Ex-US hockey player claims pot helped ease his anxiety
AS RILEY Cote took and delivered countless punches over more than a decade of junior and pro hockey, he was eager to avoid painkillers.
Early on, marijuana was touted to the enforcer as a healing option.
“I started noticing some therapeutic benefits,” Cote said. “It helped me sleep, helped with my anxiety and general well-being.”
Now a handful of years into retirement, Cote is a proponent of cannabis and its oils as an alternative to more addictive drugs commonly used by athletes to play through pain.
Marijuana can be detected in a person’s system for more than 30 days, is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency without a specific therapeutic use exemption and is illegal in much of the United States.
Canada tomorrow will become the largest country in the world to legalise recreational marijuana. That means it will be available under the law in seven more NHL cities (it’s been legal to adults in Denver since 2012). The move is a step forward for those who, like Cote, believe marijuana has been stigmatised and should be accepted as a form of treatment.
“It was so tainted for a long time,” Ottawa Senators forward Matt Duchene said.
“Now people are starting to learn a little bit more about it and there is definitely some positive uses to different elements of it.”
The NHL and NHL Players’ Association plan no changes to their drug-testing policy, under which players are not punished for positive marijuana tests. It is the most lenient approach to cannabis by any major North American professional sports league.
Cote said that about half of players during his NHL career from 20072010 used some sort of cannabis for medicinal purposes, although players suggest use in hockey is lower than the population at large.
More than two dozen US states allow marijuana use for a variety of ailments, but the federal government has not approved it for any medical use.
Some players have already done research into the benefits of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) oils. There’s a curiosity about whether marijuana could one day replace or limit painkillers like oxycodone, even if players aren’t yet ready to make that leap.
“There’s not a lot of science out there yet in terms of long-term effects,” said Winnipeg Jets centre Mark Scheifele, who added he’s still on the fence about cannabis use for medical reasons.
“I think it’s something that still needs to be thought about in terms of understanding the long-term effects.”
“There’s a lot of different things that point to the fact that the science is now backing it up,” Cote said.
“There’s probably billions of anecdotal stories, but those don’t mean anything unless backed by science, unless it follows the order of the way it’s supposed to be.”