A Harvard professor has written to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to urge him to fund studies to determine if medical marijuana can aid in the treatment of concussions.
Goodell has said that the league, which prohibits medical marijuana, may allow medicinal marijuana if studies prove that it can help players to recover from concussions.
Harvard Professor Dr. Lester Grinspoon said that “extensive research required to definitively determine cannabis’s ability to prevent CTE will require millions of dollars in upfront investment.”
“[I]t’s highly unlikely that a pharmaceutical company will get involved in studying cannabis as a treatment for CTE, because the plant [and its natural components] can’t be patented,” Grinspoon wrote.
He said that “given the severity of the problem… I think you, and the NFL, must go beyond simply following the medicine, and help lead the way by directly funding research to determine if cannabis . . . can indeed provide significant protection against the damage of repetitive concussions.”
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