Reggie Williams, a former Cincinnati city councilman and 14-year National Football League veteran, is crediting medical cannabis use with improving his quality of life. The 1986 NFL Man of the Year has undergone 24 operations in his right knee and suffered a stroke on New Year’s Eve 2015 and has turned to cannabis therapies to treat his chronic pain.
“I’m enjoying some significant benefit in the quality of my life because of medical cannabis topicals,” he said in the Cincinnati Enquirer report. “There is reduced pain and inflammation that I experience chronically in my joints.”
Looking back at a video shot by the newspaper just two years ago, Williams describes the agony — “I was almost frothing at the mouth” from the pain, he said. Now, following his medical cannabis regimen, “I can jump out of a car, put my shoes on and start walking without any of the limbering and stretching I had to do every time I got in and out of a car or a table or any close space.”
Williams admits to using cannabis throughout his football days with Dartmouth and the NFL; his term as city councilman, and while working for Disney. He now uses products with higher CBD levels to help combat his pain.
Currently, Williams is receiving treatment from a medical cannabis facility in the San Francisco Bay Area. He still resides in Ohio — which has a medical cannabis program but it is not yet operational. Following his successful treatment, he is hoping that the NFL will reconsider their medical cannabis ban, and has offered his input for any policy-developing organization the league might put together.
“It’s an opportunity to educate everybody,” Williams said. “To those who say [cannabis] can’t [help] a competitive football player, I’d say I may be an exception to that profile. My candor is directly related to the benefits I’ve derived.”
The next goal for the former linebacker is to run onto the field at Paul Brown Stadium during a pre-game introduction next season.
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