Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin has added his voice to calls for the NBA and other professional sports leagues to investigate allowing players to use medical marijuana as a means to manage pain.

"It doesn't really affect me, but so many guys would probably benefit from it and not take as many painkillers, which have worse long-term effects," Griffin said in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine. "So I would vote yes. I just think it makes sense."

Griffin's comments followed remarks made earlier this month by Bucks center Larry Sanders, who advocated for marijuana's legalization just after it was announced he would be suspended five games by the NBA for using the drug.

"It's a banned substance in my league. But I believe in marijuana and the medical side of it. I know what it is if I'm going to use it," Sanders told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel at the time. He said he has studied marijuana and knows the benefits.

"In a lot of ways we've been deprived," Sanders said. "You can't really label it with so many other drugs that people can be addicted to and have so many negative effects on your body and your family and your relationships and impairment. This is not the same thing."

Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said in January that the NFL should look into medicinal marijuana as a means of taking the best possible care of its players.

"We have to explore and find ways to make our game a better game and take care of our players in whatever way possible," Carroll said weeks before the Seahawks won their first Super Bowl crown. "Regardless of what other stigmas might be involved, we have to do this because the world of medicine is doing this."