Like many people I found it worth noticing that the two teams in this year’s Super Bowl were both representing states which had recently legalized marijuana – Washington and Colorado.
I also found it interesting to learn that the NFL currently tests players for marijuana, and that a positive test would be a violation of the league’s Substance Abuse Policy.
Marijuana is really a bullshit drug, because it can stay in your system for roughly 30 days, whereas more dangerous drugs are gone within a day or two. It’s like the chemical makeup of marijuana is as sluggish as most of the people who regularly smoke it.
I’ve always felt that this irregularly long delay in marijuana’s ability to clear a drug test would really make a great commercial for cocaine or methamphetamines.
But, like NFL teams, many privately owned businesses reserve the right to test their employees for marijuana, because, if someone smokes weed, they are likely to show up to work high and accidentally chop of their hand with a rotary saw.
I guess.
Alcohol isn’t tested for. Because it is legal. So, if someone drinks after work, are we willing to assume that, just like someone who smokes pot after work, they are probably going to show up drunk one morning and accidentally drown in a corn silo?
Actually the answer is no.
Alcohol is like another job all together.
Marijuana is something that you can do every morning and remain somewhat functional, although if you’ve talked to a waiter in any weed-legal state recently, that’s debatable.
But here’s what really got me thinking about marijuana in the NFL:
So, the NFL is actually a non-profit organization which pays no taxes, and which the teams pay revenue towards.
If you’re doing the math, that would obviously mean that it makes a profit.
But, if you play for an NFL team, you are paid by that team – not the league.
So, out of your paycheck, you pay state taxes.
So, follow me, if smoking weed is legal in the state in which your are employed, how could it be legal for an overseeing body – meaning the NFL – to regulate smoking weed in a state in which is is legal to smoke weed?
This would seem to violate basic principles of contractual employment, which the United States’ labor codes specifically sets limits on.
You can’t just write whatever contract you want if it infringes on someone’s legal rights. Wal-Mart, for example, could not put into an employee contract that you may “Never Read to Your Children While Employed by Wal-Mart”, although they would if they could. Even if the employee signed it, it would be illegal to enforce.
You can’t voluntary enslave yourself.
This whole thing about marijuana in the NFL might seem trivial, and it is.
But think of the consequences of what appears to be the NFL’s policy of siding with the Federal Government’s policies over state’s rights:
Could Major League Baseball – itself a former nonprofit organization – have suspended a black player who played for the Brooklyn Dodgers for eating in a diner in the state of New York – even though this was illegal in the majority of states in the union?
It seems like it is a basic legal right that the NFL is taking away from its players who live in Washington and Colorado, and, under 501(c)6 Non-Profit law, let alone many other statues, I believe what they are doing is completely illegal, and if any player on the Broncos or Seahawks wanted to sue for their ability to smoke weed, or do anything else that becomes legal where they are playing, it would be an open and shut case.
I don’t think its a big deal right now, but wait until the banks instate Martial Law and we have to cancel a bunch of NFL games because the guys whose teams’ C.E.O.’s agree with the New World Order won’t let the players leave their houses or access their bank accounts.