Shamrock cites marijuana benefits for fighters
Frank Shamrock: “I used it my entire fighting career because when I was 16 I was diagnosed with scoliosis and a broken spine.”
MMA great Frank Shamrock appeared recently on Submission Radio for a wide-ranging interview, that included advocacy for Cannabis use in combat sports.
“I used it my entire fighting career because when I was 16 I was diagnosed with scoliosis and a broken spine,” he said. “I have spondylosis in my L-3, so technically I have a broken spine. And they told me when I was 16 that I would never play contact sports and that I would need spinal surgery and that I would need to be in a cage for a year, that I would need to be on pain management for the rest of my life. And I told them I was going to be a world champion and all these other plans, but it led me down a path of natural medicines.
“Most people go home and they heal. I don’t heal. My spine’s jacked. Like, I’m jacked to this day. And all the doctors said there’s no way I could do this career, but I was able to do this career because I had a very consistent, very reliable medicine that killed inflammation, attacked pain and also made me a lot happier about what I was doing.
“So I always laugh, because to me that was a performance enhancer the entire time, natural medicine that was enhancing my ability to perform. But I would have never been as successful as I was or am today without it, because I would be on Vicodin and Oxycodone and other addictive painkillers to manage my pain. I’m on nothing but cannabis. Not aspirin, not nothing.
I would stop three weeks out. I would just be in pain. I would up my ice usage and occasionally I would take painkillers during that time leading up to championship fights or otherwise, just because of the testing and there was no ability to use back then.”
“I’ve always consumed the way I thought would the healthiest and best way possible. When I was a kid that was smoking, I didn’t know how. Now I consume it in a vaporised organic format. So I use a cool volcano machine and a big bag and use it like a medical patient. I breath in the vapours because I don’t combust anything. don’t believe in burning anything, I think all that is not the best for you.
Shamrock is a vocal advocate for the legalization of marijuana for use MMA fighters.
“t totally should,” he said. “Especially when you start reading the science and you realize that it also acts as a neuro-protectant and it’s got a lot of other cellular healing properties, which many of these western medicines, especially with the codeines and the morphines that they just kill things and they just numb the pain. So when talking about contact sport like football, these people need it more than anything because they’re taking repeated blows to their brain. In the United States, our government actually holds a patent on Cannabis as a neuro-protectant – meaning that it’ll heal the damage done to your brain. Everybody in a contact sport should be consuming this and especially in sports like football you’re leading with your head.