The upcoming NFL draft has the potential to change the way team officials evaluate prospective players, according to a recent Sports Illustrated report. While experts consider the 2010 draft class to be extremely talented, a large number of those talented players have smoked pot at some point during their collegiate careers.
 
In the past, NFL teams tended to avoid players with a history of marijuana use. According to one head coach, “if a player had failed a drug test for pot in college, his name would be quickly removed from the draft boards.” However, that sort of hard-line, zero-tolerance policy is no longer possible given the number of players teams would have to ignore in the 2010 draft.
 
Estimates vary from team to team but one representative stated that as many as 10 or 11 players who could potentially be taken in the first round of the draft have been caught using marijuana in college – that’s roughly one-third of the first round.
 
According to a team official, “Marijuana use is almost epidemic, with more guys having tested positive for marijuana at some point in their college background than I can ever remember … You can't throw out that many guys. You have to go case-by-case and do your homework on them.”
 
One coach told Sports Illustrated that medical marijuana laws are complicating the situation as some college players don’t recognize marijuana as a drug. Another coach said, “I know of one guy who told me he smoked with his mom. It was just something they did together.”
 
No longer able to simply ignore or devalue prospects because of a failed drug test, some evaluators are attempting to decide “which ones smoke, and which ones have to smoke, because they really [are addicted].”
 
No team wants to pass up on the next DeSean Jackson or Percy Harvin (two players who went on to become tremendously successful pros despite questions about their marijuana use in college) simply because they were afraid to draft a player who smoked pot.
 
More @ [link|http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/don_banks/03/23/nfl.draft....|sportsillustrated.com]