One of baseball's best prospects got suspended for 50 games Monday. He did not drive drunk. He did not hit a woman. He did not cheat in a game. He did something legal in four states, decriminalized in 16 and completely endorsed this time next year, when he's on a major league roster.

Reefer madness is alive and well in baseball. Alex Reyes, a 100-mph-throwing starter in the St. Louis Cardinals organization, was suspended by Major League Baseball on Monday for blazing something other than fastballs. Marijuana use among minor league players is prohibited by MLB, a rule that's not just outdated but inconsistent and unnecessary.

MLB suspended Cardinals prospect Alex Reyes 50 games. More

Put aside, for a moment, the marijuana revolution of the past five years that has seeded an imminent path toward nationwide legalization, because while that's a perfectly cogent argument to use on Reyes' behalf, it's not even the best.

Marijuana has been an issue on the table during collective bargaining between MLB and the MLB Players Association in the past, and MLB put no moralistic stake in the ground on the matter. Major league players can partake of THC however they please. Joints, blunts, pipes, bongs, edibles – their existence is a fairy tale of ganja, and the worst penalty is financial, with fines for excessive positive tests, a price seasoned imbibers gladly pay.

Because minor league players are not covered by the league's collective-bargaining agreement with the union, MLB gets carte blanche governing the minors. So if it wants to test something like a pitch clock, minor leaguers are the guinea pigs. And if it wants to pay them below minimum wage, minor leaguers will take their peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches and like them. And if it wants to penalize weed, despite the fact that it explicitly sanctioned its use among players simply because they belong to a union, then penalize they will.

Implementing on-field changes makes sense. Low wages is an issue winding its way through the justice system. Suspending players like Alex Reyes for marijuana is just contradictory. Surely the league can't believe that once a team places a player on its 40-man roster, he earns weed privileges, too.

Baseball falls prey to some of the typical fear-mongering typically proffered by the anti-marijuana establishment. The release announcing Reyes' suspension said it was for a "drug of abuse," a loaded phrase most experts agree simply doesn't apply to marijuana. It's especially egregious considering officials with MLB have discussed granting therapeutic-use exemptions that would allow players to use marijuana or a medicinal THC extract without fear of fines or repercussions, multiple sources told Yahoo Sports.

The gap between marijuana as a medical solution for major league players and a drug worthy of losing nearly half a season for minor leaguers is too large to bridge logically. Baseball players in the majors and minors serve the same 80-game suspension for first-time performance-enhancing drug use. It makes sense to treat all drugs consistently across all levels of the sport; if it's 80 and 80 with PEDs, shouldn't it be zero and zero with marijuana? Similarly, what sort of message does it send to minor league players that use of a stimulant – drugs that baseball believes enhance on-field performance – draws the same 50-game penalty for a drug that enhances Cheeto-smashing performance?

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