National Football League players would no longer face the possibility of being suspended from games just for testing positive for marijuana under a proposed collective bargaining agreement approved by team owners and circulated to players on Thursday.
The new policy being floated for approval by the the NFL Players Association would also reduce the number of players subject to testing for cannabis and narrow the window when tests can be administered from the current four months to just two weeks at the start of training camp.
The three-page summary of key terms of the union deal also includes an increase in the threshold for positive THC metabolite tests from 35 to 150 nanograms.
The document was first posted on Twitter by sports lawyer Darren Heitner
Initial details of potentially “dramatically reduced penalties” for cannabis in the NFL first began to surface in press reports earlier this month.
If the deal is ratified, the NFL would become the latest major sports league to loosen restrictions for cannabis as a growing number of states enact legalization policies.
Major League Baseball announced in December that it will remove marijuana from its list of banned substances.
After the MLB cannabis change was revealed, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said in interviews that the NFL would likely soon be forced to modernize its approach to marijuana.
NFL team owners approved the terms of the deal on Thursday, with player representatives set to consider it on Friday.
