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I agree with half of what Antonio Cromartie said to today about marijuana in the NFL.
Cromartie said that the NFL should legalize pot because the players are going to smoke it whether the league approves or not.
“We’re just going to do it anyway,” Cromartie told interviewer Ashlee Ray on Thisis50.com, an entertainment website. “They just need to let it go. They need to go ahead and say, ‘Y’all go ahead, smoke it, do what you need to do.'”
For the most part, I agree with the first part of Cromartie’s statement, “We’re just going to do it anyway.”
When former NFL offensive tackle Lomas Brown said a couple of years ago that 50 percent of the NFL smokes pot, that didn’t surprise me.
So how do they get away with it in a league that has drug testing?
The league only tests for marijuana at the beginning of training camp.
So guys that want to smoke pot, can basically do it for most of the year, but make sure they stop, let’s say 30-45 days before camp, to flush any sign of the drug out of their system.
Theoretically, you could smoke pot for 10 months out of the year, as long as you clear it out of your system before the drug test at the start of training camp.
But once you have a failed test, this all goes out the window, and you are tested periodically throughout the year. Santonio Holmes is in this situation. If Mike Goodson can avoid jail, he will be subjected to these tests as well.
The key is not getting a strike against you.
While I agree with “Cro” that guys are going to do it anyway, whether it’s legal or not, I disagree with his premise that the NFL should okay the drug and not punish offenders.
Why?
Because it’s illegal nationally, and in many states.
“It is still an illegal substance on a national basis,” Roger Goodell said last week. “It’s something that is part of the collective bargaining agreement with the players. It is questionable as to the positive impacts, in the face of the very strong evidence of the negative effects, including addictions and other issues.”
So how can you have a policy, in a national league, to okay a drug that is legal in just 20 states, and illegal nationally? What are you going to do, say players on the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks can do it because it’s legal in their state, but Atlanta Falcons can’t, because it’s illegal in Georgia.
Cro’s position isn’t pragmatic.
It’s unworkable.
And one other thing.
I’m not going to judge here, and I’m not condoning smoking pot in states that it’s illegal.
But when it comes to pot and football, I’ve always felt it might not be a great thing for players in a violent sport, a collision sport, a sport where adrenaline is running high, to take a downer, something that mellows you out, and make take away some tenacity.
February 5, 2014
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