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Sha'Carri Richardson celebrates winning the Women's 100 Meter final on day 2 of the 2020 U.S. Olympic Track & Field Team Trials at Hayward Field on June 19, 2021 in Eugene, Oregon.
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Deep in the weed: A look into the future of marijuana regulation in sports

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Deep in the weed: A look into the future of marijuana regulation in sports

Sha’Carri Richardson’s suspension from the Tokyo Olympics for a positive marijuana test sent shock waves through the sports world.

Many reacted by questioning what they believe to be outdated policies regarding marijuana testing. Some said she never should have been disciplined in the first place. Others argued that it was justified, given the rules in place.

The track sprinter’s case begs the question of whether marijuana should be a prohibited substance in sports, especially as more U.S. states have moved to legalize it, both medically and recreationally.

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What stirred the pot

In this file photo, Sha'Carri Richardson celebrates winning the Women's 100 Meter final during the 2020 U.S. Olympic Track & Field Team Trials at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., on June 19, 2021.
Eddie Pells and Pat Graham
No relay: Banned sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson left off Olympic team

On June 19, Richardson ran in the 2020 U.S. Olympic trials and qualified for Tokyo with a winning time of 10.86 in the 100-meter race. She had become the sixth-fastest woman ever just two months before with a time of 10.72 seconds at the Miramar Invitational in April.

At just 21 years old, she was an overnight sensation.

In her post-race interview at the trials, she shared that her biological mother recently died. Less than two weeks later, on July 1, it was revealed that Richardson tested positive for THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, after winning the Olympic trials. She used the drug while competing in Oregon, where recreational use is legal, as a way to cope with her mother’s death.

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The test result disqualified her results at the trials. Richardson accepted a one-month ban, which began on June 28  and prevented her from running in the 100-meter Olympic race on July 27. While she would have been eligible for the women’s 4x100 relay, scheduled for Aug. 5, she was left off the roster and will miss out on Tokyo entirely.

With marijuana’s legalization in 18 states, D.C. and Guam, and its lack of apparent performance-enhancing qualities in most sports, her punishment was widely seen as severe.

“It’s just absolutely absurd,” said Patrick Nightingale, the executive director of Pittsburgh’s chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. “It’s hard to watch such a talented young athlete who has dedicated so much of her life and her training to have it derailed over such a senseless policy. … I think what her situation highlights is the need for commonsense policies as we move forward in the 21st century with a broad understanding that cannabis is not what it was portrayed as when it was lumped in with steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.”

But given the strictness of sports when it comes to substance abuse and the international scale of the Olympics, many experts weren’t surprised by the verdict.

This Sept. 11, 2018, file photo shows blankets of frost known as trichomes on a budding marijuana flower
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Time to be blunt

Jonathan Caulkins is an American drug policy researcher at Carnegie Mellon University with a focus on cannabis legalization. In response to Richardson’s story, he said three facts help better explain how the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, a signatory to the World Anti-Doping Code, decided to suspend her.

The first reason is the strictness of sports when it comes to drug use. Because of performance-enhancing drugs like anabolic steroids, leagues often struggle to separate policies for other prohibited substances that may not improve an athlete’s performance in the same way.

“Sports are not the place where you get a lot of grace or flexibility,” Caulkins said. “Sporting federations, in general, have worked hard to figure out compromises, and then they pretty much have to follow those policies. It’s not a place where there’s a lot of discretion.”

Caulkins’ second explanation revolves around the international scale of the Olympics. The United States has progressed toward legalizing marijuana, but it is somewhat of an outlier, and many other countries still consider it to be a serious drug. Canada and Uruguay are the only two countries that have legalized it nationally. While others have looser medical regimes that allow for de facto legalization, it’s not outright.

Compared to countries like China, India and Saudi Arabia with much stricter laws, the U.S. is on the more progressive end of the spectrum, which complicates regulation in international competition.

Lastly, Caulkins’ third point is that marijuana is still not legal on the federal level in the United States, and sports leagues that function nationally typically abide by those policies.

Additionally, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) includes THC on its list of banned substances. For a substance to earn a spot on that list, it must meet two of three criteria: It poses a health risk to the athletes, it can potentially enhance performance, or it violates the spirit of the sport.

WADA cites a 2011 study to uphold these three criteria. It claims that athletes who smoke cannabis can potentially endanger themselves or others “because of increased risk-taking, slower reaction times and poor executive function or decision making.” It also says the drug can be performance-enhancing for some athletes in some sports. Lastly, it argues that its use “is not consistent with the athlete as a role model for young people around the world.”

Nightingale believes that these criteria are illegitimate.

“The suggestion was that if someone’s smoking cannabis, it could potentially hurt their lungs, but tobacco and alcohol use is permitted,” he said.

Penguins team physician Dr. Dharmesh Vyas said the studies surrounding the impact of marijuana on sports performance are conflicting.

“It really depends on the sport and how one defines performance enhancement,” he said. “Some would argue that smoking marijuana could help an athlete by quelling anxiety, fear and decreasing the heart rate. Those may be considered performance-enhancing by some people whereas other competitors may say, ‘That really doesn’t make a difference to me if my competitor does that.’”

But Nightingale refuted the claim that marijuana is a performance-enhancer.

“Are other anti-anxiety medications prohibited? No,” he said. “Prescription anti-anxiety medications are permitted, so that criterion just collapses. It just doesn’t make sense. It takes significant cognitive dissonance to jam cannabis into a category that’s clearly designed for steroids and so on and so forth.”

Hitting home

Pittsburgh is no stranger to sports suspensions due to marijuana use. Multiple Steelers have missed time on the field after testing positive for the drug.

Former wide receiver Martavis Bryant was first suspended in the 2015 season for four games after violating the NFL’s  substance-abuse policy. In 2016, the league suspended him for the entire season as a repeat offender. He was ultimately traded to the Oakland Raiders in 2018. Bryant was later suspended indefinitely for violating the terms of his conditional reinstatement, which marked the end of his NFL career. He now plays for the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts and the Indoor Football League’s Massachusetts Pirates.

Steelers running backs have had the worst record of all.

In 1996, Bam Morris pleaded guilty to felony possession of marijuana in a plea-bargain deal. Police testified that they found six pounds of marijuana during a traffic stop, and he was fined $7,000 and sentenced to 200 hours of community service and six years’ probation.

After the plea, Morris was cut by the Steelers He then signed as a free agent with the Baltimore Ravens. Both of his seasons in Baltimore included suspensions for violating the league’s substance-abuse policy.

Before the 2014 season, Le’Veon Bell and LeGarrette Blount were arrested for marijuana possession while driving to the airport for a preseason game. They were both suspended in the 2015 season — Blount for one game with the New England Patriots, his new team, and Bell for three games because he was charged with a DUI, as well. Bell’s  suspension was ultimately reduced to two games following his appeal. He was suspended again for four games in 2016 due to a missed drug test. That suspension was reduced to three games.

In August 2016, Karlos Williams was released by the Buffalo Bills after violating the NFL’s substance-abuse policy with a positive marijuana test. He was signed by the Steelers two months later before facing a 10-game suspension for a second violation on Nov. 23. After signing a reserve/future contract with the team in January 2017, he was ultimately released in March of that year.

While some players have had their fair share of suspensions and violations of the league’s policies, a few of their predecessors have advocated for change.

Hall of Famers Jack Ham and Franco Harris have both been outspoken about the use of medical marijuana due to the opioid crisis in the NFL and Pennsylvania. Chronic injuries in football cause many players to become dependent on the pain killers they are prescribed, and both former Steelers said they have watched their teammates suffer as a result.

When medical marijuana was legalized in Pennsylvania in 2016, Harris said that while he never had chronic pain like many of his teammates, he felt lucky that he has the option to use cannabis if he ever does in the future.

Harris became chairman of Laurel Green Medical, LLC, a company that sought to grow medical marijuana in Braddock. His former teammate Ham signed on with AGRiMED Industries, another one of the several companies that was vying to grow medical marijuana in Pennsylvania.

The opioid crisis in Pennsylvania further encouraged their advocacy. Sixty-five percent of drug overdose deaths in Pennsylvania in 2018 were due to opioids. The state reported 4,880 overdose deaths in 2020, an uptick from a previous decline in 2018 and 2019. Records for Allegheny County showed an increase in overdose deaths as well from 571 in 2019 to 682 in 2020. Ham has said that he believes medical marijuana can help decrease these numbers.

The NFL formed a Pain Management Committee in June and pledged $1 million to research medical marijuana as a treatment for pain. While marijuana research has justified medical usage, it still doesn’t answer the question of whether leagues will allow for its recreational use.

“The science behind the use of marijuana for pain management is proven and used as medical marijuana,” Vyas said. “Remember, that’s not necessarily due to the psychoactive component, THC, but rather the non-psychoactive component, CBD. There are other forms which athletes can utilize that don’t have a psychoactive form and still have adequate response for pain control.”

Clearing the smoke

Of the 136 professional sports teams across the NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB and WNBA, 73 are located in states where recreational marijuana is legal. Another 57 are in states where medicinal use is legal. Only six are in areas where neither are allowed, meaning 96% of professional sports teams have access to the drug.

Outside of the Olympics, other sports leagues have become more relaxed over the last few years when it comes to their rules on cannabis. MLB removed marijuana from its list of banned substances after Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs was found dead in 2019 when he aspirated on his own vomit with fentanyl, oxycodone and alcohol in his system. His accidental death caused the league to review its drug policy, adding opioid and cocaine testing and removing natural cannabinoids.

The NBA stopped random testing for marijuana last year. The NFL changed its punishment from a suspension to a fine in 2020 and decided this year to no longer test for THC between April 20 and Aug. 9. The NHL stopped suspending athletes for marijuana use and instead enrolls players in a substance abuse program. The Nevada state Athletic Commission, the regulatory authority for UFC and boxing in Las Vegas, lifted its longtime ban on marijuana use by athletes on July 7.

Because marijuana is detectable long after its effects have subsided, even WADA changed its policies.

“They raised the threshold for positive marijuana tests, and they went from 15 nanograms per [milliliter]  to 150,” Vyas said. “They understood that athletes may use CBD during training periods. They’re loosening up their crackdown on marijuana. They just haven’t removed it from their prohibited list.”

After that change in 2013, the average number of athletes who tested positive each year dropped from 400 to 130.

Punishments have been reduced, but the policies likely won’t be eliminated altogether until national legalization occurs.

“We’re forced to confront the fact that until we have federal descheduling, we’re going to continue to have this inconsistent application,” Nightingale said. “We know that we need federal descheduling in order to get some sanity across the board.”

Richardson’s dreams of running in Tokyo may be over, but her situation has reinvigorated the conversation about whether change needs to happen and, if so, how.

“Overall, it’s just important to recognize we’re in the middle of a transition, and it’s kind of a messy transition,” said Caulkins, the Carnegie Mellon researcher. “The current policy is really quite a mess and full of contradictions. So it’s best to be flexible and use common sense and to not get too rigid about anything. Hopefully, within a few years, the state and the federal laws will be reconciled and then we can do intelligent things. For now, we’re just trying to bridge over until we get to a more coherent set of laws.”

Lia Assimakopoulos: lassimakopoulos@post-gazette.com and Twitter @Lassimak.

First Published: July 19, 2021, 4:00 a.m.
Updated: July 19, 2021, 3:30 p.m.

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Sha'Carri Richardson celebrates winning the Women's 100 Meter final on day 2 of the 2020 U.S. Olympic Track & Field Team Trials at Hayward Field on June 19, 2021 in Eugene, Oregon.  (Getty Images)
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