Jim McMahon Promotes Medical Marijuana? Ex-Chicago Bears Player Makes News Over Health Revelation
Jim McMahon makes news as he revealed how he was able to to get off from a habit of taking too much pain-management pills through medical marijuana.
The former Chicago Bears player admitted that pain was a constant enemy he had to fight ever since he became an athlete.
"I'm old-fashioned. I like to put it in my pipe and smoke it," Jim McMahon told ABC7, as quoted in a news report.
"Back then it was painkillers. I played my whole career on painkillers. I was using about 100 Percocets a month when I retired and I knew I had to get off that stuff," the former Chicago Bears player added.
According to McMahon, medical marijuana helped him deal with the constant pain that an NFL career left him.
"I've had 18 surgeries so pretty much everything on me hurts," Jim McMahon continued.
"My C1 and 2 are twisted 25 degrees from the old Charlie Martin hit. My C6 and 7 are cracked and compressed, so I had a broken neck at some point in my career and nobody told me about it. So I'm lucky to be walking," the former star of the Bears added.
Despite Jim McMahon's statement, Chicago Tribune noted that many institutions still do not see marijuana as a go-to treatment for pain management.
"The majority of patients in some other states that have legalized medical marijuana, like California and Colorado, qualify to use it to treat pain," the news report wrote.
"But Illinois, which has perhaps the strictest law allowing medical marijuana in the nation, does not allow it for pain, as lawmakers have expressed concerns that the category is too broad and vague and would allow for abuse."
Amid buzz over the statement of the 56-year-old former Bears player, Yahoo reported that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs may be under pressure from a bipartisan group to let their doctors recommend medical marijuana as a treatment in states where it is allowed.
VA is yet to release news about its decision regarding the medical marijuana issue.
