RUSH: Flying up to New York yesterday the TV had ESPN on it, one of the TVs had ESPN on.

I haven’t watched ESPN since the football season ended, so I didn’t recognize anybody, any of the new anchors and anchorettes. But I saw a story. “NFL Set to Loosen Marijuana Policy.” Well, I did a double-take, and I vowed to look that story up. I mean, these guys… There have been players suspended — substance abuse provisions in the NFL — for using pot.

Now, players for the longest time have been asking for the relaxation of these strident restrictions because they say smoking pot is much more effective in dealing with pain than some of the other things that they’re given and use. And it’s one of the best ways to get the body ready to go for next Sunday. “The new NFL substance-abuse policy will reduce the penalty for positive marijuana tests and will make it easier for players to pass urinalysis screenings by increasing the amount of chemicals in the system that would trigger a positive result,” according to ESPN.

“The report comes on the heels of word that Josh Gordon, the league’s leading receiver, popped positive again for marijuana. A repeat offender, Gordon faces a year’s suspension. The new policy would not cover old infractions,” such as this guy. This guy plays for the Browns. So he’s not gonna get out of it. (interruption) Well, everybody’s asking, “What if he played for Denver or Seattle, because the state of Washington and Colorado, pot’s legal.

Well, I think if you’re the visiting team, let’s say the St. Louis Rams go into Denver, I don’t think that you can just hop over to the marijuana store and buy some. You have to be a resident. You’ve gotta show an ID card. You have to show a driver’s license or some sort of ID proving you live in Colorado before they can sell it to you. Is that not right? (interruption) Is that right? (interruption) They got who coming in to do it? Tourists? (interruption) Well, then I am misinformed, because I thought during the football season last year this happened during the playoffs.

It was the Patriots. There was a playoff game between the Patriots, and there was a lot of speculation in the media that some of the Patriots players were gonna hop over to the dope store. And the story said you can’t because you have to prove you’re a Colorado resident before they can sell it to you, or buy it. And you’re telling me anybody can go in there now? (interruption) Well, I’m gonna have to dig deep on this, because that is at strict variance with what I remember hearing and reading back last January during the playoffs.

But forget all that. Forget all that. Just, “NFL Set to Loosen Pot Policy.” What does that say just by itself? (interruption) Snerdley says they don’t care much about it now. But it’s more than that. It’s an admission that they can’t police it. Or it’s an admission they don’t find anything wrong with it or find less wrong with it. I don’t know.

“The policy signals a shift in NFL philosophy on the drug issue articulated by Commissioner Roger Goodell as recently as late January. In response to a question at his pre-Super Bowl address in Manhattan about the NFL possibly catching up to state law where the Seahawks and Broncos play, Goodell called called pot ‘an illegal substance on a national basis’ with ‘questionable’ benefits and ‘certainly some very strong evidence to the negative effects.’ He also revealed that, like the league’s players, the league’s commissioner faces urinalyses. ‘I am randomly tested,’ the commissioner said to laughter, ‘and I have to say I am clean.'”

Well, now all that’s gone. So it means you can do some. You can do more than you used to be able to. You can test for higher amounts than you used to be able to, but there’s still a limit beyond which you can’t go. Does anybody — I mean, I don’t have any experience with marijuana. Way back, I mean, once, it had to be in the seventies, Kansas City. I just got nauseous is all I remember about it. But does anybody — I mean, does cultural disintegration cross anybody’s mind when we hear this, or am I just an old fuddy-duddy on that? I guess I’m an old fuddy-duddy. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t have any experience with this to know at all.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right, here it is, who can buy pot in Colorado. Colorado residents 21 and older can buy one ounce of weed at a time. Out-of-state residents can purchase only a quarter of an ounce. It just means you have to go back four times as often as a resident. But you can still get what you want.

Do you remember last week or the week before, talked about the cultural disintegration. I told you there’s name you would all know. I’m not gonna mention it because it was a private conversation, but you’d all know this name. It’s a very, very powerful, powerful name in American media. He said, “I have never seen democracy fall so fast as what’s happening in America.” What he meant by democracy was just the culture and capitalism and the American way. He’s never seen it crumble as fast as it is. It’s something everybody alive worries about. Everybody thinks we’re in the last days. Well, not everybody, but every generation has people in it: it’s never been worse, this is it, it’s the end time or what have you.

This guy’s not one of those people. He says, “I have never seen democracy fall so fast,” and he didn’t mean voting and representation. Democracy is his catchall word for culture, America, morality, and all of that. I also remember, you remember Eric Holder, the attorney general, sued the state of Arizona when they came up with their own immigration law because the Feds were not enforcing immigration law. What’d Eric Holder say? “We can’t have a patchwork quilt of immigration laws. We can’t permit that.” But I guess we can have a patchwork quilt of marijuana law. I guess that is perfectly fine.