The overuse and abuse of narcotic pain medication in professional sports, especially contact sports, is enormous. The use of performance enhancing drugs is minuscule and almost meaningless in comparison.

It is a well-known mantra in the NFL that a player can’t make the team from the training room (nursing an injury instead of producing on the field). Players quickly learn that a cortisone shot will make it feel better in a few days. A percocet or vicodin will make if feel better right now. It is also commonly said that the letters NFL stands for ‘not-for-long’ if a player cannot consistently suit up and produce on the field for whatever reason.

After an average 3-year NFL career, daily pain medication is a way of life for many, if not most players. Players with average length careers (about 3 years) are often the marginal players whom are routinely relegated to the most dangerous duties, special teams. Veteran players with significantly longer tours of duty amass injuries due to length of service on the field of play.

Their career will one day end but the pain commonly does not. Year after year of daily physical abuse leads to substance overuse which in turn can often lead to abuse and dependence. The narcotic habit that developed during a player’s active career often continues far into retirement.

via Dr. Johnny C. Benjamin: Steroids are Just the Tip of the Iceberg in Professional Sports.

But at least they’re not smoking weed, right?  A player like Brett Favre opens up and admits his addiction to powerful narcotic painkillers and the league and the press welcome him with open arms and praise him for his “courageous battle”.  A player like Ricky Williams opens up and admits his medical use of marijuana for pain, inflammation, nausea, and social anxiety and the league boots him and the press taunts him as a “pothead”.

There is a reason the average lifespan of an NFL player is 55 years.  A lot of it has to do with the physical pounding they take week in week out, and especially for the lineman, the extra weight they carry.  But I believe a large reason for the shortened lifespan is the toxic toll all the painkillers, anti-inflammatories, and muscle relaxers dished out by team doctors take on these men’s organs.

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CHICAGO (Reuters) – Many more Americans have been using prescription drugs to treat mental illness since 1996, in part because of expanded insurance coverage and greater familiarity with the drugs among primary care doctors, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

Really?  It wouldn’t have anything to do with the ubiquitous “ask your prescriber about new prescription Dammitol” advertisements on TV?

They said 73 percent more adults and 50 percent more children are using drugs to treat mental illness than in 1996.

Among adults over 65, use of so-called psychotropic drugs — which include antidepressants, antipsychotics and Alzheimer’s medicines — doubled between 1996 and 2006.

Here are some other interesting stats from that time period:

• In 1989, drug companies spent $12 million on direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising.  By 2007 the figure reached $3.7 billion.
• DTC advertising began in 1983, but advertising was restricted only to the drug’s brand name and an “ask your doctor” pitch.  They could not describe what the drug would treat or how it would help a patient.
• In 1997, the FDA relaxed rules on prescription drug advertising to allow the ads we see now, where shiny happy people use prescription Dammitol, pretty music plays and birds chirp, and in the last ten seconds a muted monotone sped-up voice-over tells you all the side effects Dammitol can cause.
• 70% of all DTC advertising is television advertising, and 29% of all network news advertising revenue comes from pharmaceutical ads.
• The average number of prescriptions per person in the United States increased from 7.3 in 1992 to 14.3 in 2006.

“What we generally find is there has been an increase in access to care for all populations,” said Sherry Glied of Columbia University in New York, whose study appears in the journal Health Affairs.

Glied said expanded drug coverage under Medicare, the federal insurance program for the elderly, and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program for poor children, helped make such drugs more affordable.

The study found the number of children diagnosed and treated for mental health conditions by their primary care doctor doubled between 1996 and 2006.

Sure, that could be a part of the increase, but you don’t double the prescriptions-per-person and see 50%, 75%, and 100% rise in psychtropic drug use among children, adults, and seniors, respectively, in just over a decade because government programs made those drugs more affordable for children and the elderly.

In his book, Death by Prescription, Ray D. Strand describes our “self-medicated society” and how these pharmaceutical ads turn the patient into a drug seeker and the doctor into a dealer:

“Surveys reported in our medical literature reveal that when a patient comes into a doctor’s office and requests a specific drug that he has seen advertised in the media, the doctor writes the exact prescription the patient requested more than 70 percent of the time!”

So, let’s say that a consumer who has been feeling a little sad lately sees a commercial for the antidepressant drug Zoloft. The commercial demonstrates the symptoms for depression and the consumer identifies with them. Suddenly, he or she thinks, “I’m not just sad. I’m depressed, which is a ‘medical condition that can be treated by the prescription drug Zoloft.’” With this in mind, the consumer goes to a medical doctor and says, “I’ve been really depressed a lot lately. I’ve been [the consumer recites the depression symptoms listed in the Zoloft commercial]. I think I need Zoloft.” So, according to Strand, there’s a 70 percent chance the doctor will prescribe Zoloft, the exact prescription the consumer requested. That’s how pharmaceutical commercials really work. They directly influence consumer behavior, yet drug companies claim they only “educate” patients, but don’t persuade them to do anything.

It’s not just the patients that Big Pharma is seducing, either.  15 to 20 percent of the American Psychological Association’s (APA) income comes from pharmaceutical advertisements in its journals.  Pfizer alone has 4500 people in its sales force, which directly market these drugs to doctors through special promotions and free samples.  And while Big Pharma spends $3.7 billion to influence you, they spend almost twice that ($6.7 billion) advertising to doctors through these sales forces and in professional journals.

And it works.  $10.4 billion in total advertising is a small price to pay to reap the $227.5 billion spent on prescription drugs in 2007.  Comparing the cost of the raw ingredients vs. the retail cost to consumers, the markups on Paxil, Zoloft, Celebrex, Prozac, and Xanax are 2,898%, 11,821%, 21,712%, 224,973%, 569,958%, respectively.  The pharmaceutical industry is the third most profitable industry in America, according to Fortune Magazine (trailing only communications and internet industries for return-on-investment), with 2008 profits of 19.3% of revenues.  The profits of the three largest pharmaceutical companies were $12.9, $8.1, and $4.8 billion in 2008, respectively.

When you know these facts, you begin to understand the monumental task of legalizing marijuana in this country.  How far would that $227.5 billion prescription drug spending drop if people had legal access to marijuana?  I’ve already talked to many medical marijuana patients who report being able to kick 50% to 75% of their need for opioid painkillers thanks to cannabis.  Marijuana works better for some people for anxiety and depression than Paxil, Zoloft, Celebrex, Prozac, and Xanax, and you can grow it in your yard.  That little weed can replace a whole lotta pills that have nasty side effects like constipation, nausea, erectile disfunction, and so forth (for which, of course, they’ll write you another prescription).  And it makes you happy, hungry, and sexy, too!

So why would the AMA or APA want to support medical marijuana and anger the Big Pharma that keeps their journals funded?  Why would network television want to report positively on medical marijuana and anger the Big Pharma that keeps their news divisions funded?  Why would some doctors want to support medical marijuana and mess up the freebies they’re getting from Big Pharma?

The real reason marijuana is illegal has nothing to do with how it effects you or society, it’s how it effects business.

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Aw, you write that like it is a bad thing…

WASHINGTON (BP)–The decision by the Obama administration to surrender to bad state policies on so-called medicinal marijuana will have disastrous effects.

Medicinal marijuana is the Trojan horse of the marijuana decriminalization movement. The movement sees it as the means to appeal to people’s compassion in order to change public opinion about marijuana and ease the way toward decriminalization of marijuana. The Obama administration’s decision to cave on enforcement of federal drug laws against marijuana distribution represents the dropping of the first shoe on decriminalization of marijuana and signals the next one is coming.

I love the idea that we “legalizers” are meeting at Dr. Evil’s island lair to figure out how to pull a fast one over on the American people. Like we’re sitting there saying, “How are we ever going to convince the public that this dangerous killer plant is actually OK so we can get high legally?” We don’t have to appeal to anything to change public opinion that marijuana is medicine, we only have to show them the truth. Medical marijuana is not a “Trojan horse”, it is Galileo’s telescope proving the sun doesn’t revolve around the earth, not matter how much the religion of the day says it does.

With the federal government out of the way, we can expect to see a rapid rise in marijuana distributors and marijuana demand in states that have fallen victim to the medical marijuana scam. None of this escalation will prove especially helpful to the sick or to society. Those who use medicinal marijuana will pay the price first, and then everyone else will.

Yes, there will be more medical marijuana distributors, and as people realize they have a safe, legal, non-toxic alternative to the side-effect-laden killer pharmaceuticals shoved at them for pain and other conditions, there may be an increase in demand. But I’m still waiting for that medical marijuana patient to complain that we “legalizers” have taken advantage of them. I’m still waiting for those patients to protest the opening of another dispensary.

Read the rest of this entry by clicking here

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VIENNA (AFP) – A UN drugs agency warned Thursday against underestimating the dangers of cannabis.

“The international community may wish to review the issue of cannabis,” the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) wrote in its annual report.

“Over the years, cannabis has become more potent and is associated with an increasing number of emergency room admissions,” the report stated.

Ooh, a swing and a miss!  Cannabis has become more potent, but increasing potency does not mean increase in danger, as marijuana smoking is a self-titrating action.  If you have schwag, you smoke a lot and get high.  If you have kind, you smoke a little and get high.  As for emergency room admissions, this myth is taken from the DAWN statistics where they determine if someone has used cannabis prior to admittance, not whether cannabis caused the admittance.  Since cannabis is the most popular illicit drug, it is naturally going to be mentioned more often in the ER.

Cannabis was often the first illicit drug taken by young people and was frequently called a “gateway drug,” in that it could lead to later use of hard drugs.

Steeerike two!  In 1999, US Institute of Medicine shot down the “gateway theory” and many studies that followed found the same thing.  Nowadays no serious scientist even brings it up anymore… but that doesn’t stop cannabiphobic bureaucrats from saying it anyway.

Indeed, many countries allowed the “recreational” use of cannabis, and public perceptions of the so-called “medical” uses of the drug and its recreational use “are overlapping and confusing,” it said.

Hmm, I think that’s a foul tip.  There’s nothing “so-called” about the medical uses of cannabis and if its medical use is “overlapping and confusing” then why did teen marijuana use rates decline in the states that implemented medical marijuana?

It also urged governments to “stimulate” the controlled use of opiate-based painkillers to help “alleviate unnecessary suffering of millions of patients.”

“Although the access to controlled medicines, including morphine and codeine, is considered by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to be a human right, it is virtually non existent in over 150 countries,” the report said.

“The WHO estimates that at least 30 million patients and possibly as many as 86 million annually suffer from untreated moderate to severe pain.”

via The Raw Story | UN agency recommends world stop ‘trivializing’ marijuana dangers.

Yerrrr OUT!  In fact, not only are you out, but your whole team is out, disqualified, and banished from the league!  In the same set of recommendations where you demonize cannabis and its “so-called medical” uses you then remind us access to painkillers is a human right, millions are suffering with under-treated pain, and you recommend we “stimulate” more use of opiates?  Who writes your recommendations, the Opium Poppy Growers Union?

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Using tissue from retired NFL athletes culled posthumously, the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE), at the Boston University School of Medicine, is shedding light on what concussions look like in the brain. The findings are stunning. Far from innocuous, invisible injuries, concussions confer tremendous brain damage. That damage has a name: chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

CSTE studies reveal brown tangles flecked throughout the brain tissue of former NFL players who died young — some as early as their 30s or 40s.

McKee, who also studies Alzheimer’s disease, says the tangles closely resemble what might be found in the brain of an 80-year-old with dementia.

The damage affects the parts of the brain that control emotion, rage, hypersexuality, even breathing, and recent studies find that CTE is a progressive disease that eventually kills brain cells.

via Dead athletes’ brains show damage from concussions – CNN.com.

If you have the talent and choose to do so, you may play NFL football.  We know that choice will dramatically increase your chances of concussion.  We try to protect you from it with rules about legal hits and a nice hard helmet, but there is no doubt that you will very likely suffer brain damage because of your choice.  Your choice to inflict brain damage upon yourself is not without consequences for others – the effects of rage, hypersexuality, and dementia will no doubt affect your family.  Aside from the brain damage, there is the wear on the body that leaves many ex-pros walking around in their 40s and 50s like arthritic old men in their 90s.

That is a valid lifestyle choice.  But smoke a little weed, which does not harm your brain, reduces your need for painkillers, and may have the effects of giggling, dry mouth, and munchies, and we’ll have to kick you out of the NFL.

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I’m a huge NFL Football fan, so I’m always picking up on how the league treats its cannabis-using players. We’ve followed the stories of Ricky Williams and Michael Vick and Mark Stepnoski and others, and I’m always left wondering how the league can be so tolerant of so many opioid and narcotic painkillers used by their players, yet so intolerant of marijuana use? (Well, I know why: marijuana is illegal and painkillers keep star athletes on the field.) The issue has been raised about the college football players predicted to be chosen early in the upcoming NFL Draft:

Who wants to be picked No. 1? Tough draft to figure out – USATODAY.com

Among the issues that have affected perspective on this draft:

• [LSU defensive tackle Glenn] Dorsey’s right shinbone, injured in 2006 and still a subject of debate even as he continues to be rated among the top three players on most draft boards.

• Major concerns surfaced about Kansas cornerback Aqib Talib and Michigan receiver Mario Manningham, who both tested positive for marijuana yet remain first-day prospects on most lists.

At February’s scouting combine in Indianapolis, Dorsey confirmed his leg injury to NFL team doctors who questioned whether he was fully recovered from a stress fracture in his tibia. He also admitted it still hindered him throughout last season.

Dorsey told NFLDraftScout.com that he took painkillers before each game last year and wore a bone stimulator in the spring of 2007 for as much as 18 hours a day. Although he also insisted he was completely healed, he acknowledged that doctors examined him for nine hours one day at the combine.

“Yes, I took painkillers and, yes, I wore the stim through the summer,” Dorsey said at the combine. “But I played the whole season. I will take whatever tests the doctors ask, but I am telling you, I am ready to go.”

However, in a league recently traumatized by off-field issues, feelings are less clear regarding Talib and Manningham.

Talib admitted his prior marijuana use during team interviews at the combine and told reporters that it was “in the past.”

Manningham denied using marijuana at the combine. But since then, he’s hired a new agent, gotten into better shape and sent a letter to NFL teams recounting past use of the drug. Pro Football Weekly obtained a copy of the letter that said, in part, “I don’t use marijuana anymore — and I have passed tests since. … I am writing this letter because I just want a fair evaluation.”

So the guy who played through an entire season with a fractured leg by gobbling Percocet, whose workouts have shown him to still be not completely recovered, he’s just as much of a draft day question mark as two star players who’ve used marijuana?

C’mon, it’s not like it’s a performance-enhancing drug. I’m pretty sure players don’t do bong rips before hitting the field; pro football plays are complicated and short-term memory problems would hurt performance. Also, you do get time and balance distortions while high, and that can’t be good for catching passes or tackling runners.

But if a pro athlete abuses his body for three hours of football violence on Sunday, how can we question his Monday use of marijuana to recover from the pain and stiffness? Instead, we pump them full of narcotics that they end up getting addicted to like Brett Favre (anyone want to bet he wouldn’t hold the all-time consecutive starts streak for a QB without that stretch of Vicodin addiction?)

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