The 2010 NFL draft picks are the most promising talent in years. Sports Illustrated is reporting that in addition to the vast potential of this year’s draft class, some industry insiders have told them they are concerned about the increased number of prospects who have a history of marijuana use in their background. In interviews with Head coaches, general managers and two other “high-level” club personnel, it seems that many of the 2010 class of collegiate football talent have acknowledged a failed drug test for cannabis sometime during their college careers.

Out of the top thirty-two ranked college football players, ten or eleven of them have been flagged for marijuana use in college. According to the SI article, a NFL head coach estimates that a third of the players on his clubs draft board would need an extra level of evaluation as part of the pre-draft scouting process. Another veteran team evaluator called marijuana an “epidemic”, saying that the teams are having to figure out new guidelines for prospects because it is so prevalent they can no longer afford to automatically rule out a candidate because of a history or confession to using cannabis during their college years. One possible link to the seemingly “epidemic” nature to pot use in draft picks is that the new class of college graduates have been raised in a United States that has had states who recognize medical marijuana for the last fourteen years. It doesn’t seem like the terrible social taboo to have smoked a joint, or two that it was even a decade ago. I bet that the 2010 class of college athletes that have tried marijuana isn’t many more than the 2003,4 or 5 class. They are just more likely to admit it in a national climate where many are afforded the freedom of smoking with impunity, and media-covered protest rallies of adult cannabis reform activists are a monthly staple of the late night news. When the head coaches and team personal were growing up, and into their adult hood, they were brainwashed with the reefer-madness rhetoric of the last several decades.

In many cases these days, club officials say, players are much more open to admitting to past marijuana use or experimentation in college as part of their pre-draft interviews with NFL teams.

The kids are admitting it much more now, and part of that is what they’ve been coached to do [by their agents or handlers],” one club general manager said. “They want to get the truth out and give you an explanation for their use. That’s seen as better than letting someone else put it out there for you and making you look like you were being evasive……

One NFL head coach told me this week that in this era of some states decriminalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes, he has interviewed potential draft picks who didn’t even seem to recognize their marijuana smoking constituted drug use in the eyes of the NFL.

As we sit on our couches and watch these hard-working athletes with nachos in one hand and our remote in the other endlessly watching beer commercial after beer commercial it is difficult to judge an athlete’s use of cannabis. I don’t have to get up the next morning and run laps and lift weights, and my paycheck, thankfully, does not depend on me staying in top physical shape. The NFL makes obscene amounts of money off of alcoholic beverage sales, all while knowing if the players drank every weekend they could not perform with the vigor of a professional athlete. They push beer on us in the way they market the game, the way they sell their merchandise, and certainly the way they portray their fans most endearing ritual, the tailgate party. The NFL has been in bed with the alcohol industry for far too long to take a moral high road against cannabis use.

Furthermore, would the occasional use, or even weekly use of cannabis hurt the players stats? Probably not. So the league must be worried about a player getting pulled over and having marijuana in his car. Media circus ensues, sponsors announce their disgust and threaten to bolt, discipline is demanded and players often have to sit out games. That all equates to big money losses for owners. Don’t worry, you can make it up in alcohol sales at the Superbowl.