During his appearance on ESPN’s Mike & Mike on Friday, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell discussed the issue of marijuana use in the league. “I think you still have to look at a lot of aspects of marijuana use,” Goodell said. “Is it something that can be negative to the health of our players? Listen, you’re ingesting smoke, so that’s not usually a very positive thing that people would say.”
Goodell doesn’t appear to be leaning towards getting marijuana off the league’s list of banned substances, claiming that the drug is “addictive” and unhealthy for the players in the long-term. “It does have addictive nature,” he said. “There are a lot of compounds in marijuana that may not be healthy for the players long-term. All of those things have to be considered. And it’s not as simple as someone just wants to feel better after a game. We really want to help our players in that circumstance but I want to make sure that the negative consequences aren’t something that is something that we’ll be held accountable for some years down the road.”
Goodell admits he would consider allowing marijuana for medical purposes, but it looks like we’re a long way from seeing that happen. “We look at it from a medical standpoint,” he said. “So if people feel that it has a medical benefit, the medical advisers have to tell you that. We have joint advisers, we also have independent advisers, both the NFLPA and the NFL, and we’ll sit down and talk about that. But we’ve been studying that through our advisers. To date, they haven’t said this is a change we think you should make that’s in the best interests of the health and safety of our players. If they do, we’re certainly going to consider that. But to date, they haven’t really said that.”
credit:complex.com
