Marijuana: "The NFL is trying to nip this, please pardon the expression, in the bud."

As noted earlier today in this stirring account of Their Man Mitch tossing red meat to the mouth breathers, none of us could have foreseen the post-election entertainment spectacle of white bread America's hysterical unraveling. Next up, the national icon of Football tries to come to grips with marijuana legalization, and what it all means is that the varied edifices of social repression are springing too many leaks for the tinpot ayatollahs to plug.

The NFL’s Coming Conflict on Cannabis, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

Bob McNair, owner of the Houston Texans, resembles an outsized caricature of a twenty-first-century pro sports boss. He’s a 75-year-old Republican Party mega-donor, who made his fortune by selling his energy corporation to Enron in 1999 (give him credit for timing.) That’s what’s made Mr. McNair’s comments earlier this week all the more interesting. After saying he would never have a “persistent user of drugs” on his beloved Houston Texans, McNair made a point to add, “I’m not talking about someone who smoked marijuana.”

This might sound about as radical as a Brooklyn Without Limits T-shirt, but for decades the NFL officialdom has discussed marijuana and players who “do pot” like they were bit players from Reefer Madness. In this light, McNair’s statement is more than tacit acceptance of something players have been doing for decades. It’s connected to weed’s recent legal emergence from “the cannabis closet.”