Just trying to find some motive for this crazy ass cop who's out to bust the nation's (WORLD'S) best swimmer for the crime of getting caught in a PHOTO smoking pot several WEEKS ago.

The effort to prosecute Phelps on what would be at most a minor drug charge seem extreme compared to similar cases, lawyers said, and have led some to question whether the sheriff is being overzealous because he's dealing with a celebrity.

Sheriff Leon Lott:

He rose from patrol officer to captain of the narcotics division in the early 1990s and was well-known in the county for wearing stylish suits like the drug agents on "Miami Vice" and driving a Porsche seized from a drug dealer.

I think the crazy Miami Vice sheriff wants a wack at whatever Phelps was driving to that party.  What about these poor bastards?

The case took a turn Thursday when lawyers for two people said their clients were among eight arrested last week and questioned at length about the November party near the University of South Carolina where Phelps was photographed smoking from a marijuana pipe.

Defense attorney Dick Harpootlian and fellow defense attorney Joseph MuCulloch said deputies searched at least two houses. The men told their lawyers the raids went down like a major drug bust, and 12 deputies burst into the home with guns drawn, pulling small amounts of marijuana from those arrested. Several computers and storage devices were also seized, Harpootlian said. (emph. mine)

Does anybody deserve to be treated like this?  In my humble opinion, we were (and maybe still are) only about half a step from just waterboarding everybody who was at that party to get to the bottom of this awful weed crime.  These guys probably only have to worry about replacing all the stuff the cops 'confiscated' from them and pay a bunch more money to the state, city or county that collects the fines they will receive.  Maybe they'll just get put in jail for a few years.  Yesterday, promising college students, today, five-to-ten for some bullshit weed crime.  It's as transparently asinine as those bogus WMD lies that Bush invented to advance his war lust and justify torturing a bunch of Iraqi's into testifying to their phantom locations.

The investigators appear to be trying to build a case against Phelps from others _ a tactic normally used to bring down drug dealers with a large amounts of cocaine or methamphetamine, not someone who smoked marijuana five months ago, said Chip Price, a Greenville attorney who has dealt with drug cases for 33 years.

"Never have I seen anything like this on a simple marijuana case," Price said.

Price was being coy.  This type of stuff happens ALL THE TIME.   Innocent people (and even the MAYORS DOG) get killed all the time. Whoops, that's just collateral damage of THE WAR.  Routine.  Probable cause?  With so many smoking pot, it's free reign on a pretty large percentage of the population.  Marijuana helps keeps you healthy, so it's pretty obvious it isn't going away.

The Michael Phelps case threatens to blow the lid off the stereotype that pot is for losers.  Winners Smoke Weed.  Pass it along.

Enjoy.