There’s an argument to be made that people in counter-culture are actually the normal ones—the ones who “keep it real” in a world obsessed with conformity. Naturally, when something real gets too loud or too loved, the corporate world finds a way to cash in on it—both for profit and, sometimes, for sport.
Remember when jobs would drug-test for weed but turn a blind eye to addictions to painkillers and alcohol? That kind of hypocrisy defined workplaces—and whole industries—for decades.
No company captures that contradiction better than WWE, the wild, glittering circus of professional wrestling. It’s part athleticism, part theater, and somehow, part morality play—where anti-authority heroes are celebrated in the ring while being punished behind the curtain.
It’s the perfect microcosm of how corporate America has always treated counter-culture: market the rebellion, muzzle the rebels.
420 Slams
Bret Hart is a Hall of Famer who lives and breathes pro wrestling, and one of the few who spoke openly about self-medication in the industry when it was still taboo.
He once warned, “You watch, testing wrestlers for marijuana is just going to drive them to drink and take pills.” Sadly, he wasn’t wrong. Two members of the Hart family, both people he grew up with, later died from addiction to harder substances. For fans, that’s a gut punch, and a reminder that the “wellness” rules of the past often did more harm than help.
But not everyone stayed silent.
Charles Wright—better known as The Godfather—became one of WWE’s most memorable personalities. Over the years, he played everything from a voodoo priest to a brawler to, eventually, a velvet-suited pimp who strutted to the ring surrounded by his “Ho Train.”
The character was outrageous, but there was real truth behind it: Wright was a longtime cannabis advocate who credited the plant with saving his life. “When I tried it, I couldn’t remember the first time, but it opened up my eyes. It made my knees feel better. It made my back feel better. Food tasted better. I had a pep in my step. It made me smile. It made me funny. It made me creative. Cannabis is the best thing that ever happened to me,” he once said.
He even laughed about the time Vince McMahon caught him smoking in an elevator—the kind of story that sums up WWE’s love-hate relationship with weed. It’s fine to hint at it on screen, as long as it sells. Use it in real life, though, and suddenly it’s a problem.
Then there’s Rob Van Dam—the living, breathing embodiment of counter-culture. From yin-yang tights to gravity-defying moves, RVD built his career on being unapologetically himself. When he and his partner debuted the “420 Leg Drop,” McMahon balked at the reference, so RVD quipped that “four” was for their legs and “twenty” their combined shoe size. Smooth recovery.
But when RVD was later caught with marijuana during a traffic stop, WWE suspended him for thirty days and stripped him of his titles. Overnight, he went from world champion to corporate liability—punished not for performance, but for possession.
That kind of hypocrisy makes you question what freedom really means. Either a workplace has your back, or it doesn’t. Which is why our individual freedoms—not corporate inconsistencies—should be the priority.
New Era, Same Old Rules
To its credit, WWE has loosened up. Current star Michin recently confirmed that marijuana is no longer on the company’s banned substances list—a major shift from the days of automatic fines and suspensions.
Still, fans and advocates know how easily progress can be rolled back. Paul “HHH” Levesque, now the creative head of WWE, is straight edge. Nothing wrong with that, but competing viewpoints tend to clash in an environment built on control.
There’s also the merger with UFC, whose anti-doping rules still treat cannabis like a performance-enhancing drug. Fighters such as the Diaz brothers have faced harsh penalties over it, and WWE now shares that same regulatory orbit.
Unlike the NFL or MLB, where cannabis policies have been debated under the banner of fairness and athletic performance, professional wrestling isn’t a judged sport—it’s scripted entertainment. Which makes WWE’s old stance even stranger. For years, the company fined wrestlers $2,500 per positive test for marijuana, even while turning a blind eye to alcohol use. The irony? Those same wrestlers were performing night after night through injuries that cannabis could have safely helped manage.
Add to that the political ties: Levesque’s mother-in-law, Linda McMahon, serves as Education Secretary under Trump—an administration that legalized (and then banned) hemp with one hand while calling Colorado’s cannabis laws a “bad experiment” with the other.
So has the culture really changed, or just the optics?
What’s clear is that fans and advocates can’t afford to tap out. Whether in the ring or outside of it, freedom still needs defending—especially when corporations are the ones writing the rules.
This article is from an external, unpaid contributor. It does not represent High Times’ reporting and has not been edited for content or accuracy.
