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ESPN Freaks Out About Terrifying Dangers Of Marijuana

“Boy, we have a real problem with these cancer patients: they’re all smoking pot! Don’t they know that smoking pot is bad? Have they no respect for the law of the land?! We need some kind of intervention – these cancer patients are out of control. Where do they get off saying it keeps them from vomiting and makes them want to eat things? It’s still marijuana, and it’s bad because it’s marijuana. Something must be done about these lawless cretins.”

That sounded ridiculous to you. As it should. And here’s the thing about pot – at this point, talking about the dangers of a large number of any group of people smoking pot should be ridiculous – or at least, no more common than talking about the dangers of large numbers of any group of people, say, drinking or smoking cigarettes. That pot is illegal when those two activities aren’t (not that they should be illegal either, mind you) should boggle the mind. We should be be past treating marijuana like it’s as bad as any of the stuff it’s supposedly a “gateway” to – even stories that try to make you scared of it don’t exactly make it sound like a tool of Satan.

But we’re not, so we get stories like this one, by Mark Schlabach, in ESPN the Magazine, detailing the “problem” of marijuana use among college football players. Now, do you want everyone on your team getting high constantly? No. But “getting high constantly” doesn’t seem to be the issue here:

In the NCAA’s latest drug-use survey, conducted in 2009 and released in January, 22.6 percent of athletes admitted to using marijuana in the previous 12 months, a 1.4 percentage point increase over a similar 2005 study.

And having used marijuana in the past 12 months (there’s virtually no chance the actual number isn’t way higher than 22.6 percent, by the way – goes to show how effective outlawing the drug is in preventing usage) doesn’t constitute a problem – it constitutes being a college student. It’s been that way for a long time – which, in fairness, the story acknowledges. (Also in fairness: that photo-illustration above the story of a football lit up like a blunt is amazing. Did they write the whole story just so they could use that? Let’s hope so.)

The story, though, also acknowledges the viewpoint of Michigan athletic director/former Domino’s Pizza CEO Dave Brandon.* And Brandon comes off looking more ridiculous than anyone else in this story that’s more than a little ridiculous to begin with. It’s as if he’d just finished riding to his desk on Jeff Van Gundy’s high horse when he was interviewed, because what he said came off as a parody of someone trying to make a Big Important Proclamation:

“Student-athletes are going to be no different than other students in getting caught up in marijuana, unless there is clarity around the fact it’s wrong and there are consequences if you do it.”

Dave. Dave. Just… no. “Caught up in marijuana”? Is he Marty Culp? And as for “the fact that it’s wrong” – what’s really wrong, besides absurdly heavy-handed moralizing, is a vast waste of time and money that doesn’t actually fix anything. Judging by Schlabach’s story, much of the college athlete drug testing that goes on is a pretty big waste of time itself. Just ask Nick Saban:

“Based on the success we’ve had, I asked [the NCAA] to let us manage the guy in our program [who tested positive], like everybody else. I also said, ‘I hope you understand our program is a hell of a lot better than yours because you’re not doing anything to help anyone.’”

Hey, not totally demonizing everyone who tests positive for smoking pot is a start. Because those who would like to demonize everyone who gets caught with weed or tests positive for having smoked it, the people who want you to believe smoking up is the worst thing a person could ever do? Well, those people, to borrow another Nick Saban turn of phrase, haven’t proved shit.

[Business Insider]

Photo-illustration by Jamie Chung, via ESPN

*UPDATE: Should have thrown this in earlier, but the former CEO of Domino’s Pizza is trying to make pot sound like the worst thing ever? Can you even imagine the kind of money that guy has made off stoners with the munchies? So ungrateful.