Sports Stars Who Are Taking a Stand For Cannabis

It seems like forever since professional athletes were suspended and their careers destroyed just because they support or use marijuana. Now we live in the modern era, where governments slowly loosen the laws and restrictions of marijuana making it available for more people. 

Popular celebrities play a big role in changing how people see marijuana. This pushes the cannabis legalization movement to a point where it is widely accepted and maybe one day, our new normal.

Professional athletes use cannabis for relaxing and improving their mental health which is very important. Since the perception of cannabis is changing, athletes are slowly emerging and starting to talk openly about the frequency of use among professional sports stars.

In today’s article, we highlighted some athletes that are taking a stand for marijuana.

Matt Barnes

Matt Barnes is a former professional NBA player that won the championship with the Golden State Warriors and played more than 14 seasons in the NBA. Although he doesn’t figure on the NBA’s top 10 best small forwards of all-time list, he was still a pretty good player who won the Championship in 2017.

He was one of the first athletes who spoke about cannabis use in the league and claimed that it helped him become a better player.

“All of my best games, I was medicated,” Says Matt Barnes, which is weird since the NBA runs drug tests six times per season and a positive test result for marijuana is a $25,000 fine and if you do it three times in a row, you face a five-game suspension.

Fortunately, NBA loosens its regulations and 2020/21 was the first season where they removed Marijuana tests on athletes. They claim that this has a lot to do with Covid-19 and minimizing contacts between people, but the truth is that cannabis is slowly inching towards acceptance in professional sports as a source for medication.

Eugene Monroe

Eugene Monroe is a former professional American football player who played seven seasons in the NFL. He played for Jacksonville Jaguars and Baltimore Ravens and had a successful career.

One of the most interesting facts about Monroe is that he was one of the first active athletes in the National Football League to openly talk about cannabis use and its benefits towards sports-related injury and chronic pain.

He was strongly against testing players for cannabis in the NFL and cited cannabis as a safe alternative to other commonly prescribed medications.

Since he is now retired, he is dedicated to raising awareness about the medical benefits of cannabis, and publicly attacks the NFL for not removing marijuana from the banned substance list.

The Diaz Brothers

If you watch UFC then you probably know that the Diaz brothers are heavy supporters of cannabis. They are vaping immediately after fights, which is very strange, and they have been seen smoking before press conferences. 

They both faced many fines and the risk of being suspended for cannabis use. They continue to stand for marijuana and built several partnerships launching a CBD-infused, plant-based super nutrition company.

Ricky Williams

Ricky took his life on a different path after retiring from professional football and leaving the NFL. He started studying herbalism and alternative medicine. Throughout his career, he’s been suspended multiple times for cannabis use, where he openly talked about the situation addressing the health benefits from this plant.

Ricky Williams was a running back who spends more than a decade in the NFL playing for the New Orleans Saints, and Miami Dolphins. After retiring, he founded his own company called “Real Wellness by Ricky Williams” which specializes in cannabis-related products and other herbal extracts like turmeric and lavender.

Floyd Landis

Floyd Landis is a former professional road racing cyclist with a bumpy career. Ultimately, he won the 2006 Tour De France, but in the end, tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and was disqualified. 

Now he is involved in a legitimate industry where he founded Floyd’s of Leadville, which is a company that specializes in producing CBD products that are intended to ease pain and inflammation.

In an interview back in 2016, he said that for years he relied on opioid pain relievers to help him with the hip pain until he found cannabis and improved his quality of life with a safer alternative. It is quite devastating to see that these stars who are into weeds for sale had an ill-fate for being true to their actions. And we hope that someday, all states will legalize cannabis.