Ricky Williams Quits Football

O’Shaughnessy’s $3oo Journal of the California Cannabis Research Medical Group • Autumn 2004 The issue is Dignity Ricky Williams Protests Drug Testing By Quitting Football; Calls Marijuana “10 Times Better For Me Than Paxil” By Fred Gardner In the autumn of 1995 the 49ers full- “I didn’t quit football back, William Floyd, had a knee de- because I failed a drug test. I stroyed by tacklers. Management had failed a drug test because I was been overworking him mercilessly. On ready to quit football.” the play before his injury Floyd had car- ried four defenders for about two yards. “I didn’t quit football because I failed The TV replay of his leg going one way a drug test. I failed a drug test because I above the knee and another way below was ready to quit football,” Williams told the knee ended what was left of my mild a writer he trusts, Dan Le Batard of the football addiction. Miami Herald, on July 28. So it was only peripherally that I fol- “Williams said there were ‘a hundred lowed the career of a running back reasons’ for his retirement and that his named Ricky Williams, who in ’95 was desire to continue smoking marijuana a freshman at the University of Texas. without inhibition was merely one of fore testing positive a second time for had been denied. He had speed, power, and dreadlocks them,” Le Batard reported. “He said he marijuana use last season and incurring “While the appeal was pending, Wil- (before they were widely fashionable). was not addicted to the drug, but merely a $650,000 fine. He appealed that fine, liams said he continued smoking mari- He broke conference records that had that he didn’t believe in government and flying to New York to argue his case juana while on tour with rocker Lenny endured since the days of Doak Walker. NFL laws banning it. He said he had before an arbiter with his attorney, but Kravitz in Europe and failed a third test The New Orleans Saints drafted him in already decided to quit football even be- received word last week that his appeal upon his return. He said he had been 1999; Mike Ditka gave up eight players to get him. continued on page 17 Williams’s first agent had experience Danger! Danger! Danger! in the world of rap music, not football, and the contract he negotiated with the Saints owners’ was not as lucrative as it Cannabinoid “Antagonist” could have been. Williams injured a shoulder in his second NFL season and missed six games, but still gained 1,000 yards. As Will be Sold as Diet Drug he was recovering, he was induced by By Fred Gardner chemicals are called “endorphins”). Glaxo SmithKline to be the celebrity pa- Sanofi, a multinational pharma- The first endocannabinoid to be tient in a campaign to sell Paxil to the12 cuetical company based in France, is identified —by Raphael Mechou- million Americans who allegedly suffer planning to market a weight-loss drug lam and William Devane in 1992— from “Social Anxiety Disorder.” called Rimonabant that works by block- was named “anandamide” after the Glaxo had to sell the concept that shy- ing part of the cannabinoid receptor sys- Sanskrit word for “bliss.” ness is actually a medical condition — tem. It has since been learned that “a chemical imbalance in the brain”— Scientists employed by Sanofi re- endocannabinoids help regulate the that can be corrected by a pill. Williams, ported at the 2004 meeting of the Inter- cardiovascular, digestive, endo- who is sincere and enthusiastic, gave in- national Cannabinoid Research Society crine, excretory, immunological, terviews in which he thanked a therapist that Rimonabant has proven safe and nervous, reproductive, and respira- for telling him that his reluctance to be effective in clinical trials involving tory systems. accosted by strangers at airports was an 13,000 patients. illness that could be overcome by medi- Sanofi expects FDA approval within cation. the year. The fact that Rimonabant Sanofi researchers Murielle Rinaldi-Carmona, Rimonabant is SR- Williams was traded to the Miami blocks the “euphoric” effects of mari- Francis Barth, and Gerard Le Fur were honored at the 2004 ICRS meeting for developing a drug 141716 redefined as a Dolphins in 2002. That season he led the juana is a big plus in the eyes of U.S. that blocks cannabinoid receptors. “therapeutic drug” league in yards gained rushing (1853) government regulators. and number of carries (383). In 2003 his The marketing is already done, in a tain compounds bind, setting off molecu- Rimonabant is an “antagonist” drug yardage dropped slightly but again he lar cascades within the cells that produce sense, because everybody knows that that engages the CB1 receptors so they had the most carries (393). marijuana induces the munchies, and it effects in the body such as reduced in- can’t be activated. Originally called SR- Williams won’t be playing in 2004. seems logical that blocking the cannab- flammation, increased appetite, etc. Two 141716, it was developed by Sanofi in In late July he made two related state- inoid receptors would reverse the effect. kinds of cannabinoid receptors have the early ’90s as a research tool. If a ments: that he was retiring from football, But the advent of Rimonabant been discovered —CB1 , which is highly given effect is blocked by SR-141716, and that he found marijuana to be “10 concentrated in the brain and central ner- troubles California doctors who have that effect is said to be mediated by CB1 times better for me than Paxil” as a con- made a specialty of monitoring their pa- vous system, and CB2, found mainly in receptors. Rimonabant is SR-141716 fidence builder. (Glaxo promptly purged tients’ cannabis use, as well as some sci- tissues associated with the immune sys- redefined as a “therapeutic drug” that him from the Paxil website.) entists who are studying the basic nature tem. counteracts unwanted effects —like Retiring isn’t an easy step. Williams’s of the cannabinoid system. Jeffrey There are three different kinds of can- overeating— mediated by the cannab- love for football is expressed in the pages Hergenrather, MD, of Sebastopol —one nabinoids, or chemical “agonists” that inoid receptor system. of a journal he’s been posting sporadi- of the few clinicians to attend this year’s activate the cannabinoid receptors. They In a talk at the ICRS meeting entitled cally at runrickyrun.com. He has a clear, ICRS meeting— says, “We are only now are, in order of evolutionary appearance: “Clinical Results with Rimonabant in colloquial writing style —straight ahead, becoming aware of the modulating ef- compounds made in the body for pur- Obesity,” Sanofi researcher Gerard Le like his running style. If we’re lucky, fects the cannabinoids have on the body poses of neurotransmission, compounds Fur reported that the drug had done well he’ll soon explain his decision to leave and mind. The consequences of interfer- unique to the cannabis plant (the most in phase-three clinical trials involving the game, and keep us informed of his ing with the cannabinoid receptor sys- famous being delta-9 THC), and com- 13,000 patients. The trials were con- whereabouts. tem have not been evaluated in normal pounds made in the lab —synthetics. ducted at numerous sites in the U.S. Williams was facing a four-game sus- human physiology.” Cannabinoids made in the body are Obese patients were treated with pension after testing positive for mari- Some Definitions called “endocannabinoids” (the prefix Rimonabant for 52 weeks. “Over 72% juana on two occasions, and he knew he Cannabinoid receptors are proteins on is a contraction of “endogenous,” just as of patients at 1 year showed a weight loss had tested positive a third time. the surface of certain cells to which cer- the body’s endogenous morphine-like continued on page 4.

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