KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. - Don't hold your breath if you're thinking the NFL is on the brink of giving players the green light to smoke their pain away with marijuana. Go ahead, exhale. This is still going to take a while. Sure, the league has put a progressive foot forward in striking an agreement this week with the NFL Players Association in the name of holistic health and wellness. There's a joint committee coming - not joint as in blunt, but joint in that medical experts will be appointed by the league and union - that is charged to study data on several alternative methods of pain management and make recommendations. [end]
Damned if they do, damned if they don't. That's the yin and yang of the marijuana issue as it pertains to the NFL drug policy. Voters in seven states last week approved cannabis - either for recreational or medicinal use - and, by extension, advanced the argument that league's ban on it (officially) is like something out of the Stone Age. [end]
For the second time in 6 weeks, former Dallas Cowboys guard Nate Newton has been sacked by a drug arrest. Newton was arrested with two men Wednesday in Ellis County, Texas, and charged with possession with intent to distribute marijuana, a federal charge. Police said Newton, 39, who retired from football in 1999, had at least 175 pounds of marijuana in his car. He's already facing a felony charge stemming from a Nov. 4 arrest in Louisiana, where police said they found 213 pounds of marijuana in a van he was driving. [continues 160 words]