Sports Secrets, Team Play and Mary Jane

Nowadays it's hard to imagine a real sportsman recommending tobacco - even in a private group. Just like it's virtually impossible to find a doctor willing to prescribe it for any medical condition. Meanwhile, the best of the best in the world league of sports admit to smoking cannabis. The greatest minds, lungs, and hearts in world sports may actually owe this confession to this medicinal plant - as it may have contributed greatly to their success.

Nowadays it's hard to imagine a real sportsman recommending tobacco - even in a private group. Just like it's virtually impossible to find a doctor willing to prescribe it for any medical condition. Meanwhile, the best of the best in the world league of sports admit to smoking cannabis. The greatest minds, lungs, and hearts in world sports may actually owe this confession to this medicinal plant - as it may have contributed greatly to their success.

Michael Phelps, the most famous and titled athlete on our planet (he holds the all-time record for Olympic gold medals - 18, double the second highest record holders) has admitted to smoking marijuana. Obviously, for a swimmer the single most important thing is lung volume. Nobody could even dream of achieving similar results while smoking tobacco.

Phelps, the most accomplished man in the history of sports, is not the only professional athlete “advertising” cannabis use occasionally. The fastest man in the world, Jamaican runner Usain Bolt said in an interview with the German newspaper “Bild” that in Jamaica marijuana is something universal and he also had to deal with it. “When you’re a kid, you learn how to make a joint,” said Bolt. The famous sprinter also sparked controversy with his photos of T-shirts from The Pothead Diaries promoting the smoking of marijuana. Many other well-known athletes smoke herb without any negative consequences to their performance and health - and even for its positive effects on the body. Only recently, the media has dealt with the cases of American footballer Ricky Williams and basketball player LeBron James. It is estimated that more than half of the players in American NBA (basketball) and NFL (football) league teams regularly smokes. For this reason, in the off-season no one even thinks of carrying out control tests for THC among players.

Marijuana smoke opens airways in the lungs - in contrast to smoking nicotine products, which has the opposite effect and blocks them. It is like the difference for men between smoking hemp and tobacco for its aphrodisiac/impotence effect – or the difference between life and death, health and disease, function and malfunction at the cellular level for all of us, male or female. Renowned lung specialist Dr. Donald Taskin, now Professor Emeritus at the University of California, first discovered and described this fundamental difference in the way two of humanity’s favorite smokes operate in the body. The scientist spent almost 40 years studying the harmful effects of smoking on the lungs. In 2006, his studies showed that cannabis smoke not only does not cause lung cancer, but seem to even protect against it. Dr. Tashkin also found that marijuana does not cause or exacerbate the symptoms of emphysema - which is very strange for any smokable substance. He also noted that even a single inhalation of cannabis smoke was able to stop a full-blown asthma attack. Still, the main-stream media use the scare tactics of lung cancer in order to justify the prohibition of cannabis, even if scientists have never been able to provide a single case of cancer caused by marijuana use alone.

Cure for the loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

Studies suggest that marijuana is a much healthier choice for athletes in order to gain an advantage over their competition than using, say, human growth hormone (HGH) or amphetamines. It has long been known that cannabis has a huge positive effect on the mind and body of the athlete - for example, it increases lung capacity. Marijuana also helps to remove damaged cells and improves the efficiency of the mitochondria, the energy source of the cell. And better repair of the mitochondria means a stronger, faster mind and body.

The secrets of team play involve our cells and other mysteries of life. Increased strength, the ability to regenerate an athlete’s body and, what’s perhaps even more important, a positive effect on the brain of the player – these findings have made cannabinoids look like the new wonder drug of sports medicine.  Our own natural cannabinoids produced by the body include anandamide (from the word “happiness” in Sanskrit). Separate from the brain is the cannabinoid system in the heart. The protective effects of cannabinoids against brain damage and heart failure are very similar - as if nature protected the two most important organs using the same tool. Many cannabinoid receptors are present in the cells of the immune system and other major organs: the kidneys, the liver, or pancreas. This endocannabinoid system of our own “internal marijuana” is activated by motion. The content of natural cannabinoids in our blood increases twice through physical exercise, as researchers have shown in a study conducted on healthy volunteers. This simple method can also deepen and prolong the effect of marijuana on the body.

Dr. David A. Raichlen of the University of Arizona explains that the sense of euphoria after exercise is part of our evolutionary history as high levels of endocannabinoids form an incentive to run again. This is an evolutionary reward for doing something difficult and painful. It probably helped our species to survive, to be healthier, to hunt better and have more offspring. A level of satisfaction can be earned, says the researcher. The more fit we are, the more likely we are to achieve a high level of happiness.

Within a healthy body lives a healthy mind, modern doctors repeat following their ancient peers. In addition to sports and physical exercise, other common methods of achieving a natural state of well-being and satisfaction is intellectual effort (the pleasant formation of new brain cells through learning and curiosity) and, of course, sex.