Commissioner Says NFL May Be Open To Medical Marijuana For Players
Source: Think Progress
A week after legal marijuana became a reality in Colorado, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell hinted that his league’s stance on medical marijuana could be evolving. Marijuana is a banned substance in the NFL — even in Colorado and Washington, which legalized marijuana last year — but at the very least, Goodell left the door open to the possibility that the NFL’s views on marijuana could be changing alongside the views of the public.
“I don’t know what’s going to develop as far as the next opportunity for medicine to evolve and to help either deal with pain or help deal with injuries,” Goodell said at an appearance in New York City. “But we will continue to support the evolution of medicine.”
Though marijuana use among athletes is usually still considered a subject of scandal, medicinal marijuana is already legal in 20 states and Washington D.C. Medical research and anecdotal commentary show that it could have major benefits for athletes too, helping them deal with both injuries and chronic pain, as Sports On Earth’s Patrick Hruby has explained:
[A] 1999 Institute of Medicine study on medical marijuana — a report funded by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, hardly a bunch of longhaired hippies — found that marijuana has pain-alleviating properties. Two years ago, the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology published a review of 18 randomized controlled trials of cannabis; in 15 of the trials, the drug proved “safe and modestly effective” for treating neuropathic pain, with “no serious adverse effects” and “preliminary evidence of efficacy in fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis.” Oh, and patients mostly slept better, too — which just happens to be a crucial component of athletic recovery from injury and physical strain.
Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/sports/2014/01/16/3173221/marijuana-nfls-head-injury-remedy/
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