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Marijuana and the NFL (1 Viewer)

Soulfly3

Soulfly3

Footballguy
As some of you may know, there's a player by the name of Joshua Caleb Gordon who I have been known to support on occasion. He is a good guy. 

As some of you also likely know, he has been suspended several times for varying substances, but most frequently for marijuana use.

Today, Calvin Johnson, also knows as Megatron (or baby gordon, to some) admitted that after EVERY game he played, he would smoke weed.

There have been many other now retired players who have also admitted to this

...........

This begs the question - did the NFL ever test megatron? If not, why not? What constitutes "random testing". Was megatron tested and the results were covered up?

And most importantly, do we see the total withdrawal of marijuana based testing/suspensions, and how soon?

 
PED suspensions will continue imo, but eventually the NFL has to cave on this. It's legal in many areas and shown to help in a medical sense. I know a 70 year old guy with a script who says it keeps him going.

 
Everyone in the NFL loves Cannabis and uses it... they tell u when they are drug testing you for weed ...PED's is a whole different animal 

 
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Soulfly3 said:
marijuana lasts about a month in one's system, so not sure about this. 

Cocaine exits quickly
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They used to notify you of your testing at the beginning of the league year. Once you passed this you could smoke the mj.    If you are not in the program, they will not random test you.

That's how it used to work. So yeah for marijuana it was easy to not fail

 
This is how it was

Each year before the start of training camp every player on the roster is tested for both performance enhancing drugs and street drugs. For guys not in the NFL drug program, this surprisingly is the only time the entire year that an NFL player is tested for illegal street drugs.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/syndication.bleacherreport.com/amp/1668902-insiders-perspective-on-nfl-drug-tests.amp.html

Eta: which makes it dumber these guys couldn't hold of a month or so when they knew it was coming

 
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Excellent topic BTW Soulfly, I'm in your camp but I think you already know that 😁

I am pro player and just about everything that is anti-player. I want the avg NFL fan to know just how big of a moral dilemma it is rooting for a good chunk of these guys. Fans want it all in an easy to swallow pill and I would rather shed the bottom 1/3 of on the fence fans who get squeamish when this animals flex and show who a lot of them truly are...Alpa-Types and it's hard for people to support players they know don't jive with their way of thinking. 

Great thread, thanks 

 
I believe once you fail the testing becomes very stringent. but seems that if you never fail a test, you can sail through the testing pretty easily.

 
It's not a drug test. It's an IQ test.

But yeah, it should go away anyway, and almost certainly will in the next CBA. The only question is how much the owners leverage this "concession" to get something financial that they want from the players

 
Ftr I don't care if these guys smoke weed 

But if it's illegal by their rules ( I'm not allowed with my job either) than you should  

A) not do it at all

B) be smart enough to know street drug testing is a small window*, so be smart.

*Once you screw up then this changes

 
Tool said:
Mental health problems, get outta here with that bs. I could come up with studies that show not smoking weed leads to mental health problems.
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recent studies show an increase in paranoid schizophrenia among other things. I know you're one of those weed doesnt harm crowd, but the facts are coming out within the last few years and they arent favorable

 
Dr. Dan said:
recent studies show an increase in paranoid schizophrenia among other things. I know you're one of those weed doesnt harm crowd, but the facts are coming out within the last few years and they arent favorable
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like i said people can come out with studies on anything, most of it is crap.  It may induce schizophrenia for people susceptible to it but for 99.9% of people it doesn't have any impact on schizophrenia. what exactly does "among  other things" mean?

 
Tool said:
like i said people can come out with studies on anything, most of it is crap.  It may induce schizophrenia for people susceptible to it but for 99.9% of people it doesn't have any impact on schizophrenia. what exactly does "among  other things" mean?
Click to expand...
depression, anxiety, loss of IQ

 
Soulfly3 said:
As some of you may know, there's a player by the name of Joshua Caleb Gordon who I have been known to support on occasion. He is a good guy. 

As some of you also likely know, he has been suspended several times for varying substances, but most frequently for marijuana use.

Today, Calvin Johnson, also knows as Megatron (or baby gordon, to some) admitted that after EVERY game he played, he would smoke weed.

There have been many other now retired players who have also admitted to this

...........

This begs the question - did the NFL ever test megatron? If not, why not? What constitutes "random testing". Was megatron tested and the results were covered up?

And most importantly, do we see the total withdrawal of marijuana based testing/suspensions, and how soon?
Click to expand...
Josh Gordon is a good guy?    Dude was dealing drugs in high school and college.    The dude then abandoned his child and babys mother to do drugs and party with Manziel in Mexico.  The only reason he's even a part of his child's life now is  because a court ordered him to appear under the threat of an arrest warrant. I  sincerely hope that he turns his life around--but you need to get off this whole narrative that somehow Gordon is a victim of some unfair NFL policy.  Gordon may have been a great player--but he was a piece of garbage human being for several years.   The NFL didn't stop him from succeeding--he stopped himself from doing so for several years.  

 
Dan Lambskin said:
I could see not testing for it being a big sticking point with the next CBA
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NFL owners are a bunch of old white men so there's a good chance that they don't know or understand much about weed. But even if they did, they would be reluctant to surrender a tool that they can use to club players who don't fall meekly into line. The owners are pretty awful people.

 
Soulfly3 said:
And most importantly, do we see the total withdrawal of marijuana based testing/suspensions, and how soon?
Click to expand...
Yes.  I have been calling this for almost a decade.  It's just taking a few years longer than I predicted.  I said by like 2016 or so, so I think I will end up being about 5-6 years premature on that.

 
ghostguy123 said:
So does playing in the NFL.

That's one hell of an uninformed blanket statement.  Full disclosure, I am a mental health professional.
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The statement is too broad, but not completely inaccurate. The most comprehensive Review of the health effects of marijuana was published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine a couple years ago. Their psychosocial/mental health conclusions:

There is moderate evidence of a statistical association between cannabis use and:
• The impairment in the cognitive domains of learning, memory, and attention (acute cannabis use) (11-1a)

There is limited evidence of a statistical association between cannabis use and:
• Impaired academic achievement and education outcomes (11-2)
• Increased rates of unemployment and/or low income (11-3)
• Impaired social functioning or engagement in developmentally appropriate social roles (11-4)

There is limited evidence of a statistical association between sustained abstinence from cannabis use and: • Impairments in the cognitive domains of learning, memory, and attention (11-1b)
4

There is substantial evidence of a statistical association between cannabis use and:
• The development of schizophrenia or other psychoses, with the highest risk among the most frequent users (12-1)

There is moderate evidence of a statistical association between cannabis use and:
• Better cognitive performance among individuals with psychotic disorders and a history of cannabis use (12-2a)
• Increased symptoms of mania and hypomania in individuals diagnosed with bipolar disorders (regular cannabis use) (12-4) • A small increased risk for the development of depressive disorders (12-5)
• Increased incidence of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts with a higher incidence among heavier users (12-7a)
• Increased incidence of suicide completion (12-7b)
• Increased incidence of social anxiety disorder (regular cannabis use) (12-8b)

There is moderate evidence of no statistical association between cannabis use and:
• Worsening of negative symptoms of schizophrenia (e.g., blunted affect) among individuals with psychotic disorders (12-2c)

There is limited evidence of a statistical association between cannabis use and:
• An increase in positive symptoms of schizophrenia (e.g., hallucinations) among individuals with psychotic disorders (12-2b) • The likelihood of developing bipolar disorder, particularly among regular or daily users (12-3)
• The development of any type of anxiety disorder, except social anxiety disorder (12-8a)
• Increased symptoms of anxiety (near daily cannabis use) (12-9)
• Increased severity of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms among individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (12-11)

There is no evidence to support or refute a statistical association between cannabis use and: • Changes in the course or symptoms of depressive disorders (12-6)
• The development of posttraumatic stress disorder (12-10)
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Moreover, the idea that NFL players are just smoking pot for pain control is pretty suspect. It certainly can help manage pain, but if that’s all they wanted they could use CBD oil, which shouldn’t trigger conventional drug tests if not contaminated with THC. I bet most of the pot smokers do so recreationally.

Granted, I think the legal status of marijuana is pretty silly, but it still is illegal federally and in many states. If their employer chooses to drug test as a condition of employment, players should be willing to accept the consequences of ignoring the rules.

 
The more alarming thing from that article was how he explained NFL teams hand out opioids like they're M&Ms. That is a much worse long term health issue than Marijuana ever will be. The war on weed marketing brainwashed a lot of people over the last 50+ years. Hopefully one day this country can look back on it like prohibition and laugh at how ridiculous it was to criminalize it. 

 
I always think of the movie North Dallas Forty. Way ahead of it's time in portraying the hell that players go through to get back to playing each week. Guys smoking weed, taking tons of pain medication legal or otherwise. Guys shooting up their knee because if they don't they could lose their jobs. Then the owners want to suspend a guy without pay for doing whatever he can to get back to the field. 

 
Terminalxylem said:
The statement is too broad, but not completely inaccurate. The most comprehensive Review of the health effects of marijuana was published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine a couple years ago. Their psychosocial/mental health conclusions:

Moreover, the idea that NFL players are just smoking pot for pain control is pretty suspect. It certainly can help manage pain, but if that’s all they wanted they could use CBD oil, which shouldn’t trigger conventional drug tests if not contaminated with THC. I bet most of the pot smokers do so recreationally.
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My wife has had chronic migraines pretty much her whole life but things got way worse for her starting about 10 months ago. It's been damn near hell for her this whole time and we don't know what caused things to slip so much, but are still trying to figure that out.

She has tried all different variations of CBD and it did nothing for her in terms of relieving her pain. Using the CBD/THC combo helps but is nowhere near as effective as straight MJ. That can allow her to go from having debilitating pain to more of a nuisance headache within 15 minutes.

I bring that up because if it isn't working on a 120 lb woman I seriously, seriously doubt NFL players can come close to seeing the type of pain relief that they'd be able to get from heavy painkillers with CBD only. Adding in THC may come closer but most likely still falls short of the relief obtained from all THC.

 
RUSF18 said:
My wife has had chronic migraines pretty much her whole life but things got way worse for her starting about 10 months ago. It's been damn near hell for her this whole time and we don't know what caused things to slip so much, but are still trying to figure that out.

She has tried all different variations of CBD and it did nothing for her in terms of relieving her pain. Using the CBD/THC combo helps but is nowhere near as effective as straight MJ. That can allow her to go from having debilitating pain to more of a nuisance headache within 15 minutes.

I bring that up because if it isn't working on a 120 lb woman I seriously, seriously doubt NFL players can come close to seeing the type of pain relief that they'd be able to get from heavy painkillers with CBD only. Adding in THC may come closer but most likely still falls short of the relief obtained from all THC.
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I tend to agree, but Cannabinoids still might be helpful in reducing the amount of opioids needed for severe pain. That being said, I think the lions share of NFL players who smoke pot do so to get high.

 
It's just a bargaining chip / leverage for the owners at this point.  Randy Moss also admitted to smoking during his best years playing.  

 
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