The 5 O'Clock Club (29 June 17): Does the NFL need to change its stance on pot smoking?

Good morning!

I got an email from Ken this week, asking if I could help out with the 5 o’clock club by taking responsibility for posting it daily. I agreed to try it for a month while I’m still on my summer break from my full time job as a university teacher to see how it goes. I’m not sure if I can keep it up once school starts back in August, but for the next 33 days (or so) at least, I’ll be your host each morning, and we’ll see how it goes.

The great part of the 5 o’clock club has generally been its link to The Audible podcast that Ken inserts, and — unfortunately — I won’t be able to do that daily, though I’m hoping that Ken will stop by and add the link later in the day to continue to give Hogs Haven members a good reason to stop by.

I will try to provide a little “primer for the pump” each day, by offering a topic here at the top, and whenever possible I’ll try to add a topic or two in the comments section.

I thought I’d start off my audition with a question that seems to be increasingly relevant... the question of whether the NFL policy on marijuana use, which some people see as overly-conservative and increasingly outdated, needs to be changed.

When it comes to pot — in fact, any recreational drug use outside of alcohol -- I’m a non-user (and for the most part, I’m a non-drinker). As a 57-year-old, I grew up in an era when pot use was illegal, but common, yet I never took up the habit. My personal view toward recreational pot smoking is rather ambivalent; I don’t think marijuana is a great social ill, but I think that the law should be respected. With federal and state laws increasingly out-of-sync, this creates both a dilemma and an opportunity for the NFL to re-examine its stance on the use of marijuana by players.

Goodell, after seeming to open the door to a reexamination of the policy early in 2017, seemed to slam the door shut again with his comments a few weeks ago. This is an area where the NFLPA could potentially take the lead.

What do you think? Should the NFL continue to suspend and ban players for marijuana use? Is the apparent broader social acceptance of the drug a good thing for America, or is it misplaced liberalism that will lead to the corruption and downfall of our once-great nation?

Share your ideas in the comments section below.