“I am hopeful that I’ll be able to keep playing football,” James said. “It is a game that I love very dearly. I know right now I’m doing something that makes some people uncomfortable, and that I’m going against the establishment to push for a change in the way they look at this medicine. I know there’s a greater purpose here for a lot of guys in this league who I consider family members.”
The NFL and other sports leagues sometimes allow athletes to use otherwise banned substances if they receive therapeutic use exemptions for substances that have legitimate medical uses. But when James applied for a therapeutic use exemption to allow him to use marijuana, the NFL turned him down. Although James is not currently under contract to an NFL team, free agents remain subject to the league’s random drug testing.