Football season may be over, but one New York state lawmaker is just setting his sights on tackling the use of synthetic marijuana in the NFL.

New York State Sen. Jeff Klein, a Democrat, sent a letter to Commissioner Roger Goodell earlier this month proposing mandatory drug testing for synthetic marijuana. Since synthetic marijuana has become more prevalent in the NFL and their current screening procedure doesn’t detect it, Klein urged that the league follow in the footsteps of the New York State Senate to stop the drug that sent 6,800 New Yorkers to the emergency room last year.

The drug is technically illegal in all 50 states. However, there are several loopholes in the system which means it can still be sold easily. In many cases, the product is marketed with cartoonish characters to appeal to a young audience without stating the dangers of smoking it and is sometimes sold as incense at gas stations and small, privately owned corner shops.

The city of Syracuse has even been labeled “Spike Nation” because of the vast number of bad batches of synthetic marijuana that have sent people to Upstate University Hospital. As reported by Syracuse.com in July 2015, 256 of the 414 synthetic marijuana-related calls to the Upstate New York Poison Center came from Onondaga County. By the end of that year, the deaths of six people were connected to synthetic marijuana in Onondaga County.

But whatever the repercussions throughout New York state, the NFL is a private company and should be treated like one. Politicians outside of professional football shouldn’t have any place in determining the league’s drug policy and any action taken in this regard should be left up to Goodell and the Players Association, not overbearing government entities.

There have been several cases of synthetic marijuana usage by professional football players, including two in 2016 alone. And in just the past month, Syracuse University alumnus and New England Patriots defensive end Chandler Jones had to be hospitalized after suffering a bad reaction to the drug. Some of the side effects associated with synthetic marijuana include psychotic behavior, hallucinations, seizures and uncontrollable body movements.

Although synthetic marijuana falls within the NFL’s banned substances list, it’s unfortunate that the highly addictive drug, also known as spike, spice and K2, isn’t already being tested for.

Because of the drug’s damaging side effects, the NFL would likely receive positive feedback for administering mandatory drug testing in an effort to curb synthetic marijuana usage. It has been reported that it would cost the NCAA $300 per athlete to test for the chemicals in synthetic marijuana, according to Deadspin in 2011. Assuming the NFL is willing to spend a similar figure, they would have to hold up their end of the bargain.

Jeff Pauline, an associate professor and sport management graduate program director in SU’s David B. Falk School of Sport and Human Dynamics, said, “If you’re going to start mandatory testing, the punishment has to be more than a slap on the wrist.”

Sure, there’s always the chance that the league would not come down hard enough on players that test positive for synthetic marijuana, considering Chandler Jones wasn’t given a suspension for the first-time offense.

But one of the more concerning problems with Klein’s letter — and the U.S. government in general — is not the implementation itself, but the fact that it inserts a governmental voice where there shouldn’t be one and opens the door for lawmakers to get in the way of big business.

Sports especially doesn’t have a good history when New York state politicians have gotten in the way.

Take for example the political resistance to mixed martial arts in New York as the only state that has banned Ultimate Fighting Championship and similar organizations from hosting professional matches. Supposedly, the higher-ups who have made the decision are against it due to union disputes. And like governmental encroachment in sports industries, no matter how many fans and professional fighters want it in the Empire City, they can’t have it because of the interests of a select few.

This type of interference only widens the divide between private business and lawmakers, considering Ultimate Fighting Championship made efforts to bypass the state government by booking an event for April 2016. Although the measure was denied by a federal judge earlier this month, the same type of defiant response could lead to unnecessary bad blood between the NFL and New York state if lawmakers move forward with imposing additional drug sanctions.

Washington’s elected officials go to work each day because they are there to represent what the people want. Klein’s type of interference isn’t necessary. Yes, preventing the use of a harmful drug such as synthetic marijuana is important. But the NFL already has a governing body.

Klein should focus more on what ways he can help New Yorkers and less on babysitting the heads of the NFL.

Kyle O’Connor is a sophomore sport management major and political science minor. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at kdoconno@syr.edu.

Published on February 16, 2016 at 12:26 am