Former Pittsburgh Steelers’ quarterback Charlie Batch was one of several guest speakers at the 2023 Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference held earlier in mid-April in Miami, Florida. There, he revealed that after retiring from the NFL, he turned to marijuana in order to reduce his pain and improve the quality of his life.
As shown in the clip below, Batch says he battled injuries and pain common for any NFL player throughout his long playing career. At one point, he was taking up to eight Aleve per day in order to manage the pain along with a slew of Toradol shots prescribed and given by team doctors.
“My wife was like, I’m nervous,” Batch said about his pain medication usage. “At this pace, you’re not going to have a kidney or a liver in the next ten years.”
While Batch never smoked while in the NFL, he turned to weed once he retired from the league following the 2012 season. After he hung up his cleats, he educated himself on the benefits of marijuana and soon realized its impact.
“I was having issues walking, sleeping. It was just irritable. Once I started that transition, it was like wow, I saw my body react in different ways that it never reacted before. Ultimately, I started to get on a regiment. And now here I am all these years later, I walk 30 to 35 miles per week. Something I could not do prior to that happening.”
A Pittsburgh kid, Batch was drafted by the Detroit Lions in the 2nd round of the 1998 NFL Draft. He started 48 games across four seasons with the Lions. While he had some success, his body also took a beating. Over that span, he was sacked 147 times. He was the fourth-most sacked quarterback from 1998 to 2001, only trailing Mark Brunell, Chris Chandler, and Steve Beuerlein.
Signed by the Steelers for the 2002 season, Batch spent most of his career as a trusted and well-liked backup. He appeared in 33 games, starting nine, going 6-3 as a starter with 12 total touchdown passes in Pittsburgh. He was only sacked 14 times over eight years but a 12 year NFL career carries a heavy toll.
Batch is far from the first or only Steeler to advocate for marijuana as a solution to pain management instead of using more addictive medicine that comes with side effects and risks. Ryan Shazier has partnered with medical marijuana companies and while Le’Veon Bell hasn’t been a spokesman, he recently revealed he would smoke before many Steelers’ games.
Since the 2020 CBA, the NFL has greatly relaxed its marijuana policy and players are no longer suspended for it like they were back in Batch’s playing days. While still illegal federally, it has been legalized by many states, a trend that will likely continue throughout the decade.
