{"id":7393,"date":"2017-05-08T22:06:25","date_gmt":"2017-05-08T22:06:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/?p=2641977"},"modified":"2017-05-08T22:06:25","modified_gmt":"2017-05-08T22:06:25","slug":"nflpa-expects-to-give-up-something-in-negotiating-changes-to-marijuana-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/nflpa-expects-to-give-up-something-in-negotiating-changes-to-marijuana-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"NFLPA expects to give up something in negotiating changes to marijuana policy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/nflpa-expects-to-give-up-something-in-negotiating-changes-to-marijuana-policy\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p>The NFL Players Association has been down this road before.<\/p>\n<p>Although the union is pushing for changes to the collectively bargained substance-abuse policy, it knows it will require some\u00a0give-and-take with owners.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat has not been our experience with the league or the Management Council unfortunately in most cases,\u201d NFLPA assistant executive director George Atallah said in an interview <a href=\"http:\/\/profootballtalk.nbcsports.com\/2017\/05\/08\/nflpa-hopes-nfl-will-alter-marijuana-policy-without-concessions\/\">with ProFootballTalk on Monday<\/a>. \u201cThis is clearly one that falls into that health-and-safety space. We know exactly how players feel after the games, what their careers are like, and what their lives are like after they\u2019re done playing football. It\u2019s incumbent upon all of us to take the hard look and see how we can help players. And it\u2019s a little bit challenging at times to feel like the only entity who cares about these players as human beings, as men, as family men, when they\u2019re facing health and safety issues. And clearly we\u2019ve made some significant advances over the last six-to-eight years, but on this particular issue I think it\u2019s incumbent on the league office to \u2014 and pardon my pun \u2014 keep up with the Joneses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Over the past couple of years, players past and present have advocated for change to the substance-abuse policy, which is currently the most stringent among American professional sports leagues.<\/p>\n<p>The union recently developed a pain management committee to assess an array of issues, including the potential use of marijuana in treating players\u2019 football-related pain.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"related right\" \/>\n<p>The NFLPA has planned to propose to the league a\u00a0\u201cless punitive\u201d and more \u201ctherapeutic\u201d approach to marijuana, but it has yet to be presented and specifics of the proposal have not been released.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/04\/03\/nfl-marijuana-jerry-jones-cowboys\/76519\/\">Cowboys owner Jerry Jones<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/05\/05\/nfl-marijuana-policy-cowboys-stephen-jones\/79013\/\">COO\/executive vice president Stephen Jones<\/a> have recently spoken out, privately and publicly, about considering changes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn my opinion, we should take a long, hard look at how we\u2019re doing this and see if there\u2019s a way, a better way to do it,\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/profootballtalk.nbcsports.com\/2017\/05\/03\/cowboys-want-nfl-to-re-examine-marijuana-policy\/\">Stephen Jones told PFT last week<\/a>. \u201cWhat that is, I don\u2019t have the answer. But we have a lot of smart people that can get in there and analyze something and really make some good decisions and see if there need to be changes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The current CBA expires after the 2020 season, but, like in 2014, players and owners\u00a0could\u00a0renegotiate the current substance-abuse policy at any time if both sides agree to do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The NFL Players Association has been down this road before. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[760,6813,77,56,9,5019,1091,6864,5113,1,3,61,1736],"tags":[3333,6818,2655,2636,5022,3661,6866,5114],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7393"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}