Stephen Jackson had a 14 year NBA career and was best known as a Golden State Warrior and a valued role player for a San Antonio Spurs that won the NBA title in 2003.
He now has a role at ESPN and is succeeding in his post playing days as well.
Besides being suspended 30 games for his role in the infamous Malice at the Palace incident in Detroit in 1994 (he got some good shots in), Jackson never had too many other issues with the league other than being involved with some other Pacers teammates in a nightclub incident in 2006.
One thing he never dealt with was failing a drug test for any banned substance, although according to his recent admission to TMZ, he smoked weed his entire NBA career.
Only after games though to help him relax and come down, never to interfere with his performance.
“Nobody can play high, especially in the NBA — it’s a high-level of competition, and guys are great, so nobody can play high,” said Jackson.
“If anybody says they need to be high during the games they don’t know what the f–k they’re talking about,” said Jackson.
While Adam Silver is the most forward-thinking and open-minded commissioner in professional sports, marijuana will still likely be on the banned substance list for the foreseeable future. At least until it is federally legal across the U.S. (something highly unlikely in the current fauxministration, I mean administration, sorry).
Any way you slice it, this is not that surprising at all, many players are probably frequent marijuana users and studies have proven the substance is a much more natural and less harmful way to recover from pain than pain killers that are considered legal substances for these professional sports leagues.
I do wonder how they get around the NBA’s mandated testing though…
