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Title: As Marijuana Legalization Expands, the NFL Clings to Prohibition. For Now.
Source:
Reason
URL Source: https://reason.com/blog/2019/01/20/ ... ed-patriots-chiefs-rams-saints
Published: Jan 20, 2019
Author: Eric Boehm
Post Date: 2019-01-21 09:16:47 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 736
Comments: 7
Half the players taking to the gridiron on Sunday with a shot to play in this year's Super Bowl spent the current season in places where marijuana is legal—and, legal or not, weed use is widespread in the National Football League for both recreational and medicinal reasons. But as the social stigma and legal prohibition of marijuana use is fading across America, the NFL remains stubbornly committed to keeping the substance outlawed. For now. Last month, NBC Sports' Mike Florio reported that team owners are increasingly interested in legalizaing weed, though it remains unlikely that the league will adjust its current policy before 2021 when the owners and the players' union are scheduled to renegotiate the collective bargaining agreement. "The NFL realizes that there's no longer any good reason to keep the best football players from playing football over marijuana," Florio wrote. "But the NFL isn't yet willing to make dramatic and wholesale changes to the marijuana testing policy because the NFL hopes to dangle the changes within the context of collective bargaining, securing a concession from the union in exchange for softening a policy that badly needs to be softened." By then, America's most popular sport will have fallen even farther behind the country as a whole. When the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks played in the Super Bowl in February 2014, they were the only two teams in the league hailing from states where weed was legal—a super bowl, indeed. Just five years later, there are 10 states where recreational marijuana is legal, and those states are home to eight NFL franchises (25 percent of the league), including the Los Angeles Rams and New England Patriots, who will play in Sunday's conference title games. While the NFL has never allowed players to use marijuana for any reason, there is a well-documented history of teams handing out pharmaceutical pain-killers by the handful. "The medicine being pumped into these guys is just killing people," former player Nate Jackson told Rolling Stone in 2016, as part of an excellent piece on the league's nonsensical marijuana rules and how they've led to an over-reliance on opioids. No wonder so many players have opted to violate the league's marijuana ban. Last year, recently retired tight end Martellus Bennett estimated that nearly 90 percent of NFL players use marijuana at least occasionally as a treatment for football-related ailments. "There are times of the year where your body just hurts so bad," Bennett said on a Bleacher Report podcast. "You don't want to be popping pills all the time. There are anti-inflammatory drugs you take so long that they start to eat at your liver, kidneys and things like that. A human made that. God made weed." As Florio notes, most players—perhaps as many as 95 percent, he estimates—know how to beat the league's drug testing these days, so there is little reason for the players' union to make major concessions in order to get the league to legalize. Some owners, like the Dallas Cowboys' Jerry Jones, have been pushing for the league to drop its prohibition on marijuana for a while. The rest will eventually come around to reality. In the meantime, the NFL will continue looking like a reflection American society as a whole: a place where marijuana use for a wide variety of reasons is increasingly common and accepted, even if still technically against the law—and where enforcement of prohibition is increasingly viewed as either a joke or a vestige of flawed, outdated ways of thinking. Marijuana is fully legal in 10 states, which are home to eight NFL teams (25 percent of the league), including the Los Angeles Rams and New England Patriots.
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#1. To: Deckard (#0)
Medical lol yeah right. Be honest at least stoners.
Attaboy! "There are times of the year where your body just hurts so bad," Bennett said on a Bleacher Report podcast. "You don't want to be popping pills all the time. There are anti-inflammatory drugs you take so long that they start to eat at your liver, kidneys and things like that. A human made that. God made weed." "The medicine being pumped into these guys is just killing people," former player Nate Jackson told Rolling Stone in 2016, as part of an excellent piece on the league's nonsensical marijuana rules and how they've led to an over-reliance on opioids. Better that they destroy their livers with government-approved drugs. Simpleton!
Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. Yeah permanently kill the brain cells.
Hmmm. Others would say they're leading the fight.
Seriously...more fed.gov anti-pot propaganda? Cannabis and the Brain: Myth vs. Fact A common misconception you may hear from critics of medical cannabis is that its use injures the brain. The notion that “marijuana kills brain cells” is a decades-old myth that still persists among some who haven’t had a chance to study the subject scientifically. The fascinating truth, ironically enough, is that cannabis can actually protect the brain from trauma and may offer a promising intervention for treating serious brain injuries: While effective therapies to treat ongoing TBI symptoms have been difficult to come by, thanks to researchers like Prof. Yosef Sarne of Tel Aviv University, we’ve discovered that cannabis may prevent long-term brain damage by administering THC before or shortly after the injury. In fact, Israel Defense Force (IDF) practitioners administer CBD or low-dose THC as a first-line treatment to IDF soldiers – and even enemy combatants – who suffer brain trauma. Sarne and his team published their results in 2013, where they demonstrated that administering just a fraction of the amount of THC that would be found in a typical cannabis joint anywhere from one to seven days prior to, or one to three days after an injury, induces the biochemical processes necessary to protect critical brain cells while preserving long-term cognitive function. [Leafly] This discovery may come as a shock to those who believe cannabis damages the brain, but it’s very promising news for the treatment of these extremely serious injuries. Leafly reports that traumatic brain injuries result in over 50,000 deaths in the U.S. every year and an even greater number of severe disabilities. The possibility that cannabis can provide an important immediate treatment for trauma victims is remarkable indeed.
Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. Easy, Dicktard. The NFL is the largest supporter of the Black Lies Matters cop haters. What’s more important to a one agenda asshole like yourself, supporting the kneeling cop hating potato’s or drug addicts on every corner?
I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
And most employers still consider potheads to be a safety risk so they will still drug test and deny potheads employment. But I have no doubt the Dems will try to come to their rescue and demand drug testing go away or will just give them more handouts so they can stay home and watch cartoons stoned all day. Ooppss almost forgot to mention eating Cheetos while watching the cartoons, my bad...
Vegetarians eat vegetables. Beware of humanitarians!
#2. To: A K A Stone (#1)
(Edited)
Medical lol yeah right.
The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning.
Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.
#3. To: Deckard (#2)
#4. To: Deckard (#0)
By then, America's most popular sport will have fallen even farther behind the country as a whole.
#5. To: A K A Stone (#3)
Yeah permanently kill the brain cells.
The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning.
Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.
#6. To: Deckard (#0)
#7. To: All (#0)
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