Allen Thompson

Marijuana, a drug that is the most frequently used drugs in the

world that we live in today. It is known to have psychological effects
that are known to make people high or stoned who make the public
have a negative view on the drug. But in the past couple of decades
there have been copious amounts of research that revolve around the
drug and the effects have been a lot different than researchers
thought. Since marijuana has been around it has brought around
questions of why and how long its been around but Narconon
International states that Marijuana has been used as an agent for
achieving euphoria since ancient times; it was described in a Chinese
medical reference traditionally considered to date from 2737 B.C. Its
use spread from China to India and then to N Africa and reached
Europe at least as early as A.D. 500. Which results in people possibly
having a negative view on marijuana because of its first intended
purposes which is just to create a high or relaxing feeling (Narconon)
Then theres the argument that marijuana isnt just used to get people
high and so on but the argument that marijuana could be used to
create hemp which was the original reason marijuana was brought to
the United States making it a large cash crop in the southern states.
But with it being such a cash crop scientists and researchers began to
do research trying to see if there were possible pharmaceutical uses
for marijuana and thats when they began to prescribe people that
were diagnoses with labor pains and nausea but wasnt as nearly used
as cocaine and other pain killers but the high use of marijuana
backfired in the medical industry because of the frequent term reefer
killers and other names that were given to people that used
marijuana. But with there being so many negative attitudes towards
marijuana people began to rally and fight for making marijuana
completely illegal resulted in marijuana becoming classified alongside
LSD, heroin, cocaine and other class one drugs and being viewed as
the most addicted and having no accepted medical use making it a
burden for people that enjoyed marijuana and the people believing
that marijuana can be used as medicine.

Once marijuana became classified as a Level One drug people that

were marijuana advocates began to fight for marijuana to be legalized
as medical marijuana and hoping that once it became legalized for
medical use it would later become legal for recreational use for many
reasons. The most recent arguments revolving around making
marijuana legal in the United States has gone from how it has obvious
medical uses, it has a high potential of making money for the United
States economy, it would stop the international drug trade and how it
would promote happiness due to the fact that there would not be
illegal drugs wars on the street if it were to become legalized. With the
people that were lobbying for the legalization of marijuana being
partially successful bring sup the fact that many states have recently
allowed medical marijuana and even a few states have legalized
recreational use of marijuana. But the main reason that marijuana has
slowly but surely began to be allowed to be used in the United States
revolves around marijuana being used as medicine and how it could
potentially replace pharmaceutical drugs. With there being many
reported drug overdoses from drugs such as Xanax, cocaine, hydro
codeine and other drugs that are used as frequent pain killers made
scientists to begin research on the possibility of someone overdosing
on marijuana and according to Desiree Hoover of the Huffington post
there are already tons of articles about cannabis being an all in one
medicine with only tiny, tiny percent of a chance of an overdose
resulting in people trying to become prescribed to marijuana because
of the positive effects it promotes over prescription drugs. But with
medical marijuana becoming a popular topic in the society that we live
in brings up the question revolving around what benefits medical
marijuana would pose over prescription pills for NFL football players.

With there being a large topic of discussion revolving around the side
effects NFL players receive after being prescribed narcotic drugs for
their pain brings up the topic of discussion that revolves around
allowing NFL players to smoke marijuana. With marijuana becoming a
large topic of discussion brings up the topic that the tendency to
overdose on prescription drugs is much more likely than people
overdosing on marijuana. Marijuana is known to be pretty much
impossible to overdose on and By contrast, there were zero
documented cases of death by marijuana overdose in the world until a
German study published in February 2014 claimed to have found
exactly two cases which can compare to 47,055 people overdosing on
prescription drug overdoses since 2014. With there being a substantial
amount of people overdosing on prescription narcotics instead of only
two confirmed overdoses on marijuana strongly supports that
marijuana is a much better option than the doctors prescribing the
players to opiates. Also with marijuana being pretty much impossible
to overdose on makes it a strong candidate to help NFL players to
relieve pain due to the fact that if they are to become completely
dependent on away to relieve pain without the possibility of abusing
the drug. With marijuana being difficult to abuse helps doctors be able
to prescribe people to marijuana instead of these drugs, hopefully
making them feel better with prescribing them medicine and help them
be able to have the feeling that they are not capable of promoting a
possible drug overdose by prescribing them prescription narcotics.
With the topic of overdosing on prescription narcotics brings up the
topic about addiction and how easily becoming addicted to the
frequently used prescription narcotics is. With the topic of how
addictive these drugs can be Amanda Gardner states experts believe
that more than 8 and a half million American abuse such meds
comparing to the National Institute on Drug Abuses statement saying
that 4 million people in the United States used marijuana and only 9
percent of those people would become dependent. With those
statistics it helps support the argument that medical marijuana would
potentially be a better solution than prescription narcotics. With there
being a smaller chance of people becoming addicted to marijuana than
narcotic prescriptions would benefit these people from becoming
depressed when taking drugs and especially when they have a smaller
chance of being addicted making marijuana a stronger candidate
because of the players not becoming completely dependent on the
drugs which could jeopardize their career and return to playing in the
league.

With theyre being so many NFL football players receiving serious

injuries that require pain medicine and harsh rehab brings up the topic
that these players are often prescribed to prescription drugs. These
prescription drugs are used for these players to fight pain and relieve
the stress around the injuries that these players obtain. But with pain
medicine comes negative effects for these players such as the fact that
these painkillers have such addicting tendencies on people and these
people often become dependent on them. Also when NFL football
players become injured they often lose their touch and job resulting in
them looking at alcohol for help, resulting in negative effects. But
David Peters states, The central claim of this paper is that medical
marijuana patients consistently report that greater consumption of
marijuana is associated with less consumption of opiates. The claim
that marijuana is used to substitute for narcotics and other drugs has
been recently supported by a survey of over 400 dispensary patients in
California which found 41% of patients report substituting marijuana
for alcohol and 68% report substituting marijuana for prescription
drugs which helps support the argument that the people that become
addicted to opiates or become alcoholics can lean on medical
marijuana to slowly drift away from opiates and alcohol, which would
result in a positive effect for these people. With injuries most often
being treated with pain pills there is copious amounts of research
revolving around if marijuana can mimic the pain killing of effects of
prescription narcotics and Peter Cohen states Several patients
claimed they had been able to completely stop taking narcotics by
substituting marijuana. A male in his 40s with dual hip-replacements
and severe arthritis described months of his life taking Darvon,
Oxycodone, and sublingual Codeine. He mentioned several times that
he was only able to completely stop these drugs because of marijuana
which helps support the argument that people that have injuries, such
as hip injuries in which many NFL football players experience are able
to get rid of narcotics and get rid of pain by using medical marijuana
which is known to have less side effects than prescription narcotics.
Also with medical marijuana being potentially just as strong of a pain
killer than prescription narcotics would also help eliminate the illegal
consumption of narcotics, because it is known that many people will
illegally obtain these drugs but if they ware able to smoke marijuana
than the amount of arrests with the possession of certain drugs would
decrease. A lot of NFL players have came out to state that they believe
medical marijuana should be used instead of pain killers because of
the side effects and so on but also they say they would enjoy if they
were able to consume marijuana to help ease pain and if this were a
reality than there would not be as many NFL players being released of
fined for positive drugs tests making the NFL more complete like its
rival sport the NBA which has already allowed for NBA players to use
medical marijuana if it is legal in the state that they are a resident.
With players such as Kyle Turley stating "Violin, Flexural, Percocets,
Vioxx, morphine," Turley recited as he plopped the bottles down on a
kitchen counter. Turley says be became addicted to the drugs and
depressed to the point of contemplating suicide. Then last year, he quit
the prescription painkillers and started using marijuana to manage his
pain.
"Just this right here," he says in the video, holding up a small
marijuana bud. "That's all you need. That's about two hits. With Turley
supporting the promotion of medical marijuana helps show that NFL
players are rapidly supporting marijuana, especially the ones that have
recently been addicted to other means of pain killers and went on to
medical marijuana, which seems to help their pain just as much as pain
killers and is much more enjoyable because the lack of side effects
following prescription narcotics.

When football players experience head trauma or a concussion they

are required to be put in rehab activities when trying to heal the brain.
Doctors often take an approach to help these players speed up their
recovery with concussions by prescribing them prescription narcotics
but there has been many studies that narcotics can have negative
effects on the brain and if they frequently take them the brain will
suffer a negative effect, especially when doing physical activity in
which they obviously take part of everyday. With them doing extreme
physical exercise they deal with negative side effects on the body
when taking pain killers, such as when Kevin Lona stated if the person
engages in especially demanding physical activities, such as those that
require high levels of cardiac fitness, he puts himself in danger of
causing permanent damage to his body which supports the argument
that NFl players should not be prescribed to these drugs because of
the copious amounts of physical activity they take part in. But research
is now showing that medical marijuana has a positive effect with brain
injuries, with Kevin Lona also stating that "Already, many doctors and
researchers believe that marijuana has incredibly powerful
neuroprotective properties, an understanding based on both laboratory
and clinical data," which means that they can help progresses physical
damages with medical marijuana. Also many scientists having been
proposing to the NFl of getting rid of drug tests such as Lestor
Grinspoon stating that he recently wrote an open letter to NFL
Commissioner Roger GOodell, saying the NFL should stop testing
players for marijuana and that the league should start funding research
into the plants ability to protect the brain, and with the most common
NFL injury being concussions, which involves the brain. So if the NFL
were to allow for players to smoke marijuana living in areas that allow
medical marijuana would potentially improve medical problems with
the players and also benefit the NFL.