NBA superstar Kevin Durant wants the NBA to remove marijuana from the league's banned substances list. The Brooklyn Net is sitting out the current season as he recovers from a right Achilles tendon injury that happened in last season's playoffs.
In a discussion with former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson - they host the Showtime podcast All the Smoke - that included a final question about marijuana, Durant stated (cue to 1:11-minute mark in the clip above):
"I just think it should be taken off the banned substances list. You don't have to implement it in anything. It's one of those plants, it's an acquired taste. Like, if you love it, you love it and if you don't, you're not even going to pick it up. It shouldn't even be a discussion nowadays. Marijuana is marijuana. It's not harmful to anybody. It only can help and enhance and do good things. I feel like it shouldn't be a huge topic anymore. Is it great? Is it good for you? Can it help? Is it bad? Yet everybody on my team drinks coffee everyday. They're taking caffeine everyday. Or guys go out to have wine after games or have a little drink here and there. Mariuana should be in that tone. Why are we even talking about it? It shouldn't even be a conversation now. So, hopefully, we can get past that, and the stigma around it and know that it's done nothing but make people have a good time. Make people hungry. Make people just come together. That plant brings us all together. Get people out of jail for marijuana, that's the next step. It's a plant that was put here for a reason. It's to bring us all together. Hopefully, it will happen, especially in the NBA."
Last November, Durant and Rich Kleiman's Thirty Five Ventures was added to the Strategic Advisory Board of the Canadian cannabis company Canopy Rivers.
Since being the second selection in the 2007 NBA draft by the Seattle Supersonics, Durant has won two NBA MVP awards and two NBA championships while with the Golden State Warriors and has been selected for the NBA All-Star game nine times. He's averaged 27 points per game in his 12-year NBA career.
