Travis Kelce Opens Up About Cannabis, NFL Testing, and Player Realities

Travis Kelce’s relationship with cannabis is part cautionary tale, part snapshot of how quickly the NFL’s culture has shifted.

Long before he became a three-time Super Bowl champion and pop-culture figure, Kelce’s career nearly derailed over marijuana. At the University of Cincinnati, he was suspended for the entire 2010 season after testing positive for marijuana, a violation of team rules that cost him his scholarship and temporarily his place on the Bearcats roster. That episode forced him to move back in with his brother Jason, work his way back as a walk-on, and ultimately switch from quarterback to tight end—the position that made him a future Hall of Famer.

Kelce has since spoken openly about how that failed test followed him into the NFL Draft process. On his New Heights podcast and in later interviews, he’s acknowledged that some teams saw the marijuana suspension as a red flag that pushed him down draft boards, likely contributing to his third-round selection in 2013. Yet he also says the adversity “worked out perfectly,” because it forced him to mature and lock in on football.

Those personal experiences color the way Kelce talks about cannabis today. In a 2023 interview with Vanity Fair, widely picked up by outlets like CBS Sports, NBC Sports, and People, Kelce estimated that “50 to 80 percent” of NFL players use cannabis. He described marijuana use as common in the league, especially in the offseason, and bluntly explained how players avoid discipline under the NFL’s current rules: because the policy calls for just one THC test near the start of training camp, players can use cannabis for much of the year and simply stop a few weeks before testing.

Kelce’s comments weren’t framed as a pro-cannabis speech so much as a realistic look at where the league stands. He contrasted the harsh punishment he received in college with the NFL’s more relaxed approach after the 2021 collective bargaining agreement, which dramatically reduced the frequency of marijuana testing and effectively ended season-long suspensions for THC alone. His view reflects a larger trend: cannabis use has become normalized in locker rooms even as federal law and league rules still technically restrict it.

At the same time, Kelce doesn’t present himself as an activist trying to reshape policy, the way former stars like Ricky Williams or Calvin Johnson have with medical cannabis ventures. Instead, his public stance is more observational and rooted in lived experience. He’s candid about the fact that marijuana once jeopardized his career, but he also treats responsible adult use—particularly for pain management or relaxation in the offseason—as a reality the NFL has already learned to live with.

In recent years, as Kelce has talked more about growing up, his relationship, and a desire to move past his “party guy” image, his marijuana suspension is often framed as a turning point rather than a defining trait. Still, when he says that most players use cannabis and “nobody’s really getting hit for it anymore,” he’s underscoring a quiet truth: the league’s culture has evolved faster than its rulebook.

Taken together, Travis Kelce’s view on cannabis is nuanced. He understands the risks of poor decisions—he lived them—but he also sees marijuana as a relatively mainstream part of NFL life, one that players and the league are already navigating with far more leniency than when his own career almost went up in smoke.