Travis and Jason Kelce—probably the most famous brothers to play recently in the NFL—discussed how weed-related suspensions can haunt players for years to come in a recent podcast. But for Travis it changed the course of his career, sending him on a path as a tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs.

In a recent podcast New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce, they discussed the year-long suspension that haunted Travis after he tested positive for THC in 2010 while playing for when Travis played college football for the University of Cincinnati Bearcats. In 2013, the Dallas Cowboys passed on him in an interview while scouting for talent, he explained in the podcast.

After testing positive for THC in a drug test, was suspended the entire 2010 season for what the Bearcats called a “violation of team rules,” which was in fact failing a drug test for cannabis. When he tested positive, Travis was in New Orleans for the 2010 Sugar Bowl with Cincinnati. Not only was he judged and ridiculed for supposedly being immature for smoking pot, but it ended up having serious consequences at the NFL’s annual combine where they scout out new talent for future NFL stars. 

USA Today reported that while future Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid had faith in him, regardless of the failed drug test and subsequent suspension, “America’s Team”—the Dallas Cowboys—declined to accept him at the annual NFL combine in 2013, instead recruiting someone else. He recalled the course of events that year on the podcast, as his brother Jason pressed him for more details.

“At the combine, I had some bad interviews,” Travis said. “The Cowboys, they were kind of pressing me about having this red flag of missing a year—smoking weed. I don’t know if I was having a bad morning, I basically was just, I don’t even know if I want to say this.”

While Travis seemed reluctant to discuss it, Jason encouraged his brother to elaborate.

“It ended really fast,” Travis added. “I basically just said, ‘If you guys think I’m gonna be that kind of guy or you’re questioning if I’m still that person after everything that I’ve battled through to get to where I am now from missing a season, then you guys probably go somewhere else and pick somebody else.’ That is exactly what they did.”

So who did the Cowboys recruit instead of Kelce? The Cowboys ended up drafting tight end Gavin Escobar in the second round. He spent five seasons in the league, catching just 30 passes for 333 yards and eight touchdowns. In 2023, Travis caught 984 receiving yards, with 1,138 receiving yards in 2022.

Escobar ended up being the 47th overall pick in 2013, while Kelce fell to 63, the first selection of the third round, by the Kansas City Chiefs.

The episode was shared March 2 on social media.

Kelce’s Suspension Changed the Course of His Career

The brothers have discussed the 2010 suspension several times before. In an earlier podcast in December 2023, episode 231 of Bussin’ With the Boys, Travis mentioned his 2010 suspension and explained that it actually led him from switching positions as quarterback to tight end.

“What it did was it really kicked me into the tight end room,” Travis said. “I was still playing QB then. It was like, ‘Alright, you can come walk on the team, but we don’t need a quarterback. You can just be an athlete on scout team for a year, we’ll figure it out.’”

The tight end acknowledged how much things have changed. Travis in particular has opened up before about how common pot is for NFL players, and how they typically get away with it despite drug tests.

In June 2023, Travis estimated that up to 80% of players in the NFL smoke pot. “If you just stop [smoking weed] in the middle of July, you’re fine,” he said. “A lot of guys stop a week before and they still pass [drug tests] because everybody’s working out in the heat and sweating their tail off. Nobody’s really getting hit for it anymore.”

Former tight end Martellus Bennett estimated that closer to “89 percent” of NFL players smoke pot, and former running back Ricky Williams, who was also suspended for smoking pot, suggested “at least 80%” of players did the same. Williams, Marshawn Lynch, Tiki Barber, Calvin Johnson, and others have also invested in pot-related companies.

This aligns with what is seen in other pro sports leagues like the NBA and MMA organizations like the UFC. 

Jason also recently announced his retirement from the NFL after playing for 13 seasons.

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Two-time Superbowl Champion Jim McMahon and All-Pro offensive lineman Kyle Turley are hinting at a run for the White House with a campaign built on passing a banking bill for legal marijuana businesses and creating awareness for the benefits of cannabis, according to a report from Fox Sports.

McMahon, who played quarterback for the Chicago Bears, and Turley, a first-round pick by the New Orleans Saints in the 1998 NFL draft, are co-founders of the cannabis brand Revenant along with fellow professional football player Eben Britton. According to the company website, a “mutual respect and understanding of the healing principles the cannabis plant provides brought these gentlemen together and fuels [their] desire to share it with the world.”

Last week, Turley visited New Hampshire to share his advocacy with Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley and Democrat Dean Phillips, who has launched a long-shot bid to overtake President Joseph Biden in the race for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination. During the visits, Turley reportedly talked up the benefits of cannabis and urged the candidates to support the Secure and Fair Enforcement and Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act, legislation that would give regulated cannabis companies access to traditional business banking services.

Now, McMahon is teasing a potential run for president with Turley as his running mate, according to the Fox Sports report, with a platform based on cannabis advocacy and support for the marijuana banking bill.

“We’re trying to get the message out about this cannabis plant and about fair banking,” McMahon told Fox News Digital. “We’re trying to bring awareness, not only to the cannabis industry but things that are going bad in this country. We’re going to make a little bit of noise. We might get some votes just for the cannabis part. We’re gonna have some fun with it. We’re gonna try and grow our brand and make people aware about this plant. We’ll see what happens.”

Cannabis Banking Bill Pending in the Senate

The SAFER Banking Act was approved by the Senate Banking Committee in September and advanced for consideration by the full Senate. The bill is a revamped version of the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, a bill to provide cannabis companies access to traditional banking services that was passed by the House of Representatives seven times. 

Under current federal law, providing financial services to cannabis companies is strictly regulated, leaving many businesses—particularly small, independent operators—without access to bank accounts, credit card processing and other financial services. As a result, many businesses operate exclusively or largely in cash, leaving operators and their customers and staff vulnerable to crime. 

The SAFER Banking Act would remove the barriers to financial services for cannabis companies. Financial institutions would not be required to offer banking services to cannabis companies, but the bill discourages banks and credit unions from denying such services based on “personal beliefs or political motivations.” The measure also directs the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to amend previous guidance on cannabis banking services within six months and for “depository institutions” to comply with the agency’s new regulations.

Immigration and Homelessness Also On Campaign Platform

In addition, to cannabis banking and advocacy, McMahon shared other themes of the hypothetical presidential campaign, touching on immigration, homelessness, taxation and spending policy.

“I’d close the damn borders for one and then go find all the people that got in here illegally,” he said. “It’s ridiculous. We’re paying all this money as taxpayers, and it’s not helping us at all. We’re sending it all overseas, you know. Who knows where we’re sending it, but it’s not being used here in the states. “You look at California. They get the most money every year for homelessness, and they got the worst homeless population in the country or probably the world. There’s just so many things going wrong. We got to just stop the crazy spending and printing money and close our borders and let’s clean house.”

McMahon played 15 years as an NFL quarterback, leading the Chicago Bears to the Superbowl championship following the 1985 season, later winning another ring with the Green Bay Packers. His experience with the pain and recovery associated with playing professional football led him to advocate for the NFL to change its policy surrounding cannabis use.

“They need it for physical recovery,” McMahon recently told Forbes. “There’s no doubt about it. I mean, it’s the only neuroprotectant that has a patent on it. Why can’t they freely use that, rather than things that only mask the pain? That’s all they do. They don’t heal the body, they don’t help the body. They ruin your body, you get addicted to them, and they kill people, whereas cannabis has never killed anybody.”

After being drafted by the Saints in 1998 and playing there for five seasons, Turley spent a year with the St. Louis Rams. A back injury prevented him from playing in 2004 and 2005, but he returned to NFL action to finish his career with two seasons on the Kansas City Chiefs. He has been a vocal cannabis advocate since he retired from the NFL and has also lobbied the league to lift its ban on cannabis.

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In an interview with Vanity Fair, two-time Super Bowl champion and tight end Travis Kelce estimated that 50-80% of NFL players are smoking pot. Kelce’s estimate echoes similar numbers floated by a handful of former NFL players.

Kelce said that he was “so embarrassed” when a failed drug test that ended up getting him suspended from playing football for one season in Cincinnati in 2010 after testing positive for cannabis. His scholarship to the University of Cincinnati was also stripped. But with the NFL’s looser rules regarding cannabis, he assumes that his peers in the NFL are taking advantage of the newfound freedoms.

“If you just stop [smoking] in the middle of July, you’re fine,” he said. “A lot of guys stop a week before and they still pass [drug tests] because everybody’s working out in the heat and sweating their tail off. Nobody’s really getting hit for it anymore.”

The number is high. “He estimates that anywhere from 50 to 80 percent of players in the NFL use cannabis,” Vanity Fair summarized.

Kelce also discussed Super Bowl after-parties and growing up watching Saturday Night Live (SNL) just to see Chris Farley and Will Ferrell and other stars before hosting the show himself. Kelce made a rare athlete appearance hosting SNL, “an exclusive group that includes Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, and Peyton Manning,” Vanity Fair reports. His performance hosting the show in March was considered a hit.

Several other former NFL players have made similar statements. Former running back Ricky Williams, who attended the High Times 100 event in 2021, and weathered several drug-related suspensions during his tenure in the NFL, suggested that number is “at least 80 percent.”

Other former players say that number is higher: “I want to say about 89%,” retired tight end Martellus Bennett said on a Bleacher Report podcast. Bennett added that it’s better than the opioids other players are getting addicted to.

Plenty more former and current NFL players are investing in cannabis (or opening dispensaries) including Marshawn Lynch, Calvin Johnson, Jim McMahon, Kyle Turley, and Eben Britton. Former NFL All-Pro DeSean Jackson’s endorsement of Pineapple Wellness, a CBD company, was one of the most recent endeavors.

Kelce’s brother, Jason, is a center for the Philadelphia Eagles.

In 2020, the National Football League (NFL) made a dramatic change to its drug testing policy thanks to a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) that was brokered between players and owners over the weekend. 

Under the new CBA, players will no longer face suspensions if they test positive for cannabis, and the drug testing period will be limited to the first two weeks of training camp. The threshold for a positive cannabis drug test will now rise from from 35 to 150 nanograms of THC, according to ESPN.

“The idea is to focus the drug program on clinical care as opposed to punishment. Basically, if you test positive, your test gets reviewed by a board of jointly appointed medical professionals to determine whether you need any kind of treatment. The NFLPA deal memo also says that ‘violations of law for marijuana possession generally will not result in suspension.’”

Changes in policy are enabling players to smoke much more freely without fear of repercussions. Since 2021, players in the NFL are tested during only a two-week window at the beginning of training camp in the summer.

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Former Pittsburgh Steeler Le’Veon Bell said in a recent podcast that he’d score touchdowns and win games—even if he smoked pot beforehand.

Bell, who is now a free agent, had short runs with the Kansas City Chiefs, Baltimore Ravens, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers after leaving the Pittsburgh Steelers—the place he truly calls home in his professional football career. CBS News reports that Bell spilled the details in a recent podcast about how often he’d smoke, even before the game.

During Bell’s run with the Steelers from 2013 to 2017, he chalked up 5,336 rushing yards, 2,660 receiving yards, and averaged 5.2 yards per touchdown. Bell also earned two All-Pro selections and had three 1,000-yard rushing seasons. In 2015 and 2016 he was voted as one of the NFL Top 100. He apparently rushed many of those touchdowns stoned.

On Episode 30 of the “Steel Here” podcast, Bell explained how he smoked pot before some of his best performances for the Steelers.

“Looking back, that’s what I did,” Bell said. “When I was playing football, I smoked. Even before the games, I’d smoke and I’d go out there and run for 150, two (touchdowns).”

In 2019, Bell signed a four-year, $52.5 million deal with the New York Jets, which didn’t last too long. Bell hasn’t played professional football since the 2021 season, but has no plans to retire from the league anytime soon. A contract dispute led to his departure with the Steelers, but he hopes to eventually retire with them.

“It literally was the guarantee. They weren’t budging off of it and I wasn’t budging off of it. I didn’t want to leave Pittsburgh,” Bell said. “At the end of the day, that’s where I was at. That’s where I got drafted at. Especially after going to different teams and seeing how it is, when a team has their guy, you’re their guy. I was Pittsburgh’s guy.”

In 2021, the National Football League (NFL) made significant changes to its guidelines, so now players are only required to drug test for cannabis just once at the beginning of training camp.

“I’m trying to retire with Pittsburgh,” Bell said. “But before I do that, I might be like, ‘Hey, let me get a couple carries in the preseason so I can show you all something.’”

The NFL and Pot Policy

The NFL is easing up on cannabis policies like most other major sport leagues. Last year, the NFL took another step forward by awarding funds to two cannabis research initiatives focused on the effectiveness of cannabis as a treatment for pain management.

The NFL is currently exploring cannabis-based medicine for the treatment of pain, given that the alternative is usually opioids. The NFL announced in a press release on February 1, 2022 that it would be presenting $1 million to two different researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and University of Regina (UR), which is located in Canada. Both research groups will be focusing on how cannabinoids can aid in general pain management, with a few other goal studies as well.

The NFL-NFLPA Joint Pain Management Committee (PMC) called for research proposals in June 2021, asking for researchers to assist with PMC’s knowledge about pain management and athletic performance.” The committee received a total of 106 submissions, which was narrowed down to 10 finalists by the NFL Research and Innovation Committee. 

In the meantime, players are likely smoking. It mirrors what has been said about other major sports leagues such as the National Basketball Association (NBA). (Jay Williams estimated that 80% of NBA players smoke weed; Al Harrington guesses the number is a bit higher.)

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Smoking pot might get you suspended from a team—but you can still win the Super Bowl twice, Kansas City Chiefs tight end and Super Bowl LVII champion Travis Kelce said in so many words during his monologue on NBC’s Saturday Night Live (SNL) Sunday evening.

With a second Super Bowl title under his belt, Kelce became the 34th athlete to host SNL, joining the ranks of athletes such as Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, and Ronda Rousey, ESPN reports. The Kelce family attended the taping of SNL at Studio 8H in Manhattan. 

Philadelphia Eagles center and Kelce’s brother Jason joined for one of the skits on SNL. The brothers were one of the top topics of Super Bowl week in Glendale, Arizona—given that they had to play against each other. Both brothers began the game with one Super Bowl ring, but younger brother Travis was the one who walked out with a second ring in a 38-35 nailbiter.

“Jason and I have actually been playing football together since we were little kids, and he was always better than me at everything,” Kelce said during his monologue. “In high school, he was an honor student. And I got kicked off the team because I failed French. And English too. But, French sounds way better. And then when we were in college, I actually got kicked off the team because I tested positive for marijuana. So it just goes to show you if you smoke weed and you’re bad at school, you can win the Super Bowl twice.” 

Kelce said that his mother drove both him and his brother home after Super Bowl LVII, which led to an uncomfortable ride.

Kelce has been smoking pot for awhile, since his days playing in college. In 2010, Kelce was suspended for a full year from playing with University of Cincinnati Bearcats after he tested positive for THC. “I got kicked off the team for having a little too much fun off the field,” he said, as reported by The Kansas City Star. He nearly “quit football” over the ordeal, but the incident doesn’t appear to have impacted his view of cannabis. 

But fortunately, Kelce didn’t stray from his path to the Super Bowl and kept playing despite the setback of missing a full year. The Enquirer reported in 2021 that the Bearcats transformed Kelce into a tight end. The rest is history.

Pot and the NFL

Numerous former National Football League (NFL) players have spoken to High Times about the benefits of pot such as Ricky Williams, Eben Britton, Kyle Turley, Jake Plummer, and the list goes on. Many of them have invested in cannabis brands.

Things are slowly changing regarding cannabis in the NFL. Since April 18, 2021, NFL players no longer have to stress about testing positive for cannabis in random drug tests from the league. 

It is a new era in the NFL thanks to a new collective bargaining agreement that was negotiated last year and that established a new drug policy for the league. 

The NFL announced in a press release on Feb. 1 that it would be providing $1 million to two different researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and University of Regina (UR) in Canada. Both research groups will be focusing on how cannabinoids can aid in general pain management, with a few other goal studies as well.

Players like the Kelce brothers won’t have to worry so much about testing positive for pot nowadays.

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NFL star quarterback Aaron Rodgers will be a featured speaker at a psychedelics conference to be held in Denver this summer, less than a year after Colorado voters decriminalized the therapeutic use of psilocybin mushrooms. Touted by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) as the “largest psychedelic gathering in history,” the Psychedelic Science 2023 conference will take place in June at the Colorado Convention Center.

Last year, the Green Bay Packers star quarterback revealed that he had traveled to South America to try the psychedelic ayahuasca on more than one occasion. Rodgers said that the experience changed his mindset and had a positive effect on his mental health, crediting the drug with helping him subsequently be selected as the NFL’s most valuable player two seasons in a row. In December, he added that using ayahuasca and psilocybin mushrooms has helped him cope with a strong fear of death he has had since he was a teenager.

Rodgers has been very open about his use of psychedelics and has said he hopes that sharing his experience can help dispel the stigma attached to the powerful compounds. And in June, he will be one of more than 300 speakers to address the Psychedelic Science 2023 conference in Denver. Presented by MAPS, the gathering has been hailed by the psychedelics research and advocacy nonprofit organization as the “definitive event of the psychedelic renaissance.”

“Aaron Rodgers will be interviewed by Aubrey Marcus at Psychedelic Science 2023 about his experiences with Ayahuasca, which he’s previously spoken about on Aubrey’s podcast,” said MAPS founder and executive director Rick Doblin. “We’re delighted Aaron is open to sharing his views at what will become the world’s largest psychedelic conference ever.” 

Psychedelic drugs including LSD, psilocybin, and ayahuasca have received renewed interest from researchers for their potential to treat a wide range of mental health conditions including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance misuse disorders. In November, Colorado voters took new steps in psychedelic policy reform with the passage of Proposition 122, a ballot measure to legalize the possession and therapeutic use of certain natural psychedelic drugs including psilocybin mushrooms, DMT, ibogaine and mescaline, for people age 21 and older. The measure also authorizes the establishment of “healing centers” where adults can obtain access to natural psychedelics for therapeutic purposes. The measure, which passed with more than 53% of the vote, is now in the process of being implemented by state officials.

Aaron Rodgers And Psychedelics

Last weekend during an appearance on the The Pat McAfee Show, Rodgers said that he would make a decision about retiring from professional football after he takes a four-day “darkness retreat” later this month. The 18-year NFL veteran said that the retreat will include “‘sensory deprivation isolation’ that will simulate the drug DMT with the potential for hallucinations,” according to a report from CBS Sports. 

“It’s an opportunity to do a little self-reflection in some isolation and after that, I feel like I’ll be a lot closer to that final, final decision,” Rodgers said on Tuesday. “I’ve had a number of friends who’ve done it and they had profound experiences.” 

In August, Rodgers revealed that he had traveled to South America to take ayahuasca before being selected as the league’s most valuable player in back-to-back seasons, saying the traditional psychedelic brew changed his thinking and significantly improved his mental health. Rodgers made the revelations about ayahuasca experiences during an appearance on the Aubrey Marcus Podcast, saying that the psychedelic drug helped him find self-love and mental wellness.

The Super Bowl champion quarterback said he made the trip to South America before winning the MVP award for the third and fourth time. Following the ayahuasca experience, he said, he “knew that [he] was never going to be the same.”

“For me, I didn’t do that and think ‘oh, I’m never playing football again,’” Rodgers said, as quoted by USA Today. “No, it gave me a deep and meaningful appreciation for life. My intention the first night going in was ‘I want to feel what pure love feels like.’ That was my intention. And I did. I really did. I had a magical experience with the sensation of feeling a hundred different hands on my body imparting a blessing of love and forgiveness for myself and gratitude for this life from what seemed to be my ancestors.”

The Psychedelic Science 2023 conference takes place at the Colorado Convention Center from June 19 through June 23. Other featured speakers include Doblin, groundbreaking researcher Robin Carhart-Harris, wellness guru Deepak Chopra, and Amanda Feilding, the executive director at the U.K.-based psychedelics advocacy organization the Beckley Foundation.

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Big Donut is joining the NFL, Big Pharma, and the Methodist Church to defeat legalization in Congress. See who else is propping up prohibition.

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The NFL says that Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers did not violate league rules when he previously consumed the psychoactive beverage ayahuasca.

Via ESPN, “NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said Monday that it wouldn’t have triggered a positive test result on either the substance abuse or performance-enhancing substance policies collectively bargained by the NFL and its players’ association.”

Rodgers, who is currently preparing for his 18th season in the league, has created quite a stir during training camp with his revelation that he consumed ayahuasca in Peru prior to the previous two seasons. In each of those seasons, Rodgers was named the league’s most valuable player, his third and fourth time winning the award respectively.

Rodgers said he doesn’t “think it’s a coincidence” that he claimed the top individual honor after those experiences in South America.

“I really don’t. I don’t really believe in coincidences at this point. It’s the universe bringing things to happen when they’re supposed to happen,” Rodgers said on an episode of the Aubrey Marcus Podcast last week.

Rodgers said on the podcast that the experience left him forever changed.

“For me, I didn’t do that and think ‘oh, I’m never playing football again,’” Rodgers said, as quoted by USA Today. “No, it gave me a deep and meaningful appreciation for life. My intention the first night going in was ‘I want to feel what pure love feels like.’ That was my intention. And I did. I really did. I had a magical experience with the sensation of feeling a hundred different hands on my body imparting a blessing of love and forgiveness for myself and gratitude for this life from what seemed to be my ancestors.”

Rodgers, who has spent the entirety of his career with the Packers, went deeper on the subject in an interview with longtime football writer Peter King that was published on Monday, explaining how the experience in Peru came together.

“I have a dear friend that I’ve known for 25 years that went on an ayahuasca journey in 2019. He came back, and we played golf one day and he told me all about it. I said, okay, I think it’s time that I do it. So we put together a trip to Peru [in 2020] and had a great experience. Then I went again this offseason and had another beautiful experience. Different, very different. Different size group, different amount of days,” Rodgers told King.

“We sat three different nights with the medicine. I came in with an intention of doing a lot of healing of other relationships and bringing in certain people to have conversations with. Most of the work was around myself and figuring out what unconditional love of myself looks like…,” Rodgers continued. “In doing that, allowing me to understand how to unconditionally love other people but first realizing it’s gotta start with myself. I’ve got to be a little more gentle with myself and compassionate and forgiving because I’ve had some negative voices, negative self-talk, for a long time. A lot of healing went on. There’s things—images from the nights, the journeys—that will come up in dreams or during the day I’ll think about something that happened or something that I thought about. It’s constantly trying to integrate those lessons into everyday life.”

For years, the NFL took a hardline on recreational drug use among its players, routinely handing down lengthy suspensions for mere cannabis use.

But in recent years, the league has relaxed its drug policy. During the 2021 offseason, with a new collective bargaining agreement taking effect, the NFL did not conduct random drug tests for marijuana, marking a sea change in the league’s rulebook.

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NFL star quarterback Aaron Rodgers revealed this week that he traveled to South America to take ayahuasca before being selected as the league’s most valuable player two seasons in a row, saying the potent psychedelic concoction changed his mindset and markedly improved his mental health. Rodgers made the revelations about his experiences with ayahuasca during an appearance on the Aubrey Marcus Podcast, where he shared that the psychedelic drug helped him find self-love and mental wellness.

The Green Bay Packers’ Superbowl champion quarterback said that he made the trip to South America prior to winning the MVP award for the third and fourth time in 2020 and 2021. Following the ayahuasca experience, he said, he “knew that [he] was never going to be the same.”

“For me, I didn’t do that and think ‘oh, I’m never playing football again,’” Rodgers said, as quoted by USA Today. “No, it gave me a deep and meaningful appreciation for life. My intention the first night going in was ‘I want to feel what pure love feels like.’ That was my intention. And I did. I really did. I had a magical experience with the sensation of feeling a hundred different hands on my body imparting a blessing of love and forgiveness for myself and gratitude for this life from what seemed to be my ancestors.”

Ayahuasca is a psychoactive brew of leaves and vines that is used by indigenous groups in South America’s Amazon basin for social and shamanic ceremonies. It contains the potent psychedelic drug dimethyltryptamine (DMT), which can cause intense vivid sensations and hallucinations. Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris, head of the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London, led a study on ayahuasca published in 2019 that found the brew caused a change to waking brainwaves the researchers compared to “dreaming while awake.”

“DMT is a particularly intriguing psychedelic. The visual vividness and depth of immersion produced by high-doses of the substance seems to be on a scale above what is reported with more widely studied psychedelics such as psilocybin or ‘magic mushrooms’,” Carhart-Harris explained. “It’s hard to capture and communicate what it is like for people experiencing DMT but likening it to dreaming while awake or a near-death experience is useful. Our sense is that research with DMT may yield important insights into the relationship between brain activity and consciousness, and this small study is a first step along that road.”

Ayahuasca Led to Best Season of Rodgers’ Career

During the podcast interview with Marcus, Rodgers said that his experience with ayahuasca “set me on my course to be able to go back in to my job and have a different perspective on things. To be way more free at work, as a leader, as a teammate, as a friend, as a lover. I really feel like that experience paved the way for me to have the best season of my career (in 2020).”

He added that the psychedelic drug helped him reframe his mindset, leading to improvements in mental health that helped him to play two of the best seasons of his career, winning his third and fourth MVP awards in 2020 and 2021.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence,” Rodgers said about the ayahuasca experience in South America. “I really don’t. I don’t really believe in coincidences at this point. It’s the universe bringing things to happen when they’re supposed to happen.”

“There’s signs and synchronicities all around us at all times if we’re awake enough to see them and to take them in and to listen to our intuition when it’s speaking to us or pounding us in the head saying, ‘Hey dummy, this is what you’re supposed to be doing,’” he continued.

Rodgers said that he was inspired to try ayahuasca after a previous experience with psychedelic drugs. Marcus added that the NFL star had once told him that “one of the best days of my life” featured taking psychedelic mushrooms on a beach where he said he “felt [him]self merge with the ocean.”

The NFL star added that many people focus on the negative side effects of ayahuasca, which can include vomiting, diarrhea, and uncomfortable hallucinations, rather than the “deep and meaningful and crazy mind-expanding possibilities and also deep self-love and healing that can happen on the other side” that the drug can induce.

That self-love, Rodgers said, was a key benefit of his mental health journey.

“To me, one of the core tenets of your mental health is that self-love,” Rodgers said. “That’s what ayahuasca did for me, was help me see how to unconditionally love myself. It’s only in that unconditional self love, that then I’m able to truly be able to unconditionally love others. And what better way to work on my mental health than to have an experience like that?”

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The NBA, NHL, and MLB have all but ended testing for weed. The NFL still does—but why? A full guide to the major sports.

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