By Paulo Matus González
Revista Cáñamo Chile 🇨🇱
Around the 1980s, high-performing athletes worldwide began using medications to relieve pain and inflammation frequent in physical activity. However, based on empirical evidence, pharmacological treatments were associated with multiple long-term side effects among retired athletes: addiction problems, tolerance, depression and anxiety. This motivated the search for alternatives in holistic medicine.
Thus, in Canada, since 2016 the organization Athletes for Care (A4C), which brings together more than 150 professionals from 28 disciplines, has supported the therapeutic use of cannabis in sports, addressing the issue of health from education and research to become a global benchmark and break one more stigma of green culture.
-Cannabis fits the equation of healing and recovery from injuries that occur in all high-impact sports," says one of Canada's ambassadors, Rob Frid (41), a former professional ice hockey player, retired at age 29 as a result of the aftermath of the violent fights allowed and regulated by the National Hockey League (NHL). Nevertheless, today he narrates his own experience with marijuana through A4C and as executive director of Medical My Way, an organization that leads the conversation about the use of medical cannabis in Canada.
According to the report "One last fight", The Globe and Mail newspaper, during his career Frid had at least 75 brain contusions that often left him unconscious, has been diagnosed with dystonia, has been identified early signs of Parkinson's disease, and is likely to live with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Still, the use of medicinal cannabis has been key to controlling and slowing the degenerative progression of brain disease, as well as acting as a palliative in pain management.
Rob Frid adds, we must continue to use
sport as a platform to involve the community and different athletes who are unaware of the therapeutic use of cannabis and who struggle with chronic pain and side effects linked to traditional pharmacological drugs.
#patientsalwaysfirst #medicalcannabis #access #affordability #cannabisandsports #community #healing #family #disability #global #santiagochile #southamericapatients
