It’s time the NFL seriously considers the latter. Other leagues are not obsessing over this in this way. And that includes other sports leagues, because at least two former NFL players who got long weed suspensions — Will Hill, who sat 10 games last year, and Frank Alexander, who sat all of the 2015 season — now play in the CFL, which does not test for marijuana.
Everything that marijuana advocates connected to the NFL — the Eugene Monroes, Nate Jacksons and others — have said has fallen on deaf ears. All the information available about pain management has led to no serious change.
Everybody who has said, out loud or behind the scenes, about preferring to see players light up than to see them get drunk and do something truly dangerous, gets tuned out. Gordon’s original suspension, back in 2014, was based partly on a DWI arrest, as was Aldon Smith’s 2015 ban, which has not yet been lifted. The Packers’ Letroy Guion was arrested last month and charged with DUI.
The contradictory slaps on the wrist for far more heinous offenses can be recited by heart by now. Ray Rice. Josh Brown. Greg Hardy. The one- or two- or four-game hits for driving drunk, carrying guns, using performance-enhancers and being recklessly dangerous on the field.
In the midst of all that, though … four players in one offseason run off for a full year over marijuana.
It’s time to stop asking what the players were thinking, and ask the NFL the same thing.
Article Appeared @http://www.sportingnews.com/nfl/news/nfl-marijuana-weed-policy-substance-abuse-suspensions-arrests/1fu62fpolywr81c7ae1ofgazqb