NBA, free marijuana: the ban on consumption has been eliminated

“It calms me down, it allows me to free my head a little,” he explained in May 2022 Kevin Durant during the David Letterman Show. “Consuming marijuana is like drinking a glass of wine.” The Star of the Phoenix Suns he has been investing in the legal cannabis market for years and, one imagines, he will be among the happiest of the big news that the NBA will launch next season. An agreement was reached between Adam Silver’s league, which represents the owners of the 30 franchises, and the NBPA, the players’ union, with the renewal of the collective agreement until 2030. An agreement that arrived after months of negotiations and which avoids the risk of a “lockout” as happened in 1998 and 2011: the new contract will come into force from next season 2023-24 and will last for 7 years.

Marijuana always allowed

Well, with respect to the use of marijuana, any type of prohibition relating to its use has been removed in the agreement. As of 2019-20, cannabis was no longer included in the substances considered relevant in doping controls. Now everyone is truly free. A rule that makes the NBA even more of a planet apart from the rest of world sport: despite the pressure, cannabis remains among the prohibited substances identified by the Wada World Code. THC (the active ingredient in cannabis) is only prohibited in competition and only when the urinary concentration exceeds a threshold of 150 ng/mL.

Draft, the 19-year limit remains

Among the other novelties of the collective agreement, the limit of 65 games to be played in order to access the seasonal prizes, a measure that would serve to discourage “load management”, or the scheduled rests of the players. In the field of Drafts, the age limit for declaring oneself eligible has not been lowered. Therefore, the canonical 19 years will be needed to be able to enter the NBA and not 18. The boys leaving high school will have to wait a year to spend in college (the famous “One-and-Done”), abroad, in the G-League or in other leagues like the Overtime Elite.

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