How Pro Sports Should React to Pot Legalization (But Won't)
From the Tumblr of Dan Shapiro, an interesting take on a possible intersection of legal pot and pro sports:
Until the federal ban on pot is lifted (or at least in the 24 states and District of Columbia that are home to every pro sports franchise), the possibility of professional sports allowing marijuana use is minimal. But by quietly removing weed from the banned substance list, professional athletics can join the rest of the country in removing the social stigma on herb, a lucrative cash crop that improves the quality of life of millions of Americans.
Marijuana need not be celebrated, but it also doesn't deserve vilification. So join us Commissioners Goodell, Bettman, and Selig, and soon-to-be Commissioner Silver. Because while you've watched plenty of sports, have you ever watched sport, on weed?
This is worth a discussion, to say the least, especially considering how many football, basketball, and baseball players toke up. However, professional sports may be the exact place where America's split personality on intoxicants is most fully concretized in custom and practice. Athletes are expected to destroy their bodies for their sport and submit to virtually any and all chemical, surgical, and mental modifications that will give them a real or imagined advantage. Yet they are also supposed to rigidly follow arbitrary and ever-changing policies where this or that tactic, substance, or custom is legal one moment and banned the next.
Good luck with that, NFL, NBA, and MLB!