Seahawks, Cannabis, and the NFL

As a deeply passionate 49er fan, I have to give some respect to the Seahawks. Budding rivalry aside, the Hawks played a great season and thoroughly deserved the Lombardi this year. (Though, I do have to mention that the NFC championship game felt a hell of a lot more like the Super Bowl than the Super Bowl did; barely losing to a team that went on to absolutely conquer Peyton Manning’s Broncos does not sting as much as I thought it would). Anyway, back to the cannabis!

Local Seattle counter-culture publication, The Stranger, just put out a piece called: “5 Reasons Seahawks Should Be Allowed to Smoke Pot.” It’s kind of a puff piece (pun intended) but it touches on a topic that has been gaining traction recently: should NFL players be allowed to use cannabis?

After much hemming and hawing and predictable Goodell-esque dodges, NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, finally said that he would “follow the medicine” on this notion. While not exactly a clarion call to smoke em’ if you got em’, it is marked progress from a league (and commissioner) that have been staunchly opposed to the idea of allowing marijuana use in players for decades. Having already touched on this stuff in other articles, I don’t want to bore my readers too much.

I do, however, want to share a couple of cool “reasons” from the article:
“Richard Sherman needs to calm the fuck down.  Football players have tons of testosterone coursing through their veins, and they have a hard time coming down. Marijuana can help. Maybe if we let Sherman smoke a bit of weed, his postgame interviews would resemble existentialist philosophy rather than rage-fueled pro-wrestling banter.”

Seriously.

And then there is this:

The mascot of the Seahawks is a live hawk who goes by the name of “Taima,” which is Japanese for cannabis. C’mon, that can’t be an accident, right?

Lastly, I’ll end with this fun little thought, courtesy of the Seahawks, World Champions of the NFL… one of the hardest, most mentally and physically demanding sports on the planet: