A number of former and a few current players have been able to eloquently state their cases for research into the use of medicinal marijuana as a pain-killing alternative for players.
And then, there’s Jake Plummer, who is willing to be a little salty when it comes to the collection of NFL owners who have yet to embrace the possibilities their plant of preference offers.
“I have a hard time with it because everybody says, ‘Oh, poor NFL millionaires. Oh, you poor people.’ They don’t understand,” Plummer told BSN Denver. “Maybe they should have a little more to say about the owners that are billionaires, they’re not millionaires; they’re billionaires.”
“Like Jerry Jones, who says it’s ‘absurd’ that there would be a link between brain trauma, football and CTE. Shame on him for saying that, that billionaire a--hole. It’s the worst thing in the world for a guy like that to say. That’s where we’re sitting; grown-ass men are asked to go out there for millions of dollars — which, yeah, it’s a lot of money — bang themselves around and completely f--- their lives over for their 40s and 50s. So yeah, poor football players is what I say. If you’re a grown-ass man, you should be allowed to make grown-ass decisions.”
That’s a perfectly reasonable — if slightly coarse — description of the basic struggle between labor and management on this issue.
The former Cardinals and Broncos quarterback has dealt with hip problems and the usual aches and pains since leaving the game after a 10-year career. And he’s willing to admit embracing marijuana in all its forms might be an effective pain-relief plan, as part of a larger point about individual rights.
“They should be able to say, ‘I’m going to have some CBD and puff on this fatty, relax after a football game and take the pain away,’” he says of players in general. “Not get tested for it like [suspended Browns wide receiver] Josh Gordon, who now can’t play the game that he’s been playing since he was a kid because he smokes marijuana. It didn’t derail him or cause him to underachieve from what I witnessed. He dominated the league for two straight years, and now he’s out of the league because he chose an alternative form of medicine.”
Of course, not every player who uses marijuana or wants to is considering the full range of therapeutic benefits. Some of them want to just get high before they head to the airport for preseason games, and the NFL’s hesitance to throw out all regulation is also understandable, given the establishment’s usual openness to change.
But while some are fighting the fight with science and research, Plummer’s willing to say all the bad words to draw attention to his cause, which he thinks can save football and its players.