Athletes and drugs are nothing new, but the amount of young promising athletes willing to throw their careers away for a puff or two is alarming.
This past weekend we saw two struggling NFL Franchises draft quarterbacks in the first round, Johnny Manziel to the Browns and Blake Bortles to the Jags, so that they can turn around the fate of their organizations. The problem is that both of those teams will probably lose their best receivers for the season due to violations of the NFL’s substance abuse policy.
Justin Blackmon and Josh Gordon are just the latest athletes to throw away their careers for drugs. Sure, they’ll probably return for the 2015 season and maybe they’ll return to form, but that is a years salary and production that they can never get back. Two players that are entering their prime and have the ability to be Top 10 receivers in the NFL, but found recreational marijuana use more appealing than making Calvin Johnson-esque money.
Now we arrive at the underlying issue, why is marijuana more important than a professional career?
Many people have said, “Just do it after you’ve retired.” or “Can’t you just stop doing it after the first suspension?”
Well J. Wesley Boyd, M.D., Ph.D explained this in his article for PsychologyToday.com.
Even though the physiological effects of cannabis withdrawal are generally mild, it is not correct to conclude that marijuana is not addictive, because being addicted to something is more than simply being physically dependent on a drug and experiencing physiological effects if the drug is stopped suddenly. “Addiction” refers to behaviors that are compulsive, partially out of control or worse, and often escalating in severity and intensity.
Boyd goes on to say that marijuana doesn’t affect everyone the same way.
Obviously, the vast majority of marijuana users are neither addicted nor almost addicted to cannabis. Their use doesn’t escalate over time, they can enjoy its effects without endangering some major element of their lives.
But the fact that most who smoke don’t get addicted to marijuana does not mean, however, that it isn’t potentially addictive.
So, it is possible to have a dependency for marijuana. That would explain some of Gordon’s past behavior, according to Cleveland.com’s Mary Kay Cabot.
Gordon’s two-game suspension and four-game fine for the codeine — which he said was contained in cough syrup prescribed for strep throat — means he was already in Stage Two of the NFL’s substance abuse program.
For a player to be suspended, he must have violated the policy at least one other time. That means that Gordon — who failed three marijuana tests in college and was dismissed from Baylor and Utah — has tested positive at least five times since October, 2010.
Her article was written before Gordon’s last incident, which will put him at six failed drug test in four years. Gordon isn’t alone. More than half of the players suspended for drug abuse in the NFL in 2013 were second offenders.
Multiple failed drug tests show that the usage of marijuana and other drugs must have a deeper connection within these athletes than just stupidity.
Sure, it’s an unintelligent decision by these athletes, but like many people at the top of their industries they feel invincible. They feel as though they’ll never get caught again, or that they now know how to avoid getting caught by the test. Well they are wrong. That thought process is idiotic, but their usage of recreational drugs time and time again may be further out of their control than any of us know.
In fact who are we to say that they’d even be in the position they are today without the drugs? I’ve spoken to several athletes throughout the years that have said they use it to calm nerves or anxiety. If high school and college athletes felt as though they needed it to perform on the field or on a test then imagine how some must feel playing in front of 80,000 people. The NFL at its core is a down by down game. It is as close to a gladiator sport as we have in today’s society.
Every play can be the last for an athlete, every dropped pass can be the end of someone’s livelihood. There are no guaranteed contracts in the NFL and performing badly in consecutive games can mean the difference of being an All-Pro or on the waiver wire. Imagine walking into work after two mistakes and they cut your hourly salary from $18/hr to $2/hr. That’s what many of these veterans face. They go from $8 million+ contracts to veteran minimum $1 million salaries in the matter of months. How is that for pressure?
Before we rush to call these athletes dumb you may have to put yourself in their position. This isn’t about the legality of a substance or the effects they have on someone’s body. This is about a mechanism an athlete uses to maintain the right frame of mind to preform at his highest level because a few weeks below that could be the end of his entire career.