From NCAA Outlaw To Medical Marijuana Entrepreneur: Treyous Jarrells Talks Opioids, Weed And Changing The Stigma

Football fans might remember running back Treyous Jarrells from his time playing at Colorado State. Some experts often talked about how promising his future was.

However, his story flipped overnight, when he decided to quit football in order to continue to use marijuana.

Sound crazy? It wasn't for fun, but for years of pain developed from playing the game of football.

"I practiced under the influence. I played games under the influence. This is my medicine," Jarrells told The Coloradoan. "I've seen players at CSU pop five, 10 ibuprofens before practice. Daily. You think that’s good? Over the course of two, three years, that's eating your liver away."

It was a tough choice between his health and his career, between opioids and cannabis, but he made it. And, just like that, his future in football was over.

Colorado State didn't like the media attention Jarrells received over quitting football for cannabis. So, they decided to go after him, the player-turned-entrepreneur told Benzinga during a chat at the Viridian Cannabis Investment Series at the John Jay School of Criminal Justice in New York City.

According to Jarrells, the saga ended with his house being raided by campus police. Jarrells did get his degree and used his final two semesters to make connections.

Turning Over A New Leaf

"The whole ordeal of my story made me a face of the cannabis industry, a relevant face," Jarrells said. "With that, I began to get in other endeavors, like my non-profit: Motives.Made.Just.4.Athletes. In addition, I now own a company, Real Lyfas, which makes all-organic foliage spraying product called Cin-Doctor™. What it does is it helps with the growth process; it helps keep away mold, mildew, spider mites… And, it's free of the harmful chemicals that you find in pesticides, like the ones found in California's cannabis."

"In my company, we pride in developing organic products because we want to make sure people are given the best quality medicine there is," he said.

BZ: This is particularly important for people whose health or immune system is compromised in some way, right?

Jarrells: Yeah, definitely. Pesticides can be detrimental for a person who's ill and already ingests toxins and chemicals in their medicine. So, chemicals in cannabis would only make them sicker, and that's not what we want; we want the plant to extend lives. That's why we think it's so important we make sure we regulate what people are putting on the plant, and make sure we're using products that are organic and will benefit the people in the long run.

So, on that note, I also ended up developing a certified recommendation clinic in Florida, called Canna Doctor.

Basically, what we do is, get Florida patients who are interested in cannabis and qualify for medical use as per state law, educate them, and our doctor evaluates them to decide if cannabis is a good treatment or alternative for them. If so, we register them and guide them through the process of getting a cannabis card, so they can legally get their medicine in the state of Florida.

My main reason for doing this is not money; to me it's about helping the people of Florida, where I'm from originally. I mean, cannabis has always been an issue in the South. So, what I want to do is show the individuals back home that there's a way you can utilize cannabis as medicine, legally. I'm just here to help you.

In this line, we are one of the cheapest clinics in central Florida, because, like I said, it's not about money, it's about getting the getting the plant into people's hands, it's all about giving everybody access to the plant and growing the industry.

BZ: How do you ensure that the people getting recommendations actually need them?

Jarrells: We ask them to provide medical records. Florida has a list of pre-qualifying conditions, so they have to provide us with medical records stating that they suffer from one of those conditions.

Once the doc evaluates the records, we will recommend cannabis if we feel like it's a better option for the patient.

Having said this, I believe that, in reality, cannabis is better than any pill or stimulant that they're giving out. So, while I abide the law, I don't understand why we have all these restrictions on who can use a plant and can't, from a medical standpoint. I mean, if a doctor can give a person an opiate with no problems, why can't he give a person a cannabis card so they can utilize cannabis plants?

However, we're moving forward as a whole, as a society, when it comes to the cannabis plant. I say that in the next two to three years, the whole stigma associated with the plant is going to flip.

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