Pot Luck

Ex-Players Sue NFL Over Painkiller Pushers, Source: https://tribkiah.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/pills.jpgA new lawsuit has been filed against the NFL by a coalition of several hundred former players. The players presenting the lawsuit are alleging that all 32 professional NFL teams, from coaches to medical staff, illegally obtained and administered pharmaceutical pain pills to players to keep them on the field when they are seriously hurt.

As the player’s attorney, Steve Siverman stated, “This lawsuit alleges intentional activity by the teams, not negligence. It’s another part of a unified effort to provide health care and compensation to the thousands of former players who have been permanently injured or died as a result of playing professional football.”

As an NFL fan, you hear rumors about this kind of stuff and I think there has to be a lot of truth to it. The pressure to perform and to win is the biggest thing in their lives so I get why this look-the-other-way on painkillers beatitude persists, but I still think it’s wrong. Though a case can be made to compare the modern day NFL to the Roman Coliseum gladiator contests, NFL players are athletes and they are entertainers. They shouldn’t have to feel like they need to risk the rest of their lives to uphold a superhuman standard. These guys deserve to retire and still be able to function and survive.

This is the same NFL that has been wildly behind the times on player cannabis use. According to the lawsuit, players were lied to about the seriousness of their injuries and had painkiller prescriptions written in their names that they knew nothing about. All of this in the name of making them stay on the grand stage and keep generating ad revenues. If the most important thing truly is maintaining field presence, then this is the perfect opportunity to toss cannabis back into the NFL spotlight.

If the NFL would get behind cannabis, they would not only be ahead of the curve on a quickly changing national stance regarding marijuana, they would also help players get some of the pain relief they need without jeopardizing their overall health. The number of former NFL players that have come out in support of medical cannabis is growing constantly. They cite reasons ranging from speedier recovery times to deeper periods of relaxation and stress management.

However, a big part of the reason that players have rallied behind medical cannabis is that it can supplant the need for the dangerous pills that are shredding their insides. Couple that with new studies that suggest cannabis can act as a neuroprotectant and possibly be beneficial to head injuries and you can see why the NFL and cannabis are actually perfectly suited for partnership.

Football is what it is. I really think that most who play it acknowledge that significant risk is inherent to the game itself. You have very large men hurling themselves at each other at top speed — something is bound to break. But it’s hypocritical in my eyes to pump these guys so full of pills that they are destroying themselves, yet suspend a player for a full season because he likes to smoke weed.