- Emily Drayton, Staff Writer
Cannabis Medicine for Retirees
Big news from the world of soccer: last night one of the greatest players in American history, Carli Lloyd, played her 316th and final game for the US Women’s National Team.
She retires with 134 international goals, 2 Olympic gold medals, two World Cups, she was 2-time women’s soccer player of the year. She has played 17 years on the world stage and retires at the ripe old age of 39.
Last year, Lloyd had arthroscopic knee surgery, a career-ender for most players her age, and credits CBD with giving her another full year of play after surgery and allowed her to retire on her own terms.
This may seem like a non-sequitur but I’ll tie Lloyd's story with another from the New York Times:
“Now, in the autumn of a long career, [Brian Cox] has finally stepped into the pop-culture spotlight as the media mogul and patriarch Logan Roy in the hit HBO series “Succession,” which returns this month for a third season.”
At 75, Cox is twice as old as Carli Lloyd. His character is as mean as a snake and enraged most of the time he’s on screen. His secret for cooling off is a little plant medicine.
The NY Times reporter David Marchese asks “… you’ve explain[ed] how in your 50s you became a regular marijuana smoker. Exactly how often do you smoke?”
Cox: "Reasonably often — which is whenever I can. I find it helpful for my health. There is something fundamental about it. It’s a vegetable and there’s a root and you feel it goes to some kind of root in you. I got into it because I used to get so wired at the end of a night. I needed to relax, and I didn’t want to get into taking all kinds of pills. Marijuana was able to calm this whirling dervish of a brain down. I’m very grateful for it.”
Personally, I think he was trying to act proper since he was speaking to the buttoned-up NY Times. Last year a reporter from The Guardian asked what he thinks of cannabis:
On the opposite side of the Great Cannabis Divide, is a family member I'll call Mr. X.
Mr. X is a wonderful guy, and as tough as they come. He's been in our family for 15 years and during that time, he’s had cancer 6 times. He's just "beaten that bastard again" as he likes to say - got the clean bill of health last month - after rounds of chemo and radiation.
Each time X has been through it, I’ve mentioned cannabis for pain and healing, but he just ignores me. He’s not acting like Logan Roy, he just can't bring himself to use good plant medicine because of his decades-deep Old School Stigma against cannabis.
One of the cancers was on top of his head. The doctors got it, but the wound was too big for stitches. I consulted with an MD I know who has multiple patients that have used CBD to heal wounds faster. He sent me his PowerPoint with color photos and plentiful footnotes of cases and reports from reputable sources. I forwarded them to Mr. X's doctors… nothing. No response.
I was told told "... his doctors decided to go with traditional treatments."
And guess what? After more than a year, the wound still hasn’t closed.
THE LOOP BACK
Mr. X isn't young, I'll bet his endocannabinoid system could use the boost to help him recover from his own personal world war III. But it breaks my heart a little. Cannabis medicine has the power to extend an aging world-class athletes’ career, help a 75- year-old actor rest and recover, help millions of people around the world, and I am confident it could have made a difference in Mr. X's recovery too.
Unfortunately in his case, the power of anti-cannabis stigma is greater than a medical doctor’s advice.
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Images in this article sourced from: https://www.insider.com/carli-lloyd-cbd-extends-uswnt-nwsl-soccer-career-2021-5, which gives credit to Mitchell Leff / Getty Images
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/28/magazine/brian-cox-interview.html , which gives photo credit to: Mamadi Doumbouya