Kava in the NFL

http://www.espn.com/blog/nflnation/post/_/id/256632/kava-the-nfls-newest-and-safest-painkiller

Matthew Masifilo was a sophomore defensive lineman at Stanford in 2009 when he tore the MCL in his knee. The swelling and pain were horrible, he says. To lower his discomfort, and get him back on the football field, team doctors did what they often do in those situations. They prescribed Vicodin.

“I wouldn’t take it,” Masifilo said. “I always reacted badly to it. So I stuck with the old ways.”

The “old ways” featured regular consumption of kava, a ceremonial drink at the center of Polynesian culture. Made from the root of a native plant, kava is viewed largely as a social lubricant that delivers a calming, mellowing effect. But Masifilo considers it a natural pain reliever and anti-inflammatory agent as well, a substance that is far less dangerous than opioids and doesn’t carry the legal hurdles of marijuana.

What is kava?
Kava is a root that grows on South Pacific islands. For thousands of years, Polynesians have pulverized it and mixed the powder with water in a ceremonial bowl. The drink provides a center of communal interaction and delivers a calming effect that makes it an anti-anxiety agent and perhaps a pain-reliever and anti-inflammatory as well.
After retiring from a five-year NFL career in 2015, Masifilo has employed his Stanford engineering degree to deliver kava to football players — and anyone else — who want natural options amid the national opioid crisis. He invented a shaker bottle, which he calls an AluBall, to simplify the preparation process and encourage individual use at a time when kava consumption is spiking around the country.

“With the opioid crisis, there is a big need for other options,” said Masifilo, who was born in Hawaii but is of Tongan descent. “The doctors used to think I was crazy when I said I wanted to treat my injuries with kava. But it helped me, and I think it has the potential to help address this painkiller problem we have in football and many other sports.”

Thomas Keiser, for one, can provide powerful testimony. Masifilo introduced him to kava at Stanford, and Keiser said he “truly embraced it for pain management” during his second year in the NFL. As a linebacker for the Carolina Panthers in 2012, Keiser suffered a series of injuries that sound like they were caused by a car accident rather than football.