Johnny Nic on rugby: Cannabis oil in the game
John Nicholson returns to Planet Rugby to discuss cannabis oil.
I don’t know if you’ve tried playing rugby when stoned on cannabis but let me tell you, it is very hard to do. I mean, yes, you can do it. You can run around and dive over the try-line, the problem is you just can’t see the point in doing so and anyway the air now tastes kind of purple, man and everything is everything else. Far out. Compared to unlocking the secrets of the universe and interconnectivity of all matter, I’m afraid rugby is simply second best.
So the fact that two rugby players have gone into business to sell cannabis oil may seem somewhat surprising until you learned that, of course, legal cannabis oil has had all the stoner stripped out of it because we must under no circumstances attain any spiritual awareness or perception about the nature of our existence as we might then realise who has the power, what they’re doing with it and how we can stop them. Or so the authorities fear. In truth of course, mostly we’re just listening to Ozric Tentacles and eating Monster Munch. But they don’t know that, man.
I jest, of course. I am well aware that there are well-documented increases in psychotic episodes by using cannabis, especially the horribly powerful skunk which, let me tell you, compared to the dope we smoked in the late 1970s is incomparably strong; more like an anaesthetic than a ladder to higher consciousness.
My days of being a stoner are thankfully 35 years behind me but the fact George Kruis and Dominic Day are selling this stuff and have been using it as part of their healing routine for some time is a news story that still may raise a few eyebrows.
Cannabidiol, which is what these lads are selling, is one of the components in cannabis, is not actually illegal and the fact there is little THC in it means it also doesn’t induce that stoned feeling, so there’s no chance of players feeling the urge to lie down and listen to The Orb or Dark Side of the Moon during training. However, it does have other genuinely remarkably positive effects.
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Day says: “I was probably taking prescription anti-inflammatories and painkillers four or five times a week just to get to the weekend to play. It wasn’t where I wanted to be at all. I just don’t take that stuff now, I stick with the CBD oil.”
That is remarkable, isn’t it? He goes on: “The first thing I noticed was my sleep was amazing.” (So not unlike the full strength weed, then!). “The inflammation in my knee also went down and it relieved the pain.”
According to Kruis there are four or five players at most clubs now taking either replacing painkillers with it, or reducing their intake of pills. They say cannabidiol has been passed as OK to use by WADA.
“We’ve spoken to the anti-doping team at the Rugby Football Union and the Rugby Players’ Association. They’re behind us,” he said.
However, the Welsh Rugby Union emailed all players to tell them that some cannabinoids are banned and will produce a positive drugs test. This would appear to stem from a misunderstanding about what the oil actually is, but is typical of the conservative, reactionary attitude of some in the game.
Surely, anything that reduces the amount of drugs a player has to take to get them through the season has got to be a good thing. We currently have players eating handfuls of anti-inflammatory drugs and painkillers, so why not look elsewhere for solutions? It totally makes sense to utilise this oil as part of your personal programme of healing and health.
However, given that drugs which are considered to be “performance enhancing” are what WADA and the authorities are dedicated to outlawing, it is hard to see how cannabidiol, indeed any painkiller, is not performance enhancing.
Getting better sleep, reducing inflammation and pain sound VERY like a drug which will enhance your performance over and above what you could achieve if you did not take it. Indeed, you can take drugs which are banned by WADA that do exactly that, all of which may prove philosophically tricky to explain away.
We all want players to be able to perform to their highest standard. No-one wants them to be in unnecessary pain or to take longer to heal than needed, so there should be no problem with the widespread use of cannabidiol, but given its high profile endorsement from within the game, one does wonder how long it’ll be before what constitutes an illegal drug for an athlete to take is radically reassessed because the status quo is starting to look very silly indeed.