News » Super Bowls: Marijuana use in the NFL





Attitudes towards marijuana in the United States are changing – perhaps at a faster clip than anyone expected. More states today allow for medical marijuana than did a year ago, and although the much hyped Proposition 19 which would have legalized marijuana for recreation use in California failed, it did come quite close to passing. Oh yeah, and SB 1449, signed by then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in October 2010, went into effect on January 1, 2011 decriminalizing marijuana possession of less than one ounce. In layman’s terms – no more jail time with a maximum penalty like that of a speeding ticket. Many cities have de-prioritized it in their law enforcement efforts making the chance of legal ramifications rather slim.

The NFL, however, maintains a strict no tolerance policy – made most famous by Ricky Williams, who famously retired from football to smoke, and more recently by Percy Harvins, who was no longer able to treat his migraines with cannabis.

Even with that policy in place, and the draft guaranteeing $200 million dollars being thrown around, last year Don Banks writing “Inside the NFL” for SI.com said that “NFL personnel men [were] concerned by marijuana ‘epidemic’ in [the] draft class”. His sources say that 10 or 11 of the first round draft pick candidates had a history of marijuana use, and by their estimates a third of the entire draft class. A longtime NFL team personnel man called the situation an epidemic, but then when on to say “It’s almost as if we are having to figure out a new way to evaluate it as part of the character and background report, because it’s so prevalent. There’re enough instances of it that it’s hard to know how to set your board. You can’t throw out that many guys. You have to go case-by-case and do your homework on them.”

On the other end of the spectrum from the draft, Lomas Brown an 18 season NFL veteran and 7 time Pro Bowler, says that at least 50% of the players in the NFL use marijuana. Some surveys have been done that don’t quite agree with that number, but still estimate that 20% of the players do use marijuana, which is still a rather large number – about 329 men on active rosters during the regular season.

It sounds like marijuana use in the NFL is tolerated a lot more frequently than they would have us believe.

Tags: Don Banks, Lomas Brown, marijuana, NFL, Percy Harvins, Ricky Williams, Super Bowl