Bills OT Seantrel Henderson, Who Uses Weed to Treat Crohn's Disease, Suspended 10 Games

On Tuesday, the Buffalo Bills announced that tackle Seantrel Henderson has been suspended ten games for violating of the NFL's substances of abuse policy. It is his second violation of the policy, and both are reportedly due to his use of marijuana for medical reasons.

Henderson says he always had stomach issues, even as a child, but it wasn't until last December, after months of increasingly intolerable stomach pain and, finally, a trip to the hospital, that he was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that affects the lining of the digestive tract. While its symptoms can be treated, the disease has no known cure.

Earlier this month, Henderson spoke with the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle about the end of his 2015 season:

He was inactive the final five games, and in January he had about 2 ½ feet of toxic sections of his small and large intestines removed in surgery. For nearly four months he had to wear an ileostomy bag that was attached through a hole near his waist, and every hour the bag had to be emptied, meaning Henderson was never able to get a good night's sleep.

"I was depressed, I was down, I was insecure about myself," he recalled. "I had the bag, not being able to use the bathroom for three or four months. I couldn't do anything I wanted to do, I lost all that weight, I was very unhealthy. I had no appetite like it used to be, so it really had my mind not all the way together. After I had the second surgery, and I started getting back into working out and things like that, things started being on the up and up for me."

Henderson had the second surgery in April to reconnect the remaining portions of his intestines. He returned just in time for the final stages of training camp this summer and made it into the last game of the preseason, playing 41 snaps on August 26 against Washington. Then, on September 9, he was suspended four games by the league. Although the specifics are never released for suspensions of these type under the terms of the CBA, Henderson's agent, Brian Fettner, made clear it was for using weed to treat his medical condition:

"Seantrel has Crohn's Disease and had two life-threatening, major intestinal, offseason surgeries. The only known treatment is cannabis. There is zero allowable medical exemption for this per the NFL; however, there clearly should be."

Henderson finally made it back into the Buffalo lineup against the Bengals last week. On Tuesday, the Bills announced that the NFL had informed the team Henderson would be suspended ten games.

Marijuana use has become more of a talking point in the NFL of late, especially after former Baltimore Ravens offensive tackle Eugene Monroe became the most outspoken proponent of its use, and a critic of the NFL's policy. He is a former Raven because shortly after he became the only active player to challenge the league's policy on marijuana, Baltimore released him.

Monroe was mostly critical of the policy not because he wanted everyone to get all stoned and watch The Wizard of Oz but because of the only alternatives available for pain management. Whereas marijuana's addictive properties are at best arguable, opioids are both insanely addictive and totally fine under the NFL's drug policy. In the Players' Tribune, Monroe elaborated:

"I've watched teammates and some of my best friends battle with opioid addiction. I got a call recently from an old teammate at the University of Virginia who told me that one of our former UVA teammates — a guy who was a few years ahead of me and who mentored me before going on to play in the NFL — had gotten addicted to pain pills and had essentially vanished. He has left his home for the streets and is now addicted to heroin. My heart is broken for him and his family. There's a good reason that Senator John McCain is calling for congressional hearings on the links between professional sports and prescription drug addiction. If I had to estimate, I would say that no less than 50% of NFL players have at some point used some kind of pain medication. That's about 650 players. Half the guys you see on the field every Sunday"

While Henderson had, in his own words, "got in trouble a couple times" with marijuana in college, this is a different story (which only matters if you think marijuana should otherwise be illegal, anyway). He is less than a year removed from two surgeries to his digestive tract because the pain became so severe, and the disease turned his own body toxic. Even if Henderson wanted to risk developing an addiction to whatever painkiller would not run afoul of the NFL's policy, a source told the NFL Network's Ian Rapoport that "he needs cannabis. You can't take pain killers with the way his intestines are."

According to the Buffalo News, Henderson could consider legal action to contest the suspension.