Connect with us

NFL Player Says Cannabis is Solution for Pain Therapy

Published

on

 

Eugene_Monroe

[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap radius”]E[/dropcap]ugene Monroe is a professional athlete who plays in the National Football League (NFL) as a tackle for the Baltimore Ravens. In December 2015, Monroe went through recovery for shoulder surgery and was prescribed opioids. During this time, Monroe stated that he felt zombie-like and couldn’t function normally. “I just couldn’t even get up. I just struggled. I lost where I was for a moment,” Monroe told The Guardian.

This experience motivated Monroe to take action and address opioid use among players in the NFL, and how it has negatively effected the league and players, and alternatively, what the natural alternatives are, and how the league deals with them. So, in March of this year, Monroe became the first NFL player to create a campaign dedicated to getting the league to remove cannabis from its banned substances list, to give players a natural alternative to the detrimental prescription opioids.

In May, Monroe created a personal website dedicated to his campaign and donated $80,000 toward cannabis research.

If this wasn’t enough, the NFL tackle put his career on the line by publishing an essay for The Players Tribune in the same month, titled “Getting off the T Train.” The article addressed the overwhelming use of opioids as pain treatment for NFL players, specifically the potent pain killer Toradol. In the essay, Monroe writes about his many experiences with football-related injuries and how he was advised to mask his pain with various prescriptions. He also mentions how retired NFL players misuse painkillers at a rate four times higher than the general population,  “There has to be a better way. There is a better way.”

Cannabis is the alternative Monroe hopes the NFL will consider, and in his essay urges the league to rethink the beneficial plant. “Remove marijuana from the banned substances list, fund medical marijuana research, especially as it relates to CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) and stop over-prescribing addictive and harmful opioids,” Monroe pleads.

Hopefully Monroe’s efforts will help professional athletes across the U.S. by getting cannabis off the NFL’s banned substances list. This would be a much needed step for athletes suffering from sports related injuries and opioid addiction as a result of submitting their bodies to strenuous and sometimes harmful activities.

 

Read Monroe’s full essay here.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *