Marijuana Can Improve Recovery in Athletes (Blog 2)

In an era when 28 states and the District of Columbia have adopted laws making marijuana medically or recreationally legal, and a recent Gallup poll indicates 60% of Americans support pot legalization, an increasing number of elite athletes are stepping forward to proclaim their cannabis advocacy.

Overturning decades of stigmatization of pot as a gateway drug that ineluctably leads to the abuse of more dangerous Schedule I substances like methamphetamine and heroin, this new wave of sports-world acceptance puts cannabis forward as a “biohack.” That is, a plant-based alternative to opioid pain-relief drugs such as codeine or OxyContin that has the added benefit of unlocking the mind’s potential to boost physical output. Canna-athletics is no longer the exclusive domain of chill bros like surfers and ski bums. Weed workouts and cannabis-enhanced recovery products have come into vogue among pro football players, bodybuilders, Major League Baseball players, mixed martial artists, and endurance athletes—as well as some of their coaches, many of whom are helping promote the efficacy of cannabis through word of mouth.

Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, who admitted trying—but disliking—cannabis as a remedy for back pain. On a podcast last December, however, Kerr expressed hope that the NBA would consider removing marijuana from its banned-substance list. “I don’t think there’s any question that pot is better for your body than Vicodin,” Kerr said. “Yet athletes everywhere are prescribed Vicodin like it’s vitamin C, like it’s no big deal. There’s this perception that over-the-counter drugs are fine and pot is bad. I think that’s changing.”

According to a relatively new but growing body of research within the medical world, weed’s palliative power owes to an in-built compatibility with the human body’s endocannabinoid system—its largest neurotransmitter system—which is, in fact, named after the marijuana plant Cannabis sativa. “The endocannabinoid system is present in all of our organs,” says Steven DeAngelo, author The Cannabis Manifesto: A New Paradigm for Wellness. “It’s also the neurotransmitter system that processes cannabis. And it endogenously produces chemicals similar to, if not identical to, what the cannabis plant produces to maintain homeostasis.”