{"id":203,"date":"2005-08-19T23:45:25","date_gmt":"2005-08-20T07:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/?p=203"},"modified":"2005-08-19T23:45:25","modified_gmt":"2005-08-20T07:45:25","slug":"more-drug-hysteria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/more-drug-hysteria\/","title":{"rendered":"more drug hysteria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A man named Serge called in to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.xtrasports690.com\/hacksaw.html\">Lee \u201cHacksaw\u201d Hamilton\u2019s<\/a> sports radio show yesterday and actually supported the use of marijuana. Serge was calling about Randy Moss\u2019s interview with Bryant Gumbel on HBO because he wanted to express his solidarity. Moss admitted using marijuana since he has been in the National Football League and said that he uses it \u201conce in a blue moon\u201d. His agent immediately when into spin mode by calling HBO a dying network and insisting that Moss was talking about his past but, of course, his client was talking about past and current habits.<br \/>\n<a href=\"mailto:nrota@pobox.com\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennisdiary\/images\/more-drug-hysteria.jpg\" style=\"float:right;margin:10px 0px 10px 10px;border:0\"><\/a><br \/>\nHacksaw (where does that name come from?) asked Serge the usual question: \u201cWhat if your children saw you smoking marijuana? Do you want them to do what you do?\u201d I find this amusing. Most sports show hosts have at least three flat screen televisions lined up in their den so they can sit back and watch all the games simultaneously and throw back a few beers. Serving beer to minors is illegal. Alcohol can be addictive. In 2002 there were <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Alcoholics_Anonymous\">150,000 A.A. groups<\/a> in 150 countries. Do you want your children to grow up and do alcohol?<\/p>\n<p>Hacksaw then asked the other common question about marijuana. \u201cDoesn\u2019t marijuana lead to taking other drugs?\u201d The better question might be: &#8220;Is marijuana addictive?&#8221; A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iom.edu\/report.asp?id=5608\">1999 study of medicine and marijuana<\/a> by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iom.edu\/about.asp\">Institute of Medicine<\/a>, an affiliate of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nasonline.org\/site\/PageServer?pagename=ABOUT_main_page\">The National Academy of Sciences<\/a>, found that marijuana users were forty percent less likely to become dependent than alcohol users.<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"font-weight:bolder;font-size:130%;color:#49671D;border:none\"><p>A 1999 study of medicine and marijuana by the Institute of Medicine, an affiliate of The National Academy of Sciences, found that marijuana users were forty percent less likely to become dependent than alcohol users.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is a tough time for marijuana users. Marijuana has medical benefits for certain medical conditions. Californians can obtain marijuana legally to deal with such problems as nausea, dizziness and migraine headaches. One of the ways they distribute marijuna to patients is by giving them marijuana chocolate bars. How great is that? And yet the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2005\/LAW\/06\/06\/scotus.medical.marijuana\/\">Supreme Court ruled that federal anti-drug laws overrule state anti-drug laws<\/a> effectively ending California&#8217;s medical marijuana program. It seems that state\u2019s rights are more important at the moment unless the issue is drugs. Then it\u2019s important to take away state\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n<p>Research into the benefits and dangers of steroids has been limited because of anti-drug laws banning steroids. There has been a lot of research into marijuana, though, because of it&#8217;s medical benefits. Even if you don&#8217;t think marijuana should be legalized, taking it away from medical patients seems punitive if not just plain crazy.<\/p>\n<p>I bet there are a lot of quiet, non-controversial NFL players who are very pissed off at Randy Moss right now. They\u2019ve been kicking back and toking up in the off-season with no fears because the league tests for marijuana in-season only. After Moss\u2019 interview, the league, and even congress the way they\u2019ve been going, might decide to expand testing to off-season.<\/p>\n<p>It seems silly for Moss to bring attention to an illegal activity he indulges in when he\u2019s tested positive before, though he&#8217;s never been suspended from the league. Why tempt fate? I can\u2019t help but think that Randy was tired of Terrell Owens taking up all the attention and wanted to direct some of it his way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A man named Serge called in to Lee \u201cHacksaw\u201d Hamilton\u2019s sports radio show yesterday and actually supported the use of marijuana. Serge was calling about Randy Moss\u2019s interview with Bryant Gumbel on HBO because he wanted to express his solidarity. Moss admitted using marijuana since he has been in the National Football League and said [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}