Yesterday, we learned that eight people have been arrested in the aftermath of the Michael Phelps bong photo and the infamous bong itself has been captured and taken into custody. As new details emerge, it’s becoming increasingly clear that there really is a serious campaign underway to prosecute Michael Phelps:

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.
…
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. [AP]

There’s not much left to say about this that I haven’t said already, so I’ll say it again: Sheriff Leon Lott and his henchmen are unhinged drug war lunatics wielding their unchecked powers as arbitrarily and embarrassingly as humanly possible.

To my knowledge, next to no one on the planet supports this ridiculous crusade. So I can only hope that this very visible example of vindictive marijuana enforcement serves to focus public attention on the often pathetic behavior of our supposedly heroic drug war soldiers. Just look at them. Look at what they are doing. And remember that this episode is hardly the first or only time the drug warriors have allowed childish and obsessive pursuits to triumph over the public interest.

If they think destroying Michael Phelps is a good idea, imagine all the other wretched crap they’ve done that you don’t even know about.