Imagine there was a medicine that could treat childhood epilepsy, chronic pain, PTSD, multiple sclerosis, CTE, and various other diseases or ailments. The problem with the medicine is that for years, humans have had negative and false perceptions of the drug and problems with its recreational uses, so as a result, it has been illegal for decades in the United States. As confusing as this scenario is, it is the reality for the drug known by many names, but most prominently as marijuana. However, over the years more and more states have made the drug legal in some form (medicinally or even recreationally). Now is the time for the National Football League to follow suit and allow its players to benefit from marijuana to perhaps help rectify the concussion problem and save the players from other devastating ailments.

Marijuana has been one of the most controversial topics in our nation over the last several years. Nowadays, over half of our fifty states (in addition to the District of Columbia) have marijuana legal in some form. As a result, 20 of the 32 NFL teams play in a state that allows medical marijuana (Benes). However, not a single NFL player can use marijuana at all, despite other citizens of the same state being allowed, in some capacity, to use the drug. So, to understand why NFL players should have the privilege to use marijuana as a treatment, it is important to know how the inherent dangers of their job relates to this drug.

Football is a violent game. Anyone who has ever watched the game can openly acknowledge that. As a result, there is uncertainty that anyone from young children to adults should participate in it. Over the past couple years, we have seen more and more young players including Zachary Orr (24), Chris Borland (24), and Jordan Cameron (28), among many others, retire due to concern for their future health. Every year, we also hear about how a high school or college player even dies on the field after sustaining a brutal hit to the head/neck area. Now, most injuries are not that severe, but many players have had to retire at a young age to protect themselves from further damage. No other sport seems to have this issue. 

Unsurprisingly, every week football players get hurt. As a result, team doctors have a decision to make to manage the pain players experience throughout the season. The government has certain laws that dictate how teams are supposed to handle this issue by laying “out strict guidelines for how teams can handle and dispense prescription drugs” (Maese). However, team doctors do not always comply. NFL “teams violated federal laws governing prescription drugs, disregarded guidance from the Drug Enforcement Administration on how to store, track, transport and distribute controlled substances, and plied their players with powerful painkillers and anti-inflammatories each season, according to sealed court documents contained in a federal lawsuit filed by former players” (Maese). Every team doctor or trainer that has testified so far (the lawsuit is still ongoing), has asserted that they broke the law (Maese). So, essentially players are getting pumped full of chemicals and opioids to deal with the pain that comes from doing their job. They are receiving these drugs in high amounts and one former star, Calvin Johnson who retired at 30 to save his health, says you can get drugs as powerful and addictive as Vicodin “like candy” (Clements). These opioids are extremely addictive and many former players must rely on them well after they retire.

Jake Plummer is one former player who has encountered this problem. After playing for 10 years, he retired because he “had pain” in his “shoulder, lower back and, most noticeably, his hips. He tore both hip labrums at some point during his NFL career.” He tried to “avoid opioids and other painkillers” because he “distrusted” them and “hated the bloating and stomach discomfort that came from the steady stream of anti-inflammatories in his body” (Tanier). So, after major surgery, he became somewhat depressed. A former teammate of his then introduced him to “Charlotte’s Web” which is a “cannabis-based chemical” that has “anti-inflammatory properties without intoxication or other side effects.” He made no other lifestyles changes and “began taking the cannabis-derived oil.” “As a result, he says, his muscle and joint pain is mostly gone. So are most of the random headaches he used to suffer.” (Tanier). Now, Plummer is part of the growing medical marijuana movement and specifically seeks to help former and current NFL players.

One could write off Plummer’s claims about this little-known oil that is essentially able to cure pain and not get you high, yet be derived from marijuana. However, Charlotte’s Web has more stories about it. Heather Jackson, a medical marijuana activist, is the mother of a child with “Doose syndrome, a deadly form of early-childhood epilepsy. He began having seizures at four months old. He was soon having hundreds of them per day. He had them through the night. During the worst of them, he would stop breathing” (Tanier). The first thing she would do in the morning when she woke up was check on the child and “make sure he was alive” (Tanier). By nine, the child was essentially a toddler. He couldn’t really speak or identify colors. She got introduced to Charlotte’s Web and the child was seizure-free for 48 hours. She adjusted the doses and eventually got it to where the child has not had a seizure since 2012. There are more anecdotes like this one that suggests cannabis-based oils have some medicinal value to them.

Eugene Monroe was also a football player, until “he became the first active player in the history of his sport to challenge the rules in public” (Junod). Monroe is not your stereotypical weed junkie.

He works out twice a day, volcanically hard, and he gets high before his workouts because it enables him to work through the teeth of his chronic pain. He gets high because after years and years of taking the wrong medicines, he says he has finally found the right medicine in marijuana. He gets high because he has suffered several concussions, and he is convinced by the research that suggests marijuana can help save his brain. He gets high because he has decided to put his health and his family first after a career that required him to sacrifice both” (Junod). 

He is not just getting high all day. He, like Plummer, also takes different cannabis-derived oils to treat pain and not get the high that comes with smoking cannabis. Once he gave an interview to CNN about how the NFL should consider looking into marijuana as a treatment, instead of Vicodin or OxyContin, he was done for playing football, despite being only 28 and a quality player. Also like Plummer, he seeks to help former and current NFL players manage their pain and addiction with dangerous opioids and painkillers (Junod).

So clearly, one would think the U.S. government would have a pretty clear stance on the whole cannabis and cannabis-derived oils situation. However, marijuana is currently a “Schedule I illicit drug with no medicinal value,” yet the federal government has also issued patents to the “U.S. Department of Health and Human Services” saying cannabinol (CBD), “a molecule that can be extracted from cannabis plants,” can be “useful or have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and HIV dementia” (Tanier). So, the government says marijuana is bad and not medicinally useful, yet it is also helpful in treating various brain diseases. Naturally, the NFL takes the cautious approach and bans it for all players.

The NFL’s current policy, as agreed upon by the owners and league office and the NFL Players’ Association, is that should one test positive for banned substances (marijuana is one of these banned substances), they will be fined at first, with the chance to face four-game or ten-game suspensions or even full-season suspensions depending on how many times the player has continually failed or refused to take drug tests (Bostick). Many experts see problems with the whole policy. There may even be five major problems with this system:

The first is that an awful lot of its players ignore or find ways to get around league policy and get high. The second is that because so many players get high, the policy is widely regarded as a joke, even by league officials speaking off the record. The third is that the policy causes many players to lose weeks, months and even years of their already short-lived careers. The fourth is that despite -- or because of -- its restrictive policies, the NFL has become crucial to the cause of legalization, a wellspring of pro-marijuana advocacy and activism. And the fifth? The fifth of the NFL's marijuana problems is that it's the least of the NFL's problems. The gravest, of course, is the increasing awareness that playing football is inherently dangerous -- matched by an increasing reluctance of many players to brave the risks and keep playing it (Junod).

As football continues to face this issue of player safety, it needs something that can safely protect its players. Everyone who follows the sport has heard the possibility of football needing to be eliminated out of fear for its inherent dangers. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, better known as CTE, is the biggest fear that football players face. Marijuana just might be able to help with this brain disease that is sustained from repetitive blows to the head or concussions (Baskin). 

Marijuana is “made up of over 400 chemicals. Of those, approximately 70 to 120 are unique to the plant and are known as cannabinoids. The two main cannabinoids in cannabis are tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is the psychotropic ingredient responsible for the “high” feeling, and cannabidiol (CBD), which has no psychoactive effects” (Baskin). CBD is the promising one. It has been “proven in animal studies to have antipsychotic, anticonvulsant, anti-oxidant, and anti-inflammatory properties, among others” (Baskin). Remember, the U.S. government has issued patents saying there is promising medicinal qualities to cannabis. With CTE, inflammation plays a key role in making the injury/disease worse. So, since CBD, the marijuana molecule, has anti-inflammatory properties, there is potential to have “therapeutic benefit” from consuming marijuana or cannabis-derived oils (Baskin). “When a head injury occurs, the brain becomes inflamed as a natural response. This then creates a positive feedback cycle, where the inflammation begins to feed on itself, making the injury progressively worse— hence the continual degeneration of cognitive function that comes as a result of CTE” (Baskin).

So, if CBD, which is in marijuana, has positive medicinal properties, many might ask why it is a Schedule I drug. The problem some researchers say is that it looks like THC, the molecule that gets people high, “on paper” (Baskin). Essentially, the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) and federal government do not look any further than that. As a result, of these cannabinoids being Schedule I drugs, there is limited funding in research, so all data is limited and in a way illegal in some cases (say scientists study marijuana in humans in a state that prohibits marijuana) (Baskin).

However, since scientists do not know a whole lot about marijuana, they do know a lot about opioids, which is the current treatment NFL players and many people across the nation receive. In the United States in 2014 alone, “14,000 people died from overdoses involving prescription opioids” (Goldman). As everyone has certainly heard in their lifetime, marijuana does not kill you. Dr. Daniel Clauw, a University of Michigan professor of anesthesiology, has studied marijuana and pain management for several years (Goldman). Clauw claims there is little evidence in the scientific community of opioids being an effective treatment of chronic pain, another issue NFL players deal with that also affects millions of people around the globe (Clauw). As a country, we make up roughly 5% of the world’s population, yet we use 80% of the world’s opioids (Clauw). This is stunningly high. So, even though marijuana does not have much scientific evidence to back it up (because it is still a Schedule I drug), it definitely, at the very least, cannot be any more dangerous than opioid consumption.

Remembering these dangers of opioid consumption is extremely important when looking at the NFL. Currently, they are facing a lawsuit by former players for disregarding federal law and essentially pumping them full of “powerful painkillers” and “prescription drugs” (Maese). This issue is allegedly so severe, that in 2012, “the average team prescribed nearly 5,777 doses of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and 2,213 doses of controlled medications to its players” and if you averaged that out, you would get “six to seven pain pills or injections a week per player over the course of a typical NFL season” (Maese). Naturally, some players received numbers way larger than 6 or 7 per week, and some were below that number. These drugs, according to experts, are “pretty risky” and some have “high addiction potential” (Maese). This is just the latest health scandal the NFL has faced over the years (the most significant being the concussion problem).

There are potential solutions to this situation the NFL finds itself in. The collective bargaining agreement (CBA), which is the agreement between the NFL owners and league office with the NFL Players Union, determines what the NFL drug tests for. This is the important part. Unlike other major sports leagues, the NFL specifically looks for marijuana in drug tests. For instance, Major League Baseball only fines players for “excessive positive tests” and the National Hockey League tests only “one-third of its players each year” (Junod). The NFL’s marijuana policies are way tougher than those leagues and even the Olympics and NBA, as well (Benes). Once the CBA expires, which this time will be in 2020, the players and the league can bargain about whether the league should even test for marijuana.

As of right now, no one, except for the NFL, knows why marijuana is so despised by the league. They have “only issued vague statements in the past regarding this topic” and never “comply with interview requests” (Benes). Most former employees of the league, and people with experience in this situation that are willing to speak with reporters, “were mostly people who want to see the policy changed” (Benes). Most theories are that the NFL does not want to get involved with the federal government (as players who currently reside in marijuana-prohibited states would encounter issues). One other interesting idea is that the NFL typically is not a very progressive league, so to speak. They fought all brain injury and CTE science as hard as they could to keep their self-image (Benes). 

The big counter to that idea is that “merely removing cannabis from the league's banned substance list is a lot different than promoting marijuana. And just because something is illegal doesn't mean an employer should test for it, as tons of workplaces around the country do not test their employees for substances, regardless of their legality” (Benes). This is where the solution of the players and NFL changing the current CBA when the current one expires in 2020. If they can agree to just not test for marijuana, then the NFL can get something in return from the players, such as a longer season or more international games. They do not want to change the policy because the marijuana card could be a powerful bargaining tool (Benes).

Another theory is that the NFL is essentially colluding with big pharmaceutical companies and marijuana would essentially hurt those ties. Since so many opioids have been given to players over the decades, cannabis could effectively end that and thus, the companies would lose a lot of money. Also, NFL owners tend to be very older in age. They could simply be biased against marijuana just from the way they were brought up (Benes). These scenarios could be part of the truth, but until the NFL explicitly says why they are against marijuana, we will never know.

Obviously, there are tons of scenarios for how this situation could play out. The biggest outside factor is the federal and state governments’ stance on marijuana. We do not necessarily know how long until every state (or at least every state with an NFL team) will have marijuana legalized or if it will even ever happen. Until this happens, the best thing that can probably happen for the players is that the NFL decides to quit testing for marijuana in the next CBA.

There are certainly some solid reasons for opposing marijuana for NFL players. The biggest argument against marijuana in the NFL, as Stephen A. Smith on ESPN’s First Take points out, is that if NFL players could smoke cannabis whenever they wanted, some players would certainly take advantage of this and show up high to everything from team meetings and practices to interviews and games. Plus, some players might even decide to use more harmful or serious drugs than marijuana if they thought they could get away with it. However, Max Kellerman, who is also on the show, points out that some players already do show up high (they are both reporters and have claimed to have witnessed this). Making marijuana legal in the NFL will not change that some players will take advantage of it. He also goes on to point out that alcohol, which is certainly more dangerous than cannabis when abused, is perfectly fine with the NFL (they make large portions of revenue off alcohol sponsors). However, since it is legal for players to drink alcohol, we don’t often here about players showing up drunk to interviews or practices. So, why would marijuana be that much different (“ESPN First Take - Max Kellerman Advocates For NFL to Stop Testing For Marijuana”). Clearly, most people would agree that if marijuana was legal for NFL players, some standards would need to be set, so players do not abuse the privilege.

The other big argument might be that since not all of the states that have an NFL team have legalized marijuana, the NFL should keep its ban, so that there is a level playing field and some players don’t gain an advantage. One could counter this argument by saying that if marijuana is beneficial to the body, then they should allow all players to use it. At the very least, they could be saving over half of their athletes from serious health problems down the line, which is better than saving no athletes from these issues. Plus, if they choose not to test for cannabis, then each individual player can make the decision on his own of whether or not he wants to take marijuana. 

This is an extremely difficult issue to resolve. The hard part is all of the outside factors that influence the dilemma, such as federal and state government laws. Plus, both the NFL team owners and players’ association must come to an agreement in the next CBA to help fix this issue. There are many benefits to allowing the players to use marijuana. Even though there is not a ton of scientific research to support this point, there is even less of an argument that marijuana is bad for the body. Plus, when looking at the dangers of opioids and other anti-inflammatories or painkillers, the decision should be easy. Marijuana is the safest decision and the only decision the NFL can make if it truly cares about its players. For too long, the NFL has let its players suffer and now they are faced with a decision that could help reverse the wrongdoings they did in the concussion crisis. Without marijuana, there may not even be an NFL in the coming decades. More importantly, the player’s lives depend on the drug.
