Since marijuana is listed as a schedule one drugs it's really difficult to do extensive
studies on the drug but now there's an important question kind of coming up and it could have
some ramifications into professional athletics is marijuana something that could be considering
as a performance enhancing drug now unfortunately right now all we really have an anecdotal
evidence indicating that it could be considered a performance enhancing drug but if we could
just you know reschedule marijuana or not schedule it at all we could actually do real
research into it and figure out whether or not that's true now Yahoo Finance did this
really interesting piece about how some people are doing professional athletics professional
athletes I should just say admit to smoking marijuana consuming marijuana and I lot of
them argue that it helps them in their sports careers because it lessens anxiety and it
also allows them miraculously to focus on what they're doing focus on their training
for instance and it's fascinating stuff because I mean marijuana has a different impact on
lots of different people but in this case some are arguing that it helps them now one
athlete says the following marijuana relaxes me and allows me to go into a controlled meditational
place when I get I train smarter and focus on form Clifford Drusinsky I'm not familiar
with his work but he's a tri-athlete you know every time we learn more about enhancing performance
it makes it harder to take a moralistic stance against performance enhancing drugs you know
baseball is still coming out the shadows of a scandal that really damaged the sport dramatically
the steroid use and no one is going to suggest that you can't hit while high but if it helps
you focus it's a performance enhancing drug where are we drawing that line something that
makes you bigger and something that we know is dangerous like steroids I get why you could
draw a line there because you don't want to encourage other people to do it to keep up
with you because it's dangerous so we can't and so maybe that's the place where you draw
the line that's my most comfortable spot on steroid but the moralizing against people
who took steroids it feels old especially when you know how many are you know that a
lot did but I'm sympathetic to the ones who didn't who are like hey man I'm trying here
I don't want to take it I shouldn't have to take steroids to keep up I'm dubious about
this but I don't get high a lot dubious that a great word I'm not a highly trained athlete
but I would like to play softball high and you bring up a really interesting issue within
professional sports because there are some drugs out there that are completely legal
right and people are prescribing these drugs because of certain conditions and it does
help them with their performance so for instance Adderall I'm reading more and more about professional
athletes abusing Adderall because it helps them with their performance it does keep you
more focused it does give you some energy baseball basically had an amphetamine problem
since it exploded in the 1970s for years and years they are banned now too and you know
think of it has the same kind of performance enhancing as steroids look no one is going
to equate baseball players with miners but for 6 months a year 7 months counting spring
training you're playing every day you're traveling every three days you're getting on planes
you're getting places at 4 in the morning and then you're playing an elite sport that
take that requires intense concentrating and I'm sure it's not sleep I'm sure they're exhaust
a ton day games and then some night games mixed and very few 18 days off over six months
yeah Imagine that popping a bunch of amphetamines was incredibly useful now you have to there
a long process by which you have to prove that a doctor gave you this you need it for
a condition other than the real condition you want to take it for I want to be awake
and I want to be focused right exactly now going back to marijuana some more testimony
from people who have utilized this this is actually from a researcher who's looked into
it we have cannabinoid receptors throughout our brains and when the THC hits those receptors
it triggers a system that reduces anxiety that you would feel more aggressive is the
natural reaction to the drug so you feel more aggressive because it reduces your anxiety
although that flies in the face cause most people on marijuana are not aggressive but
in this case the researcher was responding to a professional skier who said look when
I smoke marijuana I'm actually a little more risky in my skiing I don't have as much fear
when I'm skiing it's also possible that when people mess with like when you drink you might
still feel like you can drive for instance but your actually capabilities don't match
up with your perceived competence so yeah he thinks one thing possibly that doesn't
mean an accurate reflection of his ability to ski it's also like we presume that anxiety
in professional sports is a retards performance but I don't know that thatís true either
right like you say that guy skiing and thinking you know man I want to be more risky dude
stop being so risky you're putting yourself in danger you're putting yourself in danger
and like you're not competing I don't know you're not hitting the turns you way you think
you should be because you're focused on that big on coming up that you're not afraid you
know so right you're perception might be totally wrong knowing as little about weed as I do
since I don't smoke that often it seems counter intuitive to me that weed is going to help
professional athletes because if you're a professional athlete then whatever anxiety
you're feeling like say it's I'll keep using baseball where it's intense personal concentration
in a dramatic moment like you know it's you and the pitcher and everybody's waiting for
you to perform you can't count on your teammates for anything it's you there's anxiety in a
traumatic at bat they're used to it we don't know that that anxiety doesn't fuel them to
do better and being all relaxed and mello strikes me as oh that was a nasty curveball
man I should have swung didn't they used to drink not during the games I mean you know
these are the professional athletes are the greatest self regulators of all time I mean
they sort of exactly know alright now is when I got to stop drinking now is when I got to
get some sleep cause I didn't sleep at all last night I can't bang a stranger tonight
I gotta get some sleep you know so you know but it's a totally interesting idea it just
seems so counterintuitive