According to Reuters, “California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said on Thursday that movie director Roman Polanski should be treated like anyone else if he came to the United States to face sentencing for having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.” Shouldn’t Schwarzenegger be given “no special treatment” for his former drug use then?
According to this ESPN article, he’s openly admitted to his steroid use. In 1974, he told Barbara Walters:
“I take steroids because they help me an extra 5 percent. Women take the [contraception] pill. They are somewhat similar. I do it under a doctor’s supervision.”
Schwarzenegger claims he didn’t break any laws with the steroids, but he certainly wasn’t being ethical:
Schwarzenegger, in past interviews, has claimed that he broke no laws when taking steroids…Prior to 1990, when the federal government made the drugs a controlled substance, there was nothing illegal about doctors writing steroid prescriptions for athletic purposes. However, taking drugs to enhance sports performance has been considered unethical since the late ’60s. Schwarzenegger, like bodybuilding itself, merely pioneered the path of win-at-all-costs.
Nor were steroids the only drug he did, as he told Oui magazine in 1977:
“I’m a competitive bodybuilder; I’m not training just to be healthy. Ninety-five percent of the people training with weights are into this health thing, and it’s a different mentality entirely. As far as I’m concerned, it’s bullshit; otherwise I wouldn’t drink. I make my protein drink with whiskey. People think I’m crazy, but that’s the way I am. I get stoned, I do my own thing.”
Pot was definitely illegal at the time he said this in 1977 – just one year before Polanski’s crime.
Justice is supposed to be blind, which means – assuming the statutes of limitations haven’t run out yet – both of these “gentlemen” should pay for their crimes.
No rational person would argue Schwarzenegger is not a hyprocrite along with the majority of politicians. But equivocating illegal drug use with an adult raping a 13 year old is over the top. The statue of limitations has long since expired on Governer Terminator’s crimes, but Director Polanski fortunately isn’t so lucky. Perhaps he can share a cell with Charlie Manson.
LOL, isn’t comparing Polanski with Manson just as over the top?
In the eyes of the federal government, pot use is far worse than child molestation, which is born out by average prison time served by convicts of each of those crimes. Excepting politicians and their families, of course. As I said, if justice were really blind, these crimes would both be punished – they were both committed at the same time in the same state. If the statue of limitations has long since expired on the one, than why not the other?