Stephen A. Smith really hates marijuana and doesn’t think it belongs in the NBA. But with former league commissioner David Stern advocating for the use of medical marijuana by NBA players and suggesting the league change its rules to allow it, Smith got another chance to ring the dang bell for one of his favorite causes.
Smith took a scorched Earth stance on the plant on Thursday, appearing on First Take and delivering a blistering criticism of NBA players who use marijuana and anyone who thinks they should be allowed to do so.
The initial discussion is about using marijuana medically, which Smith says he doesn’t know much about. He said when his mother passed away from cancer earlier this year she had the option to use medicinal marijuana and did not. Then he got mad about NBA players using it.
“I’m only speaking about recreational use of marijuana,” he said. “I think it’s abhorrent, I think it’s ridiculous and I don’t support it at all in terms of the NBA legalizing it.”
Smith then talked about NBA players clearly under the influence on the sidelines and said fans don’t deserve to pay hard-earned dollars to see high basketball players.
Smith’s stance on the icky sticky isn’t exactly new. In fact, there are dozens of videos of him ranting about marijuana use by professional athletes. It’s like the drug bullied him in high school or killed his parents in a freak circus accident, forcing him to take up a life of crime-fighting. I mean, here’s an anti-weed compilation that’s nearly 15 minutes long.
Smith is not going to change his mind here, but what’s silly about all this is that his anger is about recreational marijuana use, which is not what Stern even advocated for. Basically, he pivoted from something he admitted to not knowing much about to rail against the topic he’s worn some tracks in, even if it didn’t really make much sense to be arguing about in the first place.
