NFL may ease up on marijuana for players

Is the NFL softening its stance on marijuana? Looks that way.

In the wake of a report published by the Washington Post on Tuesday, the NFL confirmed to The Chronicle that it has sent a letter to the players’ union saying it would like to join together in the study of marijuana as a possible substitute for painrelief treatment. The NFL Players Association has been investigating the issue since late last year.

“We did reach out to the NFLPA in early July proposing we work together on some research on the impact of marijuana and pain management,” said NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy, in an email to The Chronicle. “While they’ve acknowledged our letter, we don’t yet have a commitment from them to work together on this.”

The players’ union did not respond to The Chronicle’s request for comment Tuesday.

Kyle Turley did. The offensive lineman who played eight seasons in the NFL and was something of a rebel, is advocating for the use of medical marijuana

in the NFL. He was ecstatic about the news.

“That’s a huge deal. It’s massive,” said Turley, who struggled with post-career opioid addiction and who now is working with the nonprofit Doctors for Cannabis Regulation. “We just want them to get to work. This could be the greatest day in the history of the NFL. That the league finally acknowledged they will research marijuana is a huge deal. ... Now the media just needs to hold them accountable to it.”

That will be a tough job, given the NFL’s relative lack of transparency when it comes to investigating the medical impact of football. But you have to like Turley’s enthusiasm. He was truly happy to hear the league had taken a step in the right direction.

Currently, any use of marijuana is banned by the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement, although a growing chorus has called for reconsideration, citing studies that show cannabis could be a useful treatment for not only pain relief but for brain injury as well.

The arguments for cannabis in treating both pain relief and brain injuries have been well-documented in this column, as recently as last weekend. But the long-term prognosis for the league adopting a more reasonable, and forward-thinking, approach to medicinal cannabis still could be far off.

According to the Post’s story, league officials want to make the marijuana discussion part of the next collective bargaining agreement. The current contract expires in 2020.

There’s a chance the marijuana issue could be negotiated separately, outside the overall contract, but those types of side deals are usually unsuccessful, according to the Post.

But, in this case, sooner certainly would be better.

“The abuse of pain medication is clearly an issue,” said Dr. David Nathan, a New Jersey physician who works with Doctors for Cannabis Regulation, in a 2016 interview with The Chronicle. “You see the players and their later problems. You also see how the league responds to this in their drug policy.

“Marijuana as a complementary alternative to opioids really solves a lot of that problem by decreasing the lethality of pain management in the NFL.”

So where does this leave NFL players, who have actively voiced their concerns over opioid addiction and long-term brain damage? Pretty much in the same dark room, with a little ray of sunshine peeking through the door frame.

But where there is sunshine, there is hope.

“The only gateway drug I ever participated in was the sport of football, which led to 20 years of pharmaceutical use, which turned out to be abuse. I should’ve never been given certain drugs,” said Turley, in a previous interview with The Chronicle. “The science behind cannabis speaks loudly to the need for us to understand if it works. It’s imperative to find that out immediately.

“Why should cannabis have an opportunity? The pharmaceutical industry hasn’t met the mark.”