NFL Needs More Transparency in Drug Policy, Says World Anti-Doping Agency

The NFL and its players union doesn’t require players to disclose the substances for which they have tested positive.

This is becoming more of an issue as the NFL branches out to other countries. The NFL plays a couple of their games in London to sold out crowds and it’s not inconceivable that we will one day have teams originating in other countries. In that light, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has said that the NFL needs to become more transparent with its drug policy because it looks like they have something to hide. To compound the problem, the players union does everything in its power to avoid testing.

It is the players union that stipulates that players do not need to report which drug they were caught using, hence the seeming over-prevalence of Adderall (contains psychostimulant amphetamine, similar to methamphetamine aka crystal meth) in the league; unless we are actually supposed to believe that there is an epidemic of ADHD in the NFL. The thought is that there is a ton of undocumented performance enhancing drug (PED) use going on in the sport, but the lack of transparency allows players to blame their positive test results on Adderall, which the NFL bans, but is considered a minor/socially acceptable infraction as it is used for ADHD. This allows for players who are juicing to continue to effectively cheat and save face while hiding behind the Adderall smoke screen.

There is so much energy, time, and money poured into testing these players and then obfuscating those results while cannabis (easily one of the safest and least performance enhancing drugs around) remains a bigger league villain than the (suspected) rampant PED use going on right under their noses. Players get more scrutiny for smoking a J than for pumping PED’s into their bodies. Which substance legitimately increases a players size/strength/agility/aggressiveness? Ask any offensive lineman in the league whether they would rather face off against an outside linebacker who is juiced on HGH or one who had been caught hitting the bong.

Granted, the use of PED’s and how it concerns WADA is not directly related to the NFL’s stance on cannabis. But I do think it further illustrates the league’s stubborn adherence to a prohibition mindset. You almost never hear of any serious penalties or consequences being levied against players who get caught using PED’s, yet a simple Google search yields a list of NFL players who have had some legitimate issues with eligibility when they get caught with very small amounts of cannabis. I cannot really justify this stance. I love the NFL and I think, behind all the rationalizing, the rule makers of the league just don’t like marijuana and let personal views and the DEA’s quack science drive their rationales. You literally cannot watch an NFL game without being absolutely inundated with alcohol commercials.

So that’s the message the league is broadcasting whether it wants to or not: get stinking drunk, it’s American! It’s football! But if you like to get high, there is no place for you in this league.

As a side note, much emphasis has been placed in recent years on player safety. This is why you are seeing a large uptick in the amount of flags thrown per game (I saw 22 confirmed penalties in one game the other week). Couple that with the seemingly endless stories popping up of ex-NFL players committing suicide, unable to bear the intense headaches and pain from their years on the field and you can see why player safety (at least publicly) has taken priority. The point is that the league is really cracking down on the on-field violence to protect their players, but they turn a blind-eye to PED use that wreaks havoc on their bodies and creates veritable monsters out of men who then inflict more damage on themselves and their opponents. Worse still, they actively punish players who seek either relaxation or pain relief from cannabis, which is by far the safest and least performance enhancing drug on the NFL’s banned substances list.

What confounds me is not really that cannabis is banned, it is still seen as an illegal drug in much of the country. What baffles me is the imbalanced attention that gets given to cannabis when dangerous and deadly substances aren’t even required to be reported.