Todd Herremans last played in 2015 for the Colts, but spent his first 10 seasons (of his 10 seasons and 8 games) as an Eagle. Now out of the league, he’s turned his focus towards helping those still playing by advocating for medical marijuana.

As the NFL is in the midst of a lawsuit for teams’ freewheeling distribution of pain pills, Herremans thinks legal, medical marijuana could fill the role of pain management without the side effects of opioids. In an interview with Sam Wood of Philly.com, Herremans talks about how he first realized marijuana could help with the aches and pains of being a professional athlete:

When I got in the NFL, I just continued my use until I failed a drug test. I got put in a program for substance abuse for two seasons. I wasn’t allowed to smoke and was tested every week and that’s when it became clear that cannabis was more than just a recreational thing.

The first season I wasn’t allowed to smoke marijuana is when I felt the wear-and-tear on my body more than ever. I felt things lingering more. The aches and pains were way more evident. That’s when it dawned on me, the relationship between cannabis and its medical attributes.

I came to the conclusion that the policy in the NFL is very backwards. I wasn’t allowed to smoke marijuana, but the doctors in the NFL were easy to get to prescribe painkillers. While I was smoking in the NFL, I wasn’t going in asking them for anything for pain.

Herremans cites a study from the journal of Drug and Alcohol Dependence that discovered one in seven NFL players leaves the game “struggling with some sort of opioid abuse.” Herremans sees the answer to the league’s opioid problem – though he’s not advocating for the complete eradication of pain meds – by treating medical marijuana they way they do alcohol. “They could…not penalize a player unless they publicly get in trouble or endanger somebody,” Herremans said. “Or they could treat it like medicine, and adopt a therapeutic-use exemption for players who could get a prescription. It could be treated like Adderall and other prescription drugs.”

Herremans will be a panelist at the World Medical Cannabis Conference & Expo next month in Pittsburgh.