OT-ish: Why No Medical MJ Cards?

The SCOTUS upheld a golf cart as a reasonable accommodation for a pro golfer.  Therefore, I think there is a pretty good argument that a court would uphold medical marijuana as a reasonable accommodation for a football player.  Would be a very interesting case.

Ya but why wouldn't you just use free top notch healthcare? Especially if they don't have private insurance?

 Yes. Even with a medical condition, you are not able to utilize NCAA specified pharmaceuticals or therapies and still be eligible to compete. This policy is often confronted by physicians treating asthmatic athletes, as many effective therapies are banned by NCAA and international athletic agencies as they are steroidal in nature, provide a stimulant or increased lung function. They need to find something else to control the condition, that may be less effective, or the athletes realize they are not eligible to compete at some levels.

And so can a whole host of thoroughly legal pharmaceuticals. Whether or not they're safer or more effective than pot is another question, but any doctor who has a student-athlete under his/her care who prescribed pot for anxiety would be an idiot.

available that meet the qualifications of the NCAA and the university. I don't know a competent, qualified doctor who would prescribe a non-FDA approved street drug to treat a condition that can be managed by far safer options that don't inhibit the health of the student athlete in other ways. Medical MJ cards for anyone who doesn't have cancer or cataracts is a joke.

Especially when compared to standard treatments such as benzos, SSRI's and cognitive behavioral therapy.

?

then alcohol use should be kept to the same standard.

the NCAA does test randomly, although the odds of individual selection are ridiculously low. The way their testing procedure has been described for me, it's basically three different hats: the NCAA draws a school name, draws a sport name and draws a percentage of scholarship athletes from that sport to be tested (during that season).

They don't seem to mess around when they do test (supervised pee in a cup within twelve hours of notification, I believe), but the odds of the NCAA testing an individual athlete in season are very low, and nonexistant when not in season or at championship events.

and it looks like it varies by school. This NCAA PDF has a lot of information on testing procedures, but it's also vague in a way that allows some flexibility for individual athletic departments.

I asked again about the twelve hours thing, and I had remembered correctly. The athlete I was thinking of got a phone call around dinner time saying she had to show up early for weights the next morning because the NCAA had ordered a drug test. It looks like M has different procedures than EMU, which is different than MSU, ect, which makes sense since that's the way they usually frame their policies.

Interesting. Did you know when it was the university and when it was the NCAA? Or is it the same guys administering both?

I agree that a substantial portion--and probably a majority, or even a decided majority--of medical marijuana licenses are issued with a wink and a nod to people who really just want to use marijuana recreationally.  Be that as it may, there are some cases where the medical use is genuine.  If the person seeking an accommodation doesn't really have a medical need for it, then I agree they are not entitled to the accommodation--but that's because the facts don't justify it, not for the legal reason (i.e., that marijuana is prohibited at the federal level).

If a person genuinely has a disabilty and treats it with marijuana, then a policy that excludes that person from participating in an athletic program at a publicly-funded university would deny that person equal access (by reason of the disabillity).  That person absolutely would be entitled to a reasonable accommodation.  The only question, as I mentioned above, is whether exempting the person from the "no marijuna use" policy would be "reasonable."  And that depends on whether it would undly burden the university or fundamentally change the nature of the atheltic program.

Allowing football players to use pot would not fundamentally alter the game of football.  But, I think it would probably cause an undue administrative burden on the program because use is prohibited by NCAA bylaws.  Pot use might render a player ineligible for certain competitions, for instance, and it may not be possible or practical to obtain similar waivers from the NCAA.  Or, the player's use might force the school to take unweildy safety measures to monitor the player's use so that he is not  high while practing or playing.   However, I would not be surprised if someone could come up with some plausible counterarguments on this point.

Another argument suggesting that allowing a college athlete to use pot causes an undue burden is that college teams routinely travel to other states, few of which permit marijuana use--even medically.  And a player wouldn't be allowed to take marijuana on an airplane or anything like that.  So that is where I think the relevance of the federal prohibition on marijuana really becomes relevant.  But I don't agree the mere fact that marijuana is prohibited under the CSA is dispositive.  (That's why medical marijuana patients can argue effectively for reasonable accommodations with respect to housing, employment, etc.).