As cannabis use becomes more accepted across the country, new users need to understand the benefits that the plant can bring to one’s life.
The positive benefits of cannabis use can be seen all around, especially in the sports community.
To help educate the public and bring awareness to the adaptive sports community, Trulieve, a cannabis company, and Southern Arizona Adaptive Sports are hosting “Elevate Your Knowledge AZ: Cannabis & Adaptive Sports,” an informative discussion about the role cannabis plays in an active lifestyle, on Thursday, Feb. 13.
The event will start at 6 p.m. at the Donna R. Liggins Recreation Center in Tucson.
Panelists include Dr. William Troutt, Trulieve’s medical director, Chad Cohn, a wheelchair rugby athlete, Jarrah Al Hawamdeh, an amputee and founder of Global Sports Mentoring, Karl Yates, an amputee and head coach of a wheelchair basketball team, and John Moraga, a former UFC fighter.
Troutt said the panelists' past traumas will not be the topic of the conversation, but their affection for sport and how cannabis has enhanced their athletic lives.
“What we’re going to talk about, or the theme of the event, is the love of sports, athletics,” Troutt said. “Again, we’re not going to be lamenting over trauma and injury. This is…truly about the love of sport. And we’re going to talk about training, recovery, managing sports injury and just how to maintain optimum performance.”
In recent years, professional sports leagues such as the NBA, NFL and MLB have stopped suspending their athletes for using cannabis.
Troutt explained that athletes can utilize the plant to address various ailments, both physical and mental.
“It has been reported that a large amount of professional athletes use cannabis for its potential to help with recovery, recovery after training, recovery from sports injury, for pain, for alternatives to what conventional medicine provides for pain relief as well,” Troutt said. “Many athletes are dealing with pain, muscle spasms, inflammation. Pain isn’t just a physical thing either. There are also mental (and) emotional components that go with pain and trauma that I think get often overlooked and not addressed. Anxiety, depression — when you’re in pain you’re not sleeping well either. And again, we need sleep to recover from those types of things.”
Troutt said that much has been learned about cannabis since the 1990s, when he began to study the plant and its effects on the human body.
He said the human body has the endocannabinoid system, a series of receptors located in the brain, nervous system and immune system which help the body maintain homeostasis.
Troutt said stimulating the endocannabinoid system can help relax the body and help with recovery from training.
“Again, it truly is the master system that keeps everything in balance, so stimulating this endocannabinoid system, people feel things like — we call it happy, hungry, sleepy, relaxed and forget traumatic experiences and memories,” Troutt said. “And if you think about it, those are exactly the things that we need to do when we’re trying to recover from injury or, again, heavy training or those types of things.”
Trulieve has supported the adaptive sports community for years now. Troutt said adaptive sports athletes are “amazing” athletes and he has learned a lot from them.
“They’re just a pleasure to hang out with, chat with, play sports with and again, I’ve learned quite a lot from them, as well, as far as recovery, sports recovery, managing injuries (and) the mental and emotional mindsets that athletes need to perform at their best,” Troutt said.
For Troutt, natural medicine holds a special place in his life. When he was 19, he suffered a skiing injury that damaged the nerves that go down to his bladder and down his right leg.
When he tried to play sports, his sciatic nerve would swell and affect movement in his right leg.
He was informed that he would require various medications and surgeries to address the issue, but he preferred not to pursue that path. A doctor introduced him to natural forms of treatment, such as spinal manipulation, acupuncture and herbal remedies, which significantly enhanced his health.
He said he is glad to see the professional sports community become more open to natural therapies.
“I’m super excited to see that the professional sports world is starting to relax the way they look at cannabis and also being open to more natural ways of again, managing injury and recovery,” Troutt said.
He said he expects to see more people using cannabis in the future, in small or large doses.
In the meantime, Troutt emphasized the importance of learning the benefits cannabis can have mentally and physically.
“There’s been so much misinformation in the past around cannabis that having access to accurate information is the most important part, whether people use cannabis, are going to use cannabis, or not,” he said. “This has become a big cultural phenomenon and has big community implications for everybody, this legalization of cannabis. So I think it’s important that we let go of the past misinformation that has caused a stigma for some people around cannabis and really understand what this medicine is, how it interacts with our physical body and how important this endocannabinoid system is.”
Elevate Your Knowledge AZ: Cannabis & Adaptive Sports
WHEN: 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 13
WHERE: Donna R. Liggins Recreation Center, 2160 N. Sixth Avenue, Tucson
COST: Free for ages 21 and older
INFO: RSVP at tinyurl.com/ElevateYourKnowledgeAZ
