MLB and Cannabis: An Ongoing Affair
Tonight’s Major League Baseball (MLB) All-Star Game celebrates baseball’s best players at Petco Park in San Diego. The All-Star Game ties it all together and gets everyone ready for the second half of the season. CBS Sports says that the American League (AL) has been dominating the All-Star Game in recent years and have won 12 straight All-Star Games from 1997-2009, and they’ve won the last three Midsummer Classics as well. What better time to celebrate with some brews, some hot dogs and some loving fresh cure buds?
MLB has one of the most progressive cannabis policies of any sports league. MLB’s current policy doesn’t dole out suspensions for positive cannabis tests whenever they want, like many other leagues. But, baseball’s minor league players have a different experience. Last year, St. Louis Cardinals’ pitcher Alex Reyes received a whopping 50-game suspension after a second positive test for cannabis in his system. This shocking difference between policies within the same sport is puzzling and concerning, to say the least.
Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Passan, believes there are some culture-based bureaucratic reasons that influence MLB’s strict punishment of minor leaguers for offenses involving cannabis.
“Maybe baseball is trying to appeal to its old, white, conservative base by cracking down on weed,” Passan wrote in a piece published on Monday, “or perhaps it’s placating its partners in the alcohol industry who funnel untold millions of dollars into the game’s coffers.”
One major reason that stands out from the rest, however, is that major league players are unionized, and minor league players are not. The MLB Players Association fought hard to make sure its players don’t face suspensions for cannabis as part of the league’s Joint Prevention and Treatment Program, which was very important to the players in the union. They fought long and hard to get those rights, and the minor leagues don’t have that kind of fight. No one ever fought for the cause in the minor leagues, so they’re left to deal with whatever is doled out to them.
Eric Hernandez of HuffPost Sports spoke to Michael Teevan at MLB about this difference, and he admitted, that without union pressure, the Commissioner and his constituents get to decide what punishment is best suited. “The differences between the [drug] programs stem from the fact that one was reached in a collective bargaining environment and the other was not,” Teevan said.
Even with the astounding scientific evidence, hundreds of studies and over half of the country regulating and legalizing medical cannabis for injuries and ailments, they remain firm.
A new study in California will begin soon, according to Breitbart, studying 30 former NFL players to help find out is whole-plant cannabis works as an effective pain reliever for major athletic injuries. Dutch researcher, Dr. Arno Hasekamp will head the study, administering cannabis to the players via vapor or tincture and then follow their symptoms of pain relief from concussions. This study is just one of many studies relating cannabis and sports. Hopefully, the more legal and accepted the use of cannabis becomes in our country, the more likely sporting organizations like the minor league will lighten up their stances on medical cannabis use amongst players.
