Retired Philadelphia Flyer Ripley Cote joins a list of pro athletes calling on leagues to relax rules concerning cannabis. In an interview with Canadian sports outlet SportsNet, Riley spoke about player use in the N.H.L and why the league should look to a new way of handling players who do use.
Per SportsNet
Riley Cote broke the rules constantly throughout his career with the Philadelphia Flyers. He scored just one goal and six assists in his 156 NHL games. But as an enforcer, Cote’s success was measured in infractions, and by that standard — with more than 50 fights and 411 penalty minutes — he did just fine.
It was a short career, but one Cote wouldn’t have had at all if he wasn’t willing to throw punches with some of the toughest players in the league. And like many of the players he went punch for punch with, his trade caused him an enormous amount of physical and mental stress.
To deal with that stress, Cote turned to cannabinoids whenever he could.
“I’d quietly use it as an ally of mine. It helped me manage anxiety [and] pain,” he says. “There was no physical addiction. It just made me feel better.”
“Good people break bad laws, I guess,” he says. “At least half of those guys [I competed with and against] consumed, and a fraction of those guys consumed regularly. Like, every day…. And that number is probably higher.”
Since his retirement in 2010, Cote helped found Athletes for Care, a non-profit organization that advocates for holistic approaches to wellness for current and retired athletes.
Read more about Riley and his advocacy here