Kevin Durant Says NBA Players Should Be Allowed To Use Marijuana, Compares It To Wine

By Fresh Toast's Brendan Bures, provided exclusively to Benzinga Cannabis.

Kevin Durant compared smoking marijuana to drinking wine after work, and believes NBA players should have access to the plant.

NBA superstar Kevin Durant hasn’t exactly hid his relationship to cannabis over the past several years. Through Thirty Five Ventures, an investment firm he co-founded with business partner Rich Kleiman, Durant announced last year a partnership with Canopy Rivers, which specializes in marijuana investments.

Durant has also backed cannabis delivery service Dutchie, alongside another marijuana name you might recognize — Snoop Dogg.

And don’t forget the time a medical marijuana prescription bottle fell out of Durant’s car and it was caught by the paparazzi.

It should come as little surprise then that Durant has begun publicly advocating for the NBA to remove marijuana from its banned substances list. Former players have discussing past marijuana use while playing in the league and how players should have access to it, but Durant is among the only current players to state so publicly. He’s also one of the NBA’s biggest stars.

“It’s one of those plants that’s an acquired taste. If you love it, you love it. If you don’t, you’re not even going to be pick it up. It shouldn’t even be a discussion these days,” Durant said on a recent episode of Showtime’s All The Smoke. “It’s just like, marijuana is marijuana. It’s not harmful to anybody. It can only help and enhance and do good things. I feel like it shouldn’t even be a huge topic around it anymore.”

Often among the cannabis advocate community, individuals will compare marijuana use to drinking a glass of wine at the end of the day to relax. Durant, you will notice, made the same comparison about his co-workers.

Photo by Mike Lawrie/Staff/Getty Images

“Everybody on my team drinks coffee every day. Taking caffeine every day. Or guys go out to have wine after games or have a little drink here and there. Marijuana should be in that tone,” Durant said. “Why are we even talking about? It shouldn’t even be a conversation now.

“So hopefully we can get past that and the stigma around it and know that it does nothing but make people have a good time, make people hungry, bring people together — that plant brings us all together.”

In a previous interview, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver stated a change to the league’s substance abuse policy is a conversation currently happening within the league. He did remind players, though, that any changes would have to occur in the collective bargaining agreement between the NBA and its player union.

“We start getting people out of jail for marijuana. That’s the next step,” Durant said. “And just keep going. But it’s a plant that’s put here for a reason, and that’s to bring us together. Hopefully it happens (removing marijuana from the banned substance list), especially in the NBA.”

Photo by Emilee Chinn/Stringer/Getty Images