Stephen A. Smith, the painfully articulate, misogynistic, Floyd-fluffing TMT roadie, is still employed by ESPN, which means he showed up to work today to say fun, dumb shit very loudly to and with Skip Bayless on First Take. Today’s topic: drugs!
If you missed it, Ronda Rousey spat some righteous fire yesterday about how the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s bullshit decision to suspend her homeboy Nick Diaz for five years for a testing positive for marijuana was bullshit, because it was. Smith decided to disagree with Ronda’s correct assertion, probably because he’s likely had beef with Rousey ever since Rousey’s correct assertion earlier this summer that Floyd Mayweather shouldn’t punch women.
As Stephen A. rants go, this started off so tame that it was actually disappointing. His whole argument was basically, “wehhhh the rules are the rules,” which, fine. It’s a bullshit rule, and maybe literally everyone but the NSAC has identified the rule as a bullshit rule, but, fine. And then Smith pivoted, and the stakes done rose up.
“You also have to understand”—oh boy—“that in our society, there are people who are making arguments that marijuana is a gateway drug.” Smith proceeded to break it down.
“It serves—you know—it serves the purpose of facilitating use of stronger drugs down the line which could very well inhibit the progress of our citizens in our relatively civilized society.”
It’s been scientifically proven time and time again that marijuana is not a gateway drug, and in a just world, Smith would have to get the fuck out of my and your faces for disseminating false information. But First Take exists in large part to disseminate false information, and so he’ll be on the air tomorrow, doing just that. Still, if you squint really, really hard, his malarkey may make some kind of sense, especially if you’re smoking marijuana.
[ESPN]