In light of the Olympic scandal where athlete Sha’Carri Richardson was disqualified for having weed in her system, I think we should chat about professional athletes and cannabis. The official line is that cannabis can be performance-enhancing. In reality, the sprinter simply smoked a joint after being told of her mother’s death. Also many would argue that cannabis would have almost no performance-enhancing effect in this arena. Even better, is that when she smoked the weed she was in Oregon, where recreational cannabis is completely legal. In response to this, I decided to have a little look through the many successful professional athletes who use and support the use of cannabis.
Michael Phelps
The famous swimmer is probably one of the best-known pro-weed athletes. In 2009 a photo of Phelps taking a bong hit exploded all over the internet. Most people who write about his story will talk about how troubled he is and how he is taking time out to work on his demons. To be fair Phelps hasn’t exactly come out with an openly pro-weed stance and instead has apologised for his youthful indiscretion. Essentially he smoked at a party, a picture got out and nearly ruined his career. Ignoring the fact that he has won a number of Olympic medals at an impressively young age. Some have linked this to the Sha’Carri incident as Phelps smoked weed and was still allowed to compete in the Olympics. However, I’m sure there are quite a few extra pieces of information missing from that comparison. Hopefully, this is simply an issue of rules rather than gender or race.
Chris Webber
This NBA star and legendary athlete has been through several incidents with police where they have found cannabis on his person. The first happened in 1988 which was actually a traffic violation initially before his car was searched. Throughout the years he was caught a few more times with cannabis on his person. So we know that Chris Webber smokes, but did you know he is also a cannabis philanthropist. Webber has set up a 70 million dollar fund to help cannabis entrepreneurs build their businesses. This was primarily created to help minorities to become a part of the quickly evolving cannabis industry in America. He wants to avoid this industry immediately being swallowed by heartless corporations immediately pushing out those who have created the cannabis industry. He makes the incredible point that minorities have always been punished excessively for cannabis-related incidents and now they deserve to profit from its legalisation.
Ricky Williams
This ex NFL player was famous for his cannabis use and his mysterious disappearance from professional football. He is currently fighting for athletes being allowed to smoke weed and has actually weighed in on the Sha’Carri issue. He hopes the young sprinter will join the fight to allow athletes to smoke. During his 11 year career, Williams was repeatedly benched for failing drug tests. Already the NFL has reduced the punishment for being caught with weed in your system and Williams hopes that this slide towards leniency will continue. Williams used cannabis in a largely medical capacity and used it to combat his severe anxiety issues. He now hopes to become the face of cannabis and sports, hopefully starting a chain reaction in greatly reducing how harshly athletes are treated for smoking.
Tanner Hall
Sure it may be less surprising that a professional snowboarder smokes a bunch of weed, but still, it’s interesting to look at how cannabis is treated in this arena. He is well known for his free-skiing style and is a world-class athlete. His openness about his use of weed definitely doesn’t affect his career like it would for most other sports. In fact, he has his own line of weed products after teaming up with the cannabis company Black Rock Originals. He created a smoking kit specifically for extreme athletes like himself. He’s even moving on to a new venture which is his own strain of weed. Tanner is an X Games gold medalist and is trying to rebrand cannabis users as energetic, athletic people rather than the lazy stoner stereotype. He believes that cannabis is good for athletic performance, without providing an unfair advantage over other athletes. It simply helps to reduce the stress and anxiety that comes with being a professional athlete. Really it is no more unfair to smoke a joint before a performance than it is to meditate or do yoga.
Kareem Abdul-Jabar
This extremely famous basketball player is known for his cannabis use. He has been caught once or twice with a small amount of illegal weed, but it has never had a huge effect on his career. The 19 time NBA all-star is well known for giving money to a variety of good causes and generally being an all-around awesome person. He now mostly smokes weed for medical reasons with a prescription. Kareem suffers from intense migraines which he treats with medicinal cannabis. He has always been a great frontman for cannabis smoking athletes. As I said he is known for being an amazing person and is a fantastic role model despite the fact that he openly smokes weed. Almost as though smoking doesn’t affect how good a person you are.
Nate Diaz
I’ll finish with one of the many MMA fighters that openly smoke weed. When Conor McGregor was releasing images of himself smoking a joint, Diaz was openly smoking at a press conference. To be fair he was only smoking a CBD vape but he allowed the public to think he was simply puffing normally. He is a huge supporter of medicinal cannabis and the therapeutic effects of CBD. He suggests that fighters and other athletes use CBD to heal muscles, reduce inflammation, and generally reduce anxiety. He and his brother are both big cannabis activists but do feel that using weed when fighting gives them an advantage. Here, maybe, we could concede that cannabis is a performance enhancer as it may give the fighter a higher pain threshold etc.
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