DEA Searches NFL Teams for Illegally Prescribed Painkillers, Drugs

The Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA) launched suprise investigations of
various NFL teams yesterday, reports
The Washington Post:

The inspections, which entailed bag searches and questioning of
team doctors by Drug Enforcement Administration agents, were based
on the suspicion that NFL teams dispense drugs illegally to keep
players on the field in violation of the Controlled Substances Act,
according to a senior law enforcement official with knowledge of
the investigation.

A class-action lawsuit filed by 1,300 retired football players
“allege[s] that NFL medical staffs regularly violate federal and
state laws in plying their teams with powerful addictive narcotics
such as Percocet and Percodan, sleeping pills such as Ambien and
the non-addictive painkiller Toradol to help them play through
injuries on game days.”

The San Diego Chargers, the San Francisco 49ers, and the Seattle
Seahawks are among the teams that acknowledged searches (though
it’s not clear if those teams were being singled out for specific
reasons). The pretext for the searches is the alleged painkiller
abuse at the heart of the class-action lawsuit.

The DEA’s investigative interest in the NFL is partly based on
the agency’s conviction that lackadaisical prescribing practices
creates addicts. McMahon, who played from 1982 to 1996, said in the
lawsuit that he received “hundreds, if not thousands” of injections
and pills from NFL doctors and trainers, including Percocet,
Toradol, Novocaine, amphetamines, sleeping pills and muscle
relaxers. He said he became so hooked on pain meds that at one
point he took 100 Percocets a month.

There’s this,
too:

An
investigation of NFL medical practices by The Washington
Post last year documented
painkiller abuse in the league. In a Post
survey of more than 500 retired players, one in four said he
felt pressure from team doctors to take medication he was
uncomfortable with. Players told The Post that they swallowed
prescriptions on an almost daily basis, frequently without
documentation.

Read the whole thing here.

Given the physical punishment that is at the very center of the
game at all levels, it’s worth asking whether we’ve reached peak
football. Between this sort of action and growing
questions about concussions and traumatic brain injuries, it’s
totally plausible that football, despite its immense popularity,
has a time-limited future.

Last year, Reason TV sat down with Gregg Easterbrook to talk
about his book The King of Sports and football’s imperiled
future.