Mitch McGary suspended

Submitted by pmark1210 on
Suspended 5 games at start of upcoming season for failed drug test. Not sure what tested positive for.

TESOE

July 9th, 2016 at 3:03 AM ^

  • Marijuana use is increasing6 and 13% of nighttime, weekend drivers have marijuana in their system.7
  • Marijuana users were about 25% more likely to be involved in a crash than drivers with no evidence of marijuana use, however other factors – such as age and gender – may account for the increased crash risk among marijuana users.5

5 Compton RP, Berning A. Traffic Safety Facts Research Note: drugs and alcohol crash risk. Washington, DC: NHTSA; 2015 [cited 2016 Feb 5]. Available at URL:http://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/nti/pdf/812117-Drug_and_Alcohol_Crash_Risk.pdf.

6 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration. Cannabis. 2015 6/2/2015 [cited 2015 Jul 17]. Available at URL: http://www.samhsa.gov/atod/cannabis.

7 Berning A, Compton R, Wochinger K. Results of the 2013–2014 National Roadside Survey of alcohol and drug use by drivers. Washington, DC: NHTSA; 2015 (DOT HS 812 118).

8 Missing work/life for smoking pot is avoidable and stupid. ie Mitch is being stupid...again... yo. (Sextus Empiricus MGoBlog 7/9/16)

TrueBlue2003

July 9th, 2016 at 7:31 PM ^

percentage from the Oral and/or Blood Test, which is 15.2%.  Given that it is all illegals drugs but that marijuana is by far the most popular, the 13% you mentioned is probably a decent estimate. And given that this was a voluntary survey, it seems like people who are high would be more likely to opt out, even though it is anonymous. I wouldn't be surprised if the actual % is higher.

tasnyder01

July 10th, 2016 at 1:27 AM ^

Disagree. When auto insurance Companies give a higher rate to someone who smokes weed (CO and WA have guides either incoming or extant), they need to justify the increase. They justify it to a govt lliason, who supports the constituents, and requires documentation.

As far as I am aware, the docs supports the raise; else there wouldn't be one. When it comes to "who's math do I trust more, govt or business questioned by govt" I choose the latter.

P.S. Also, I been drank en. Can't cut my stuff because too lazy to do so. Sorry. I R Ass.

Don

July 9th, 2016 at 7:46 AM ^

Big fucking deal. There's never been a documented overdose death directly attributable to eating a pound of fudge, either. Does that mean that an athlete should be consuming that amount of it on a daily basis?

It's stupid to put people into prison for pot. It's equally stupid to pretend that young athletes who need to maintain a level of physical and mental conditioning that we can't even imagine reaching ourselves can get regularly baked without affecting that conditioning. That notion was stupid back in 1971 when I was smoking what you all would consider to be shitty weed, and it's equally dumb now with the far more potent stuff currently available.

slimj091

July 9th, 2016 at 4:06 PM ^

If you couldn't imagine reaching that level of physical and mental conditioning then how would you even know how cannabis would affect it? I would say that it's the athletes themselves that should determine what is best for their physical, and mental conditioning. Not a guy on a blog comment section who couldn't imagine being on their level.

Mgodiscgolfer

July 8th, 2016 at 9:00 PM ^

The game is called Disc golf and while I have personally seen people smoking pot on the course alcohol seems to be the drug of choice. The trash cans are filled with beer cans and all the homeless people work their courses to the point of fighting over certain garbage cans with one another. I really hate the thought of people saying oh you disc golf, then they wisper in their buddies ear I told you he was a stoner, yeah I know he doesn't look like a stoner but he disc golfs WTF.  Its like oh you are on a bowling league you must be an alcoholic. As for unicycling I can't pretend to know anything about that sport.

I also challenge anyone to go out and disc golf and not with a frisbee. lol with a real disc and you will be hooked, faster than pot, as well it will be harder to quit  Thank the Gods for Disc Golf made me sell my boat and its fifty times cheaper too.

TrueBlue2003

July 9th, 2016 at 8:08 PM ^

I'm guessing you like disc golf?

I love it when people with perfectly relevant, yet oddly random handles go off when their topic  gets mentioned on the board.  Good times.

Also, your seeing beer cans in the garbage is entirely inconclusive about the drug of choice. Given that weed is illegal, most people wouldn't light up on the course.  They'll do it before leaving or in the car.

bluesalt

July 8th, 2016 at 3:12 PM ^

It's for marijuana. Other drugs get much heftier suspensions per the CBA.

Also, it means it was either his second or third positive test as an NBA player (depending whether or not they counted his college test as his first infraction.)

bluesalt

July 8th, 2016 at 6:21 PM ^

First offense is a warning and you get placed into a program.
Second offense is a $25k fine.
Third offense is 5 games, 4th is 10 games, 5th is 15, and so on. Still, I think they must have a pretty high threshold on what constitutes a positive test, because it's unquestionably used commonly.

mGrowOld

July 8th, 2016 at 3:18 PM ^

How in the hell does one fail an NBA test for pot?  I'm a cavs fan and I'm pretty sure JR Smith has been baked 24 hours non-stop since the finals ended and I'm not entirely sure he wasn't stoned during the season half the time.

For McGary to get busted he'd have to freaking roll one and smoke it in Adam Silver's office I think.  Short of that the NBA doesnt seem to care too much about that particular drug of choice.

stephenrjking

July 8th, 2016 at 3:20 PM ^

At what point should we be concerned here? Yeah, there will be guys saying "pot doesn't matter" and things like that, but this is getting larger than that. McGary already dropped out of sight due to personal issues last season, missing the playoffs. And while I'm not intimately familiar with the NBA CBA, I highly doubt that this is a first-time offense. 

And regardless of one's feelings about various recreational drugs, inability to not use when it will cause one serious personal consequences is not a good sign. 

I'm concerned for him. I hope he is able to straighten out whatever issues he has. This isn't good.

The Mad Hatter

July 8th, 2016 at 3:38 PM ^

A lot of people, including athletes, use marijuana for pain control.  For certain types of pain, there's nothing better and it doesn't carry the risk of addiction that opiates do, nor are there any significant side effects.

It's not a miracle drug though.  I'll be the first to admit that it doesn't work for all types of pain, but it's excellent for muscle pain and certain types of headaches in particular

He's fine.  The world is just stupid.

mGrowOld

July 8th, 2016 at 3:44 PM ^

I LOVE martini's.  As such I drink a lot of martinis - probably, no clearly, far more martinis than my doctor or would condone.  Not uncommon for me to come home from work, mix up a batch and drink two very large martinis before dinner and catch a very nice buzz in the process.

That being said if my boss was paying me 5MM a year and one of his rules was "no martinis" I'd be sad but I'd stop drinking them.  No way in freaking hell would I let a stupid martini (as much as I enjoy drinking them and the buzz you get when you do) get in the way of that paycheck.

The world's rules might be stupid as it relates to pot.  Mitch is even more stupid for not abiding by them.

stephenrjking

July 8th, 2016 at 4:42 PM ^

I think you're searching for the best possible interpretation of the facts based on your presuppositions here, Hatter. It's understandable--we want to think the best of McGary, whom we all like, and additionally you have a stated pro-MJ position--but in this case I think you are letting your bias (and I have biases too) cloud your judgment. 

If addiction is at issue here, well, the signs point to something else (question, though--people say other drugs have higher consequences, but is it possible that painkillers could cause this sort of violation? I haven't seen anything other than "this is the typical consequence" speculation to definitively say it was a positive marijuana test). You may not believe that Marijuana addiction is either probable or problematic, but I've spent hours on Christmas Day (among other times) counseling people whose weed addictions have crippled their lives. It is possible. And the inability to stop when one's livelihood is dependent upon it is a dangerous warning sign.