Five Marijuana Smoking Sports Stars Who Faced Scandal And Survived

The cliché of the marijuana smoker is that of a couch potato, a student or an aging hippy, but like most clichés this one has little substance to it. Marijuana seed growers and smokers have long known that fans of marijuana come from all walks of life – even including a surprising number of champion sports players.

Gold medal swimmer Michael Phelps has been dragged over the coals for his recent exposure as a marijuana smoker, but he joins a long line of top level sportsmen and women who have undergone a highly public encounter with the substance. Here are five sportsmen and women (including Phelps) who have been outed as smokers and lived to tell the tale…

Michael Phelps

The Scandal: Michael Phelps is the latest sports star to fall foul of a paparazzo’s snapping camera. Having won a record breaking 8 gold medals at the Beijing Olympics, he faced widespread criticism when the News of the World released pictures of him smoking a marijuana bong. He wasn’t in training at the time the photo was taken, but his standing as an All American hero combined with his marijuana use has ignited fierce debate over what kind of punishment he should face, if any.

The Recovery: Too soon to say what the long term damage to his career and reputation will be. He has been banned from competition for three months, and Kelloggs have withdrawn their sponsorship (and have put themselves on a pot smoker’s boycott list – stay away from those corn flakes while high!) but it doesn’t look like he’ll be facing a serious long term ban. I don’t suppose he’ll be touching so much as a marijuana seed for a good long while!

Jennifer Capriati

The Scandal: Tennis prodigy Jennifer Capriati, who won an Olympic Gold Medal and a raft of singles titles before turning 18, went off the rails spectacularly in 1994. Arrested for shoplifting and marijuana possession, she then did not play for almost two years, fuelling speculation that her professional career was over before she had even turned 20.

The Recovery: Capriati took her time to recover but eventually managed to return in style, becoming world number 1 in 2001 and winning three Grand Slams along the way. Now plagued by injury, her future is uncertain, but she is firmly established a legacy as one of the top female players of recent years.

Shinichi Suzukawa AKA Wakakirin

The Scandal: Sumo has been rocked by a number of scandals in recent years, from match fixing to doping, but the latest scandal involves a Japanese wrestler who fights under the ring name Wakakirin. Wakakirin (real name Shinichi Suzukawa) has recently been permanently barred from competing after being arrested for marijuana possession. While the drug isn’t classed as a performance enhancer, sumo wrestlers are expected to dress and live in an austere and ritualised fashion, and the incident has scandalised the sumo wrestling administration.

Speculation that marijuana fuelled munchies may have played a part in crafting Wakakirin’s sumo physique are, at the time of writing, unproven….

The Recovery: Unfortunately for Wakakirin, a recovery doesn’t look likely. He has been dismissed from the sport, and barring some kind of miracle recall, it doesn’t look like he will wrestle professionally again. On the bright side, he hasn’t been expelled (which would have denied him retirement pay)…which is a recovery of sorts…

Ross Rebagliati

The Scandal: Canadian snowboarder Ross Rebagliati had to suffer the ultimate indignation that can be experienced by a sports star – after winning Olympic Gold at the 1998 Winter Olympics he was stripped of his medal when marijuana was discovered in his system.

The Recovery: Interestingly, the ruling was quickly overturned and the medal returned Rebagliati to on the grounds that marijuana a) wasn’t on the list of banned substances and b) wasn’t classed as a performance enhancing drug. Indeed, someone who can win Olympic Gold whilst in any way under the influence of marijuana probably deserves another medal of a different kind!

Damon Stroudamire

The Scandal: Skilled basketball player Damon Stroudamire, nicknamed “Mighty Mouse”, kept hitting the headlines for various marijuana related incidents whilst playing for the Portland Trail Blazers (who unfortunately became know as the Jail Blazers when Stroudamire was playing for them, due to numerous discipline and drug issues.) After his third arrest for marijuana possession in 2003, he was fined a quarter of a million dollars and banned for three months.

The Recovery: Stroudamire went through a 90 day rehabilitation program after his suspension. He also struck a deal with a journalist, that he would provide a urine sample at any point in the season that the journalist nominated. He went on to have one of his best ever seasons, and took the journalist’s test half way through to negative results.

So, unless you are a Japanese sumo wrestler, it seems that marijuana isn’t too damaging in the long term to your career – and that it is more widespread in the sporting world than anyone would normally think…

By: Rob Kane

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com