The NFL should stop punishing players for using marijuana for medicinal purposes. It's a point that we made last season, and it's a point that Bleacher Report writer Mike Freeman makes in a new story called "Banned, but Bountiful: Marijuana Coveted by NFL Players as Invaluable Painkiller." Freeman spoke with a number of former and current NFL players about the league's stance on weed. And he concluded that, while the league is quick to prescribe painkillers for players that ultimately prove to be problematic for some of them, it has been very slow to embrace the idea of allowing players to use marijuana medicinally.
Not that that's stopping them from doing it anyway. Former NFL running back Jamal Anderson—who still has many friends who play in the league—estimates that 60 percent of NFL players currently use marijuana. An assistant coach who didn't want to be named said that "we wouldn't be able to field a league" if the NFL tested all players for marijuana regularly. And one anonymous player went as far as to say that an NFL team trainer actually told him to smoke weed once to deal with the effects of a concussion after several other treatments failed to work.
The veteran linebacker said that early in his career, when he'd get a concussion, he didn't use the drug. "One time I had a really bad concussion," he said. "The headaches went on for three days. I always tell people that I understood why some guys with head trauma want to take their own lives. It's miserable."
So why is marijuana still a banned substance in the NFL? It's at least partly because marijuana is still technically illegal in most states. But one NFL veteran told Freeman that, even if marijuana was legal, the league would probably struggle to find a way to regulate it.
"It took [the NFL] four months to decide if someone took air out of a football," he said. "Could you imagine how long it would take to figure out a way to allow medical weed?"
Touché. You can check out Freeman's entire piece here. Doesn't it feel like it's only a matter of time before the NFL caves?
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[via Bleacher Report]
