The news that professional athletes smoke marijuana shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Weed is an unquestionably healthier alternative to some of the pain prescription pills that these athletes are taking. Frankly, it isn’t surprising that sometimes these athletes would smoke right before games.
However, what is relatively surprising is that they’re starting to admit to it. That said, if there ever was a player who wouldn’t be shy about getting high, it’s Stephen Jackson, who recently admitted he used to smoke before games.
Jackson’s revelation came on the “I Am Rapaport: Stereo Podcast” hosted by actor Michael Rapaport:
“I just gotta be real, you know, it’s been a couple games where I smoked before games and had great games,” Jackson said on the podcast, which was posted Friday. “It’s been some games where I smoked before the game and was on the bench after three minutes sitting on the sideline, ‘Please calm down. This high has to calm down.’ I done shot three shots that went over the backboard, like, I’m going to be honest, like, ‘Ahh, I gotta calm down.'”
“We’re in Utah, and the [league’s] drug test people are around, you know, to get our last drug test so we can smoke, right? Don Nelson, we talked about weed all the time. He was cool with talking about weed. We got our last test in Utah, right? So me and [teammate] Baron [Davis] are coming out the locker room just screaming, excited with our last pink slip saying we could smoke for the rest of the season, and Don Nelson hauls ass down there giving us high-fives, like, ‘Yeah, we can smoke now!'” Jackson recalled. “It was cool, the fact that he knows what’s going on off the court with his players, which was great, man. We enjoyed it. That’s why we were a great team.”
You heard it hear first: The NBA is going to be the first professional sports league that allows its athletes to smoke marijuana.
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