Eugene Monroe’s pro-marijuana publicity tour makes perhaps its biggest stop yet this week: ESPN The Magazine.
In a lengthy article titled “Eugene Monroe has a football problem,” reporter Tom Junod (known mostly for his work in Esquire magazine) smokes weed with the former Ravens offensive tackle and provides a sympathetic look at what drove Monroe out of football and into the pot industry at age 29.
Since we last saw Monroe in a Ravens uniform, he has settled into a routine of consuming cannabis, lifting weights, spending time with his family and promoting the benefits of marijuana as an alternative to prescription painkillers.
Monroe discloses in the story that he invested in an Illinois-based marijuana growth and distribution group called Green Thumb Industries. He also invested in dispensaries in Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada and Pennsylvania while he was still in the league. He said he did not tell the Ravens or the NFL.
The Ravens did not participate in the ESPN story.
Monroe said his relationship with the team changed late in 2014, when he suffered a high ankle sprain.
“The team doctor cleared him to play in the first game of the playoffs, but he remembers being ‘barely able to walk, much less run, much less push off,’ according to the article. “He sought a second opinion, the advice of his own doctor, and did not suit up for the Ravens' wild-card win over the Steelers. Against New England in the next round, Baltimore's coaches played him on special teams and not at left tackle. ‘It felt like punishment,’ he says.”
Monroe had another injury-plagued year in 2015, and the Ravens released him this past offseason after trying to trade him. The move signaled an end to an ultimately unsuccessful five-year, $37.5 million contract extension he signed with the team just two years earlier.
ESPN reports that just before the Ravens released him, Monroe was ready to apply for a "therapeutic use exemption" with the NFL that would permit marijuana use.
Over the summer, Ravens coach John Harbaugh was steadfast in his stance that the Ravens let go of Monroe for football reasons.
Monroe has consistently promoted his stance on marijuana on his Twitter account, and has been the subject of numerous interviews by national publications, such as The New York Times, CNN and National Public Radio.