Excellent article on marijuana being a banned substance in the NFL
 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7632897/

OK, so Ricky Williams has a little problem with marijuana, as in he can?t stop tokin? to save his football career. He probably needs some help.

But don?t make him out to be a villain. If you must have some bad guys, direct your ire at Roger Goodell, his predecessor as NFL commissioner, Paul Tagliabue, and the NFL Players Association. They?re the ones who decided that marijuana should be a banned substance, because, like, you know, it really makes you play better, dude. Yeah, man, it?s like more awesome than ?roids.

And if you believe that, you?ll believe anything. Even the IOC, which decided to add marijuana to its encyclopedic list of banned substances because politicians think it looks good on their résumés, agrees that weed hinders performance rather than enhancing it.

Think about it. Steroids make athletes unnaturally bigger, stronger and faster. Human Growth Hormone does many of the same things. Amphetamines amp them up. Caffeine has a similar effect. Cocaine can have a short-term performance-enhancing effect, but in the long term it?s frighteningly addictive and destructive. These are the big, bad drugs that everybody bans.

Then there?s alcohol, which the IOC prohibits because target shooters found it can stifle their heart rates and blood pressure and help them hold a gun steady. But no American sport bans it. How can they when they rake in millions of dollars in beer sponsorships and sales?

Alcohol is a contributing factor in thousands of highway deaths. Domestic violence thrives on it. Bar fights wouldn?t exist without it. It?s physically addictive and enormously destructive. And the NFL and other sport leagues are just fine with it.

Marijuana has none of the adverse effects that alcohol has, and the government has spent untold piles of cash trying ? unsuccessfully ? to find them. The State of Florida undertook to compile the effects of drugs on death by examining autopsy reports. It found hundreds of lives taken by cocaine, alcohol and other drugs, but not a single one claimed by marijuana.

Milton Friedman, the nonagenarian former head of the Federal Reserve Board, is a true conservative, which is to say one who believes in minimal government interference in private life and not a neo-con, who want to control everything individuals do. He was the lead signature on a document signed by 500 captains of industry imploring the government to decriminalize marijuana. If Friedman, a Reagan just-say-no conservative, can?t find anything wrong with it, why should the NFL?

I know why. Because marijuana is illegal and linked to them dirty hippies, and the NFL still thinks players ought to be banned for not coming to work in crew-cuts. The league is playing to the fears of its patrons and presenting itself as a defender of truth, justice, apple pie, mom, and the American Way. Why, marijuana is illegal. Isn?t that enough?

No, it?s not. In a lot of jurisdictions, possession of a joint is treated as a violation, like a speeding ticket. DWI, on the other hand, is a misdemeanor ? a crime. Do it twice, and it?s a felony in a lot of states. But if a player collects a DWI, he?s not suspended for four months, as a player caught with marijuana in his system would be. Why not?

Don?t bother answering, because it?s impossible.

Cheating on your taxes is illegal, too. The NFL has no rules against that. None. Yet tax cheats are like shoplifters, they?re stealing from every honest person in the country. But that?s not a problem, not to the NFL.

Marijuana can be psychologically addictive, which may be where Ricky Williams is. But is that something the NFL needs to be concerned about? For some people, sex is psychologically addictive, too. Should the NFL be testing people for that?

Williams did nothing to harm the game or change his ability to play it. Yet he?s probably out until September and may be out forever because of a policy that makes no sense.