In a recent interview with the Two Man Power Trip Of Wrestling Podcast. former WWE star Val Venis opened up about various topics including marijuana use, the death of Andrew ‘Test’ Martin, WWE’s Wellness Policy, and more.
On using marijuana, Venis said, "Up until I was about 27-28 years old I was very much anti-marijuana. It was an anti-drugs period at the time. I started noticing there was a lot of guys that I had wrestled with or had shared a locker room with at one point in time or that I became really good friends with that have ended up with their feet in the grave and eventually six feet under.”
Venis confessed that marijuana was a better option than using drugs like pharmaceutical pain medication, anti-inflammatories, anti-anxiety medications, sleeping medications, etc – which not only had a negative effect on his peers but also led to their deaths.
Marijuana, as Venis observed, had none of the negative effects that the above drugs brought with them, which caused him to have a more positive view about it.
When asked about a wrestler death that had a profound impact on him, Venis confessed that the passing of his best friend Andrew "Test" Martin due to an overuse of pharmaceutical pain meds.
Martin’s death really jolted Venis, who was also a user of performance enhancing drugs, and spurred him to stop popping pills – despite the horrible withdrawal symptoms – and with to marijuana, which helped ease the effects of his withdrawal.
Venis was finally free of the clutches of the pills in 2008, and has changed for the better ever since.
On the topic of WWE’s Wellness Policy, Venis commented: "To me it's not a stringent Wellness Policy at all. I could drive a Mack Truck through their Wellness Policy. The reality of the situation is I was on those pills and I was testing positive for those pills yet I passed my drug test every single time.”
The 44-year-old reserved scorn for the Wellness Policy and stated that one could get a clean bill of health by simply submitting a valid prescription of whatever one was using.
However, Venis did praise the testing policy, calling it a ‘step in the right direction’, but did state that WWE allowing stars to use heroin was something that needed to be eradicated.
