Drew and Case Debate: Medical Marijuana vs. Pain Pills in the NFL

Drew Barron:

ESPN has been interviewing and surveying NFL players such as, the Baltimore Ravens offensive tackle Eugene Monroe. He supports that the NFL should let players smoke marijuana to relieve football associated pain. Consequently, the NFL is starting to favor the side of medical marijuana for pain. Monroe predicts that, “around 65-70% of NFL players use marijuana to alleviate pain.” Monroe’s argument is that a handful of NFL players are tired of taking different kinds of pain relievers that could ultimately leave them with anxiety, depression, or other mental illnesses. The other side of the argument is that marijuana kills brain cells and that it is not good for you.

Painkillers are the acceptable, and effective way to rid pain. Any time a person inhales smoke into their lungs it is obviously not healthy, especially for football players. If a person is a smoker and an athlete they will often notice that they are always short-of-breath. Smoking marijuana has a better chance of affecting game performance than painkillers do as well. Both of the drugs do indeed kill brain cells, but marijuana is known to be a gateway drug into harder drugs such as cocaine. People who are addicted to marijuana are three times more likely to be addicted to heroin.  

We are at a crossroad. Legalizing marijuana will have lasting negative effects on future generations. Current legal drugs, alcohol and tobacco, are two of the leading causes of preventable illness and death in the country. Establishing marijuana as a third legal drug will only increase the national drug abuse problem. Also, painkillers do not necessarily give off a physical high as much as marijuana. The general effect is that painkillers relax muscles so one does not feel the lactic acid buildup in your muscles.

It should come as no surprise that the vast majority of heroin users have used marijuana and many other drugs. If we are going to start using marijuana for pain, should athletes and citizens use cocaine for weight loss, too?

Case Kiefer:

Marijuana is safer than most painkillers; the side-effects to this effective herb are hunger, paranoia, laughter, introspection, creative impulse, tiredness, and forgetfulness for two to four hours.  However, all of these side effects wear off. Some side-effects to some painkillers such as Percocet and even aspirin are irreversible liver damage, abdominal pain, and possible overdose (which is not possible with marijuana). If someone takes pain killers every day consecutively and someone smokes medical marijuana every day, the life span on the medical marijuana user will likely be longer than the daily pill taker.

The long term effects of pills as opposed to medical marijuana’s long term effects is that your liver over the years of taking pills makes it permanently not healthy. But the effects from marijuana are different. The smoke that comes off this herb is not harmful to your lungs. It’s not like smoking a cigarette.

Some people argue that this herb is addictive and a gateway to new drugs, but legalizing marijuana could prevent the abuse of painkillers because the medicines they are prescribed are much harder or worse for your body and are more addictive.  Medical marijuana for many people feels better to their body than the drugs a doctor would prescribe. Chad Johnson, former Cincinnati Bengal wide receiver said, “Pain pills are handed out like candy to NFL players.”  NFL players could abuse these painkillers when marijuana would be a better alternative for athletes in pain.