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NFL Player Banished For Using Weed to Treat Crohn's Disease

  • December 01, 2016

An NFL offensive tackle was suspended for 10 games for using marijuana to relieve his Crohn’s disease, according to the New York Post. While the player’s situation is unique and dire, league rules don’t allow for exceptions, even though studies show marijuana can be effective for Crohn’s.

This is frustrating in that we’ve known for years that a huge body of research supports the safety and effectiveness for the medical use of marijuana. Increasing research also suggests that medical marijuana is an effective agent for pain relief with fewer side effects and risks compared to prescription opioids — and could be a possible substitute for opioids. In fact, in states where medical marijuana is legal, overdose deaths from opioids like morphine, oxycodone and heroin have decreased significantly.

Between 85 and 95 percent of Americans are in favor of medical cannabis, and nearly 60 percent support complete legalization of it. And doctors overwhelmingly agree — 76 percent in a 2013 survey approved of medical marijuana.

So what’s going on here? The real problem is that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) continues to reject petitions to lower the classification of marijuana to a Schedule 2 drug — drugs that have some accepted medicinal use, keeping it in the same class as heroin, LSD and ecstasy. Sadly, the only ones benefiting from this unreasonable decision are the drug companies. With this, the DEA has completely lost all credibility, proving they will act AGAINST the public good if it means protecting corporate interests. The hypocrisy is so blatant it’s infuriating.