During the National Basketball Association’s Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations with the NBA Players Association, the two parties agreed on a clause that would officially remove marijuana from the league’s drug testing program and cease penalizing players for use of the substance. The deal was ratified on April 26 and will last seven years, taking effect in July.
This development was years in the making, as the NBA suspended testing in 2020 during the “restart bubble” portion of the COVID-19-interrupted 2019-2020 season.
The league stopped random testing in 2021 as a continuation of its policy within the bubble. Testing for performance-enhancing drugs and “drugs of abuse” such as cocaine and opiates were prioritized in the drug testing policy.
During the bubble in 2020, rumors circulated that players were smoking marijuana due to the NBA’s suspension of testing. In an April 2022 episode of former NBA mainstays Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes’ podcast, “All the Smoke,” former player J.R. Smith confirmed that players were smoking.
He also commented on the positive effect it had on players’ performance and the reduction of the stigma surrounding marijuana. “When you can be at peace with your mind, your body, and your soul, and you can go out there and just hoop, that’s all you want,” he said.
According to ESPN, marijuana is legal in 73.7% of all states with an NBA team as of 2023.
Despite the progress the league has made, its marijuana policies were not always as liberal as they have been since 2020.
The NBA’s previous policy is steeped in context. Its drug policy dates back to 1983, with the Drug Act being implemented as a response to rampant cocaine use among players in the 1970s and early 1980s.
In 1986, the NBA saw an unprecedented tragedy spark a change in its drug policy as well as the United States as a whole. The tragic death of Len Bias, University of Maryland superstar and Celtics draft pick, by cocaine overdose, caused the NBA to make Drug Act policies even stricter.
Bias’ death also led to former president Ronald Reagan passing more intense War on Drugs legislation into law. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, known as the “Len Bias Law,” was made law 4 months after the Maryland star’s death.
The Act furthered mandatory minimum sentences for drug dealers and punished dealers responsible for the death of another person with life in prison. It also established a quantity of drugs that could be federally prosecuted. The threshold for the five-year minimum sentence was five grams of crack cocaine, while it was 500g for powder cocaine.
These policies that punished dealers and users of crack cocaine more than powder cocaine had clear racial implications, as the crack epidemic disproportionately impacted majority Black neighborhoods.
The moral panic surrounding drug abuse ignited by Bias’ death led to these policies, which then led to the rise of mass incarceration. The NBA, however unintentional, had a role in the War on Drugs and the damage it did to Black communities as well as Black athletes.
The next decades saw the league deal with marijuana in a way that lined up with their previous support of harsh punitive drug policy. The NBA began testing for marijuana in 1999 under the late former commissioner, David Stern.
In a 2017 interview with former NBA player and cannabis advocate Al Harrington, Stern expressed a change in opinion compared to his staunch anti-marijuana stance in 1999. “If marijuana is now in the process of being legalized, I would think you should be allowed to do what’s legal in your state,” he said. Stern also expressed his belief that marijuana should not be a banned substance in the NBA’s drug policy.
His reformed views show his willingness to change his perspective, but in 1999, Stern did not show this openness. The NBA’s marijuana testing policy’s purpose was to appease fans who had problems with marijuana use, and clean up the league’s image to not lose the money these fans would contribute.
Stern cites players complaining about teammates playing high as a reason for the establishment of marijuana testing policy, but player testimony directly conflicts with this. Former star Chauncey Billups admitted that he knew players who played better high, as smoking marijuana quelled their anxieties.
Players’ self-expression and autonomy were also restricted by a dress code that was enacted in the early 2000s. The code banned fashion most associated with hip-hop and urban culture, such as baggy jeans, large T-shirts, large jewelry, sneakers, and Timberland-type work boots.
This policy was in direct response to stars, chiefly Allen Iverson, expressing their authentic selves, which alienated the conservative sector of the NBA fanbase. The NBA sought to further sanitize its image and divorce itself from the authentic culture its athletes expressed, unfairly associating hip-hop culture with being unruly, unprofessional, and violent.
In 2014, after Stern’s resignation and Adam Silver’s instatement as commissioner, the dress code was made less restrictive, and players’ autonomy is respected even more through the removal of marijuana testing.
The progress of the NBA towards acceptance of marijuana as a substance to be used casually and not a drug to be abused reflects a trend in society at large.
Since the 2010s, marijuana has undergone a radical change in its perception throughout society by both liberals and conservatives. The drug has been largely destigmatized in the eyes of the general population.
The War on Drugs rhetoric that the NBA helped contribute to has slowly been decreasing over the years. According to a Weedmaps poll, more than twice the number of non-cannabis consumers treat cannabis products with passive encouragement than active disapproval.
A large contributor to the widespread acceptance of marijuana in society and its legalization in a large number of US states is the profitability of the product. According to the Marijuana Policy Project, through the end of 2022, legal cannabis sales have generated a total of $15.1 billion in tax revenue.
As of 2023, 22 states have legalized marijuana possession and adult-use sales. 2021 and 2022 saw states generate $3.86 billion and $3.77 billion from adult-use cannabis sales, up from $2.86 billion in 2020.
MPP Executive Assistant Andrea Navarro believes the widespread destigmatization has roots in the generational divide as well. “Younger people tend to have a more positive view of cannabis compared to older folks who may still be susceptible to the propaganda that the War on Drugs proliferated,” she said in an emailed statement.
Navarro also acknowledged that the fight against anti-marijuana stigma is not over. “There are 19 states that have not decriminalized cannabis, a good chunk of them are southern states,” she said. “There are people still getting arrested for simple possession all while a multimillion-dollar industry and a whole ecosystem around it flourishes,” she added.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of marijuana to ease stress has been more widely accepted both in and outside the realm of professional sports. In times of such stress, use of substances in moderation has been viewed as a recreational activity rather than a dangerous one. In a 2022 episode of David Letterman’s Netflix talk show, “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction,” NBA star Kevin Durant said, “For me, it’s like having a glass of wine.”
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