NBA superstar Kevin Durant said during an interview Tuesday that marijuana use is "like wine" among players in the league and that he played a role in getting it removed from the sport's prohibited substances list.
"[NBA Commissioner Adam Silver] kind of understood where this was going," Mediaite reported that Durant said in an interview with CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin Tuesday. "It's the NBA, man. Everybody does it, to be honest. It's like wine at this point."
The league reached an agreement with the National Basketball Players Association in April to stop testing players for marijuana use as part of a contract for the 2023-24 season, Forbes reported.
The report said the agreement replaces the league's previous policy, which entered violators into a treatment and counseling program following the first violation, fined them $25,000 for a second violation, and suspended them for five games for a third.
"I actually called him and advocated for him to take marijuana off the banned substance list," Durant said in the interview. "I just felt like it was becoming a thing around the country, around the world; that this stigma behind it wasn't as negative as it was before. It doesn't affect you in any negative way."
Forbes reported that Major League Baseball removed marijuana from its substance list in 2019, allowing players to use it during their off time; but it can still punish them for using it during games, practices, meetings, or other activities relating to their employment by a team.
The NFL allows players to use marijuana only during the off-season, restricting its use during games, the report said.
The National Hockey League does not ban marijuana use but offers players with "abnormally high levels" of the substance discovered in urine tests to enter its Substance Abuse and Behavioral Health Program.
Olympic athletes are governed by the World Anti-Doping Agency's drug-use policy, which bans use during competition seasons but allows it during the off-season, according to Forbes.
U.S. News and World Report reported in May that 23 states; Guam; and Washington, D.C., allow the recreational sale and use of marijuana, despite it being a federal crime.
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