NFL players experience the residual effects of brain injuries long after they retire from competing professionally. With each passing year, more and more football players are added to the list of those suffering from chronic brain injuries, yet federal medical marijuana policies, along with the NFL’s drug rules, forbid players access to marijuana for therapeutic purposes. The devastating and permanent consequences of chronic brain injuries will continue to affect the league unless the rules surrounding medical marijuana are updated to address the increasing rates of these injuries, says a former football player.
"If cannabis is implemented and [the NFL] can lead the science on this, they can resolve this brain injury situation in a big way," said former NFL player Kyle Turley, the co-founder of Gridiron Cannabis Coalition, an organization that includes other outspoken retired players.
In 2015, researchers from the Department of Veterans Affairs and Boston University identified chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in 96 percent of the NFL players’ brains they examined.
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