CHANGING
Game the
by BOBBY BLACK
A
high-profile SAN DIEGO RESIDENT, BOO WILLIAMS IS A
FORMER NFL STAR TURNED CANNABIS ADVOCATE AND ENTREPRENEUR ON A MISSION. As anecdotal and clinical evidence of cannabis’s ever-widen-
in you off the field that make you erupt and become someone you’re not.”
ing medicinal potential continues
He’s right, and he’s not alone. Many NFL players
to mount, a growing number of profes-
are suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy
sional athletes have become vocal propo-
(CTE), a neurodegenerative disease that can lead to
nents of the plant, demanding it be dropped
dementia, memory loss, and depression. A recent De-
from their leagues’ banned substance lists and
partment of Veterans Affairs/Boston University study
calling for more clinical trials. Boo Williams, a for-
identified CTE in 96 percent of former NFL players they
mer New Orleans Saints tight end who now calls the
examined—and in 79 percent of all football players.
San Diego area home, is one of the most vocal pro-can-
In 2011, five years after Williams ran onto the NFL
nabis proponents of the former-athlete-turned-activ-
field to the roars of the crowd for the last time, he
ist bunch. For him, it’s more than just a pet cause—
didn’t recognize who he had become. His wife had
it’s a matter of life and death.
kicked him out, he had no guiding purpose, his post-
“The depression and anxiety, the fearing that I’m
NFL business ventures had been a bust. He was out
going to die: those are the effects that you go through
wandering the streets of Louisiana when he came
with head injuries from football,” he says. “People
across some railroad tracks. He lay down and waited
have no idea that head injuries trigger certain things
for a train to end his life. Thanks to two homeless
28 San Diego F E B R UA RY 2018