Pubdate: Mon, 03 Aug 2015
Source: Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
Copyright: 2015 Sun-Sentinel Company
Contact: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sfl-letters-to-the-editor-htmlstory.html
Website: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/159
Author: Stefanie Loh, Tribune Newspapers

TIME TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA IN SPORTS?

You've seen the ubiquitous prescription drug commercials on television.

A happy couple walks hand-in-hand along an isolated beach as the sun 
sets in the background. The drug name flashes across the screen. Cue 
a voice over listing all the possible side effects - always in 
staccato speed because, well, the number of possible side effects is 
long enough that it would take a while to get through them all at regular pace.

Kyle Turley was watching one of those commercials earlier this year 
when he decided enough was enough. He was done with synthetic drugs.

A decade-long NFL career left him with a multitude of health issues. 
Turley's football injuries broke his body, but he's also convinced 
that football did irreparable damage to his brain. He's struggled 
with anxiety, headaches, depression and rage issues. In an interview 
with the UnionTribune in 2013, he even admitted to having entertained suicide.

To help him deal with his ailments, Turley's doctors have prescribed 
a multitude of painkillers, psych meds and muscle relaxants over the years.

Depakote. Wellbutrin. Zoloft. Flexeril. Percocet. Vicodin. Toradol. Vioxx.

You don't need to know what each of these drugs is designed to do. 
The point is that dating back to when he blew out his knee in college 
in 1996, Turley has been on them all at some point, often in 
different prescribed combinations, over a period that spans almost 20 years.

That ended in February when Turley decided to free himself of all 
prescription medications and use only marijuana - a move he credits 
with saving his life.

The sports world appears to be waiting to see what happens 
politically in regard to marijuana, with the movement to legalize it 
gaining steam in the United States. Twenty-three states have now 
legalized marijuana in some form, with four of those (Alaska, 
Washington, Oregon and Colorado) allowing for outright recreational 
use for adults aged 21 and older.

The drug is still illegal in all the major pro sports leagues and 
very restricted at the NCAA level.

In the meantime, there's a growing segment of athletes who believe 
the health benefits to be gained from the marijuana plant outweigh 
the risks - especially when compared to the opioids they've long been 
prescribed.

Experts in the field of pain medicine agree that everything is coming 
to a head.

"We have 100 million Americans in chronic pain. We don't have good, 
strong and safe therapies. We have a crisis with pain and opioids in 
this country," said Dr. Lynn Webster, a past president of the 
American Academy of Pain Medicine. "We need to find better treatments 
for athletes and nonathletes, and cannabinoids may by one way."

Pain or stress management?

Cannabis has been used as a recreational drug for decades, yet 
because there's such a stigma attached, it's difficult to determine 
when athletes started taking marijuana for pain or stress management.

One of the earliest known instances of a high profile pro athlete 
being busted for the drug was in 1993, when Boston Celtics center 
Robert Parish - then the oldest player in the NBA at age 39 - was 
charged with marijuana possession after a drug-sniffing dog detected 
it in a FedEx package addressed to him. Parish later told the Boston 
Globe that he used marijuana to relax after games and that he quit 
smoking in 1995.

A 1997 New York Times story estimated that "60 to 70 percent" of NBA 
players smoked marijuana, though this pre-dated the medicinal 
marijuana wave of the 2000s, and it appears that marijuana was used 
mostly as a recreational drug.

Around the turn of the decade, evidence suggests more athletes 
started using marijuana more to help manage pain from injuries, 
especially in the NFL. Running back Jamal Anderson, who played for 
the Atlanta Falcons from 1994 to 2001 recently told Bleacher Report 
that during his career about "40 to 50 percent of the league" used 
marijuana. Ricky Williams, who played for the Saints, Dolphins and 
Ravens from 1999 to 2011, has also publicly talked about using 
marijuana during his career to help control pain and stress.

The focus on the issue sharpens when you consider that the NFL 
currently faces a lawsuit filed in May by a group of former players 
who allege that all 32 teams liberally dispensed large quantities of 
painkillers to injured players in a "conspiracy" to keep them on the 
field without fully educating them on the risks these medications present.

Anderson, Williams, Turley and former Denver Broncos tight end Nate 
Jackson are now part of a growing number of former players who 
believe that marijuana is a safer way to help athletes deal with pain.

"It's natural for football players to lean toward marijuana to deal 
with the violence and trauma of the game," said Jackson, 36, who 
played for the Broncos from 2003-08, and who estimates that up to 
half his team might have used marijuana. "Teams will prescribe you 
bottles and injections that are really bad for you. Cannabis was what 
my teammates and I preferred.

"It was a supplement/recovery for me. (Opioids or marijuana), it was 
never a dilemma. It was a physical reaction to substances that I 
assessed after trying both and realizing that marijuana was better 
for my mind and body. I don't like taking pills. They make me feel 
slow, sluggish and heavy."

The violent nature of professional football almost ensures a 
continuous litany of injuries throughout the season. In 2014 alone, 
365 NFL players found themselves on the reserve/injured list. 
Injuries are acknowledged as part of the profession, an occupational 
hazard, if you will.

In Jackson's six-year NFL career, for instance, he broke his fingers, 
broke a rib, separated both his shoulders, broke his tibia, tore the 
medial collateral ligament in his knee and tore his hamstring off the 
bone twice. He used marijuana after practices and games for relief 
from his injuries.

The NFL only tests for marijuana between April and August, so it's 
not difficult for players who use cannabis to work around that and 
stay under the radar while ensuring they pass the drug screening.

Turley also used marijuana regularly when he played in the NFL 
because he said it helped him deal with some of his health issues - 
anxiety, sleeplessness and depression among them. Now, he's returned 
to marijuana as a way to manage his ailments in his post-NFL life.

With California's liberal medical marijuana policies, access to 
marijuana was one of the reasons Turley uprooted his family from 
Nashville, Tenn. back to his hometown of Riverside last April.

Since weaning himself off all prescription drugs three months ago and 
transitioning solely to medicinal marijuana, Turley has noticed a 
"night and day difference in his psyche." He no longer suffers from 
low testosterone, his libido is back, and his anxiety issues have improved.

"I don't have as bad depression any more, that's getting better. The 
cognitive impairment seems to be getting a little bit better. Life is 
more manageable, I have more energy and feel more alive," Turley 
said. "I don't think about killing myself any more. Suicidal thoughts 
and tendencies were part of my daily living.

"At the end of the day, I was losing hope with the synthetic drugs 
and now I feel better. It's giving me hope again, helping with 
depression and anxiety."

Some athletes also tout marijuana for its value as a neuro-protectant 
though scientific studies on the subject are still very preliminary. 
Some studies of the drug have found just the opposite - that it can 
actually lead to suicidal thoughts in some users. Like many medical 
issues, the anecdotes from true believers is increasingly at odds 
with the clinical evidence, stoking emotions on both sides.

More research could prove valuable for athletes looking for answers 
outside established medical practices that they have come to distrust 
- - especially NFL players who have in the last five years become much 
more aware of how concussions and head trauma sustained during their 
football careers can cause long term brain damage or chronic 
traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) - the progressive, degenerative brain 
disease that results from multiple subconcussive blows to the head.

Turley has been diagnosed with early onset dementia, and has had his 
brain scanned for damage. Scans yielded a "big blurred area that 
doctors are concerned about," Turley said.

Put together the results of the scans, his memory issues, depression 
and anxiety problems, and Turley believes he has CTE. Turley also 
thinks marijuana might be helping his brain to heal.

"I believe that the answer lies in marijuana and I'm on that search 
to figure that out. ... With marijuana I saw some pretty amazing 
things and how it can deal with brain injury and this disease I 
have," Turley said. "From memory to function, there are some wonders 
in this medicine.

Yet, for all his praises of marijuana, even Turley admits that in 
terms of its properties as a medicine, it's still very much an 
untested commodity. While he has no medical or scientific 
credentials, he is passionate about the subject and is anxious to learn more.

"There's no real science behind this yet," Turley said. "I'm really 
looking forward to expanding on my experience with it now that it's 
giving me relief.

"If I have to take something, I'd rather take something that grows 
from the ground and has medicinal properties than something that the 
government grows or I have to get from Walgreens."

Some benefits

The cannabis plant has several hundred chemical compounds, but two of 
the main chemicals are THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (cannabidiol).

THC is the principal psychoactive compound - the chemical that 
produces a high, but has also been found to have analgesic, 
anti-spasm, anti-nausea and appetite stimulating properties. CBD 
might help with seizures, anxiety, psychosis management and 
management of diseases in which inflammation is an important element.

It's difficult for scientists to do extensive research on marijuana 
in the United States because its status as a Schedule 1 drug - it's 
deemed to have a high potential for abuse and has no medical purpose 
- - means the federal government regulates its dispensation for use in 
all scientific studies, and this is often a long, tedious process.

But several uses of cannabis have been established in recent years. 
In 2012, British researchers at the University of Reading found that 
a chemical in the cannabis plant helped to suppress epileptic 
seizures with no side effects. Last fall, researchers from St. 
George's University of London also discovered that cannabinoids can 
help to treat brain cancer.

"Cannabis can help with neuropathic pain - a kind of burning, 
tingling hyper-sensitivity type of pain," said Dr. Igor Grant, the 
head of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at UCSD. "We see 
this with some diseases like HIV and certain kinds of injuries to the 
nervous system. This type of pain does not respond to typical pain 
medication such as Ibuprofen or opioids."

Cannabis can also help with weight gain - "the idea of the munchies 
is really true. These are appetite stimulants," Grant said - and 
control of nausea and vomiting, especially with cancer patients."

 From an athletic standpoint, the benefits of marijuana have not been 
extensively studied, but much of what is known comes from a 2011 
scientific manuscript on cannabis in sport that was authored by Dr. 
Marilyn Huestis, the Chief of Chemistry and Drug Metabolism at the 
National Institute on Drug Abuse. Huestis is on the World Anti-Doping 
Agency's Prohibited Drug Committee and she worked with WADA 
scientific officers Irene Mazzoni and Olivier Rabin on the review.

The investigators concluded that while additional research into the 
effects of cannabis on athletic performance is needed, the 
acknowledged benefits are as follows.

According to Huestis' manuscript, cannabis:

Induces relaxation and steadiness

Relieves the stress of competition

Improves sleep and recovery after an event Reduces anxiety and fear 
Increases risk taking, which could improve performance

Increases appetite, which could help athletes gain weight if they're 
trying to bulk up.

Enhances sensory perception Decreases respiratory rate Increases 
heart rate Acts as an analgesic that can help athletes work through 
injuries and pain from training fatigue.

At the moment, there's little to no research that shows marijuana 
helps the human brain heal from concussions.

UCSD's Grant said some animal studies have been done on the subject, 
and "a little bit of human work." He concedes that it's "not an 
outlandish idea," but also points out that it has not been established.

Helps or hurts?

So does marijuana help or hurt people in the long run?

Turley argues for the former. The little green bud of marijuana that 
he holds between the thumb and index finger of his left hand is 
dwarfed by the quart-sized Ziploc bag he clutches in his right hand.

The bag is full of prescription pill bottles. It represents 
everything Turley weaned himself off this year.

"I've tried all the medicines in this freaking bag," he says, shaking 
the Ziploc bag with all his pill bottles before holding up the bud of 
marijuana in his left hand. "Not one of them does what this does."

"My charge is to take this away from the 'pot head and reefer 
madness' crowd and bring this to an arena where we can be educated 
about it," Turley said. "I'm really interested in finding more 
answers in the plant that grows in the ground instead of the 
synthetic things that have really controlled my life for the last 15 
years or more."

Some scientists are on his side. They want marijuana declassified 
from the Schedule 1 drugs to open up the opportunity for more 
extensive research on its benefits.

It's all about relativity. Opioids or marijuana: which is more 
dangerous for an athlete when it comes to pain management?
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom