:08 -0000

Isn't a Dave Winer-Owen Thomas mind-meld one of the signs of the apocalypse? :-)
http://gawker.com/5147582/m...

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

Mona Nomura — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 01:14:33 -0000

Best. Phelps-Kellog post. Ever.

Though I agree with Kellog's decision. It's a kid friendly brand. The outrage from parents would be horrific!

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

amyloo — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 00:52:24 -0000

Mouse pad http://spiritsdancing.com/i...

Re: Don't boycott Kellogg (Scripting News)

amyloo — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 00:51:44 -0000

I don't know if Hil is busy, but she's great at stuff like that. Queen of whimsy.