On Tuesday, the National Basketball Association\u2019s Adam Silver went on the Bleacher Report\u2019s \u201cThe Full 48\u201d podcast and suggested the league might soon be making changes to its cannabis policy.<\/p>\n
This disclosure happened during a long conversation that might be the most in-depth public cannabis discussion had by a commissioner of one of the big four sports<\/a> leagues in the United States.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t intend to break news,\u201d Silver said on the podcast<\/a>. \u201cBut there have been ongoing discussions with the players association for some time. We should follow the science. It\u2019s not an ethical issue for me. It\u2019s not a moral issue for me.\u201d<\/p>\n Silver said he believes there are a bunch of hurdles the NBA must deal with in moving forward with the plan, first and foremost the patchwork of state and federal laws that currently define the nation\u2019s cannabis policy.<\/p>\n \u201cIt creates difficulty for us, and for the players, when there is a hodgepodge of regulations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Despite estimates from retired NBA players that up to 80 percent of the league<\/a> is smoking marijuana, the league has instituted no real reforms to deal with the changing times. The NBA still tests its players for cannabis use and imposes punishments if the tests return positive.<\/p>\n All the while, pot is accepted as medicine by many Americans, and many of the league\u2019s best teams like the Golden State Warriors, the Lakers and the Celtics find themselves in legal adult-use states.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Full 48\u201d host Howard Beck got the cannabis-infused chat going by asking Silver about New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo\u2019s recent change in stance<\/a> on marijuana legalization an hour and 15 minutes into the show<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201c[Cuomo] announced he was changing his position,\u201d Silver said. \u201cHe was someone a few years ago I was listening to say \u2018I hear everyone who\u2019s saying we should legalize marijuana. I\u2019m watching what\u2019s happening in other states, but what my experts are telling me is it\u2019s still bad for people. And incidentally, it creates concerns about people driving under the influence and all the other societal issues that are related to it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Silver highlighted travel as a major worry for the league when it comes to medical marijuana, which makes sense. Any player or personnel facing criminal charges over handling medical marijuana is definitely a worst-case scenario.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a trap for our players, or any team employee for that matter, that could be living and playing in one state and travel with marijuana to another state,\u201d Silver said. \u201cThey could be breaking the law. And those laws apply to charter planes as well. That\u2019s an issue. Also, just the fact there are different laws in different jurisdictions that require players and teams to keep track of that. Even if it\u2019s medical marijuana.\u201d<\/p>\n Silver went on to provide more specific examples: \u201cIt\u2019s legal in Colorado<\/a>, but now you\u2019re playing the Knicks. Make sure you don\u2019t travel with it. You know that\u2019s a trap. You could be arrested or sanctioned in some way by the government for having that same medical marijuana in New York.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout his comments on cannabis policy, Silver made clear that his focus would be on what the science shows about the efficacy of cannabis as medicine.<\/p>\n \u201cWe and the Players Association are both looking into this,\u201d he said. \u201cIt surprises me, there isn\u2019t as much\u2026 frankly science, out there as I would have thought \u2014 in terms of how the medical efficacy of using medical marijuana. Now I don\u2019t mean to suggest that the people who say it\u2019s effective for them it\u2019s not, and I understand it\u2019s like a lot of other things we deal with in the league. It\u2019s a balancing of issues.\u201d<\/p>\n Silver says health concerns come into play as well, because although one can consume marijuana a multitude of ways, he doesn\u2019t think players should be smoking, whether it\u2019s tobacco<\/a> or marijuana.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd again, I understand there are other ways they can be using marijuana,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s edibles, there\u2019s CBD oil, there\u2019s byproducts of marijuana. There are other approaches.\u201d<\/p>\n Silver said that well-known, high profile players have talked to him openly about mental health issues in recent years, such as stress, insomnia<\/a> and anxiety, and they\u2019ve also mentioned marijuana.<\/p>\n \u201cI understand that players are self-medicating as a way of dealing with those issues and question if we ban marijuana what then they\u2019ll otherwise use.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Silver, players have approached him about not using marijuana because it\u2019s banned but then getting prescribed anti-anxiety medication by team doctors, which made the players uncomfortable.<\/p>\n \u201cI recognize that medication may be worse for the player than smoking marijuana, even if marijuana isn\u2019t great for you,\u201d Silver said. \u201cAnd I also recognize if they don\u2019t want anti-anxiety medication, and they can\u2019t smoke marijuana, they may drink more \u2014 which is perfectly legal. Obviously, you can overuse alcohol in our league, but we don\u2019t have a prohibition on drinking and that might be much worse for them.\u201d<\/p>\n Silver said based on where he is at, and how discussions have gone with the union, he\u2019s now looking to the experts to inform the next move. Silver said marijuana usage isn\u2019t something they need to be adversarial over, because it\u2019s all about what is in the best interest of the players and the league.<\/p>\n Silver also said that as of now, penalties for players who test positive for marijuana are relatively light. \u201cThere\u2019s no public disclosure of it. The team in the first instance isn\u2019t even informed,\u201d Silver said. \u201cIt\u2019s a confidential program where the player talks to a drug counselor, and often that\u2019s a trigger for a player to talk to a counselor about issues they\u2019re having in their life.<\/p>\n Worried About the Kids<\/strong><\/p>\n Beck told Silver he didn\u2019t need to embrace the medical or any uses of marijuana to drop it from random drug testing and asked why the league had yet to do so. Silver replied he felt responsible for the enormous influence the league has on young people, both in this country and around the world.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the league makes an announcement around marijuana, people will take note of that,\u201d Silver said. \u201cSo we have an obligation to the science, to make sure we understand it. I feel like we have an obligation to our players because if we don\u2019t test for it it\u2019s not quite an endorsement, but it\u2019s a suggestion that we changed our position on it.\u201d<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, do you think the NBA should allow players and employees to use medical cannabis?<\/p>\n The post Big Marijuana Reforms Likely in NBA, Commissioner Silver Suggests<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the National Basketball Association\u2019s Adam Silver went on the Bleacher Report\u2019s \u201cThe Full 48\u201d podcast and suggested the league might soon be making changes to its cannabis policy. This disclosure happened during a long conversation that might be the most in-depth public cannabis discussion had by a commissionerContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6823,6824,50,1903,90,139,2201,658],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31509"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31510,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31509\/revisions\/31510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Travel Concerns, Health Concerns<\/h4>\n
Why NBA Players Currently Use Cannabis<\/h4>\n
\n
\nRead More: Big Marijuana Reforms Likely in NBA, Commissioner Silver Suggests<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"