I've been waiting a long time - 11 years to be exact - for the sports world to seize on that concept, but no one's had the guts. Now, far later than I expected, we've entered pot's perfect storm.

Just as the economy has tanked, strangling sponsorships all over the athletic map, a Super Bowl MVP and the most decorated Olympian of all time have emerged as partakers. Advocates for drug reform have long said that legalizing marijuana would increase tax revenue, not to mention reduce violence in the dealer population. In sports, the door would open for a cash flow to fill the creek bed left dry by a shriveling General Motors, Citigroup and their ilk.

So when Michael Phelps got caught on camera taking a bong hit, Kellogg's should have followed Disney's example and let it go. Santonio Holmes was stopped by police and cited for having three grass-filled cigars in his car last fall, but he still got to party with Goofy and Mickey in Florida after catching the winning touchdown pass for the Steelers in the Super Bowl.

Both Phelps and Holmes, when caught, had to apologize, and both accepted sabbaticals from their sports. The Steelers held Holmes out of a game the following Sunday, and USA Swimming gave Phelps a comically symbolic three-month suspension. (The next truly significant competition for U.S. swimmers is in July.)

The interesting thing is that neither of them denied what happened. Phelps owned up to what the photograph clearly revealed. Holmes, according to published reports, willingly turned the cigars over to police and, when asked if the smell of burned pot indicated that he had just smoked one, said no. He told them he had done it the day before.

That report made me nostalgic for Nagano in 1998, when Canadian snowboarder Ross Rebagliati was stripped of his gold medal and insisted that his positive drug test had to be the result of secondhand smoke. To prep for the Olympics and their urinalysis, he said, he hadn't touched the stuff in nine months. That was his excuse - not that he would never smoke pot. He just hadn't done it since April.

Friends and teammates rallied around him, saying that he trained at Whistler outside Vancouver and that pot was so prevalent there, he probably couldn't have breathed without inhaling secondhand smoke.

Rebagliati ultimately got his gold medal back because of a jurisdiction problem with the test. Whistler seems to have recovered nicely from its shame. It will host the skiing competition at next year's Winter Olympics.

Still, quashing pot is an unfortunate priority in the sports world. Ricky Williams nearly gave up his football career because of repeated positive tests. He said that pot helped alleviate his depression better than the prescription drugs he once endorsed. No wonder he had to be driven out of the public eye.

He was a dangerous man, threatening to unmask the pharmaceutical industry. Next thing you know, somebody might be saying that smoking grass helps take the edge off football's aches and pains more effectively than Vicodin. We can't have that.

Or can we?

In Holmes' case, even the police agreed the infraction was minor, arguing against an NFL sanction and saying that they wouldn't expect a steelworker to be suspended. The Phelps suspension damages the credibility of the sports world's anti-drug movement. Too many people already confuse the concerns about steroids and growth hormone with Victorian prudery.

Common sense says that athletes shouldn't be punished for pot any more than they would be if they ran a red light. Creative thinking says that the sports leagues should lobby for legalization and then treat the stuff like Gatorade or Budweiser. Call it the greening of athletics, which it will be, as soon as the checks clear.

E-mail Gwen Knapp at gknapp@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page D - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle