Becoming an elite athlete takes years of dedication — long days, longer nights, pain, and sacrifice. As an Olympic caliber sprinter, Sha’Carri Richardson committed herself to the process, navigating a labyrinth of rules and regulations for the chance to compete at the highest level of her sport. On July 2, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) dashed her dreams of participating in the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games with a suspension for violating its ban on marijuana, an outdated rule with no basis in science.

Demonstrating maturity and poise, Sha’Carri took full responsibility for breaking the rules, but her acceptance can’t change the weight of this injustice. The USADA’s marijuana ban, derived from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) classification, is a vestige of cannabis prohibition’s vile legacy. A legacy that is built on racism. 

Harry Anslinger, a founding commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, designed and successfully executed the campaign to outlaw cannabis. He crafted it as a tool to suppress and control what he called the “degenerate races.” More than eight decades later, Anslinger’s crusade against cannabis, which snaked its way into our cultural norms, finally shows signs of cracking. Adult-use marijuana is currently legal in Washington, D.C. and 19 states, including Oregon, where 21-year-old Sha’Carri consumed to cope with the tragic loss of her mother.

Ninety-one percent of Americans support cannabis legalization for medical or adult use. Other sports leagues have removed cannabis restrictions, and it’s time for both WADA and USADA to pull the plant from its list of prohibited substances. Congress has demonstrated support for eliminating the ban, and President Biden should unequivocally support this reform as well. The current policy is indefensible. 

The World Anti-Doping Agency outlaws marijuana claiming that it is both a performance-enhancing drug and a substance of abuse. The agency's own medical director, Dr. Alan Vernec, stated, "There is no evidence for cannabis use as a performance-enhancing drug," in a co-authored paper for The Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine. And, the 'substance of abuse' label is an arbitrary and nebulous designation, permitting WADA to suspend athletes who test positive, effectively forcing them to enter a drug treatment program in order to shorten their punishment.

Sadly, Sha’Carri’s atonement wasn’t enough to garner her a second chance. USA Track and Field (USATF) excluded her from the relay team, despite her eligibility. In the span of two weeks, Sha’Carri went from being the breakout star of the USA Track Team to being completely shut out of the Olympic Games. All because of a rule that should not exist.

While the nation grieves the loss of a potentially once-in-a-lifetime opportunity along with Sha’Carri, we must also speak out to ensure that she is the last American athlete to suffer the indignity of being banned from Olympic competition for consuming cannabis. The damage caused by prohibition permeates our governmental, societal, and cultural institutions. In order to repair the harm, we need to stand against the injustice and continue the fight to legalize and normalize cannabis, demanding an end to archaic and discriminatory policies, wherever they may be. 

— Steven Hawkins, executive director, Marijuana Policy Project

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According to The Denver Post, late Friday, the NFLPA unanimously approved the terms of a new drug policy that includes the implementation of testing for Human Growth Hormone — a performance enhancing drug — as well as an increase in the threshold for testing positive for marijuana.

The agreement with the NFL and NFLPA opens up the possibility for players suspended on drug policy violations to return to the field. Cleveland.com reported that Josh Gordon, Cleveland Browns receiver, will have his suspension reduced from a season-long ban to 10 games once the new drug policy is finalized and formally approved.

“This is a historic moment for our players and our league,” NFLPA president Eric Winston said in a statement. “We have collectively bargained drug policies that will keep the game clean and safe, but also provide players with an unprecedented level of fairness and transparency. Players should be proud of their union for standing up for what was best for the game.”

Although the threshold for a positive test for marijuana will increase to 35 ng/ml from the previous 15 ng/ml, the new marijuana threshold is a standard much lower than those used in most other sports. The threshold for a positive test for marijuana should have increased to the 150 ng/ml limit — used by the World Anti-Doping Agency, which conducts Olympic athlete testing — that was originally suggested.

Moreover, the new terms of the drug policy still prove draconian given the chronic pain endured by most NFL players and the fact that, by most measures, the use of medical marijuana to relieve pain is far less harmful than the prescription painkillers that players currently rely on.

As former player Nate Jackson recently stated in a New York Times op-ed, “Virtually every single player in the NFL has a certifiable need for medical marijuana.”

In this case, the fact that players are still not permitted to use medical marijuana is inexplicable — even when 15 teams are based in states where medical marijuana can be recommended legally and most, if not all, players have a very legitimate need for it.

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In May, the organization that regulates the Olympics – the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) – made headlines when it ruled to increase the threshold of permissible marijuana in an athlete’s system from 15 nanograms per milliliter to 150 ng/ml.

The WADA based their decision on a few key factors, including changes in state marijuana laws, increasing public support for legalization, and the willingness of outed Olympians who were stripped of their medals or disqualified from competition (such as Michael Phelps, Nicholas Delpopolo, and Ross Rebagliati) to talk openly about their personal use. The goal of the new rules is to catch marijuana users who are competing under the influence, rather than those who smoked days or weeks earlier. In other words, the WADA is now treating marijuana like alcohol.

Following suit, the UFC changed their marijuana rules to match the WADA’s just three weeks later. In response to these changes, state athletic commissions have met to discuss raising the marijuana threshold for combat sports. “My personal feeling is that I would much rather focus on obvious performance-enhancing drug use like steroids and blood doping,” Nick Lembo of the Association of Boxing Commissions said. “If I was a trainer, I would much rather have my fighter fighting someone who took marijuana than someone who’s blood doping.”

Given that marijuana is objectively safer than alcohol and does not meet the definition of a performance-enhancing drug, these rule changes are a step in the right direction.

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The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) raised the threshold for a positive test for marijuana from 15 nanograms per milliliter to 150 nanograms per milliliter, significantly reducing the likelihood of detection for athletes who use the drug.

“We wanted to focus on the athletes that abuse the substance in competition,” said Julie Masse, WADA’s director of communications. “This should exclude cases where marijuana is not used in competition.”

Although marijuana is not considered a performance-enhancing drug, WADA included it on its initial list of prohibited substances in 2003 after caving in to pressure from U.S. sports officials.

“From a sports perspective, I was rather ambivalent (toward marijuana),” stated Richard Pound, an attorney who was WADA’s initial chief and still serves on the Foundation Board. “As we morphed into WADA, the USA was very keen to have it included.”

Although marijuana thresholds and testing are vague indicatives rather than precise measurements of use, WADA hopes that the new limit will lessen the chance that responsible recreational users will suffer disciplinary action. In recent years, a number of athletes, some of them legitimate medical marijuana patients, have faced suspensions and huge fines failing post-competition marijuana tests.

“There is no desire to go soft on the list,” WADA’s Athlete Committee announced, “but members want cheaters to be caught for cheating, not for recreational usage.”

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Nicholas Delpopolo, a Yugoslav-born American judo competitor in the London Olympics, has been disqualified on account of a positive drug test. This is the fifth positive drug test reported by the IOC for this year’s testing program but the first to turn up positive during the competition itself. The 23-year-old tested positive for marijuana metabolites, substances that would appear in the blood for several weeks after consuming marijuana. By way of explanation, he stated that he had recently consumed food that, unbeknownst to him, contained cannabis.

Delpopolo is not the first athlete this year to be disqualified for cannabis, as Scott Morgan explains in his post here. Information from the World Anti-Doping Agency suggests that anti-doping policies in sports are simply concerned with performance-enhancing substances which might give the user an unfair advantage, including stimulants and anabolic steroids. However, caffeine, a stimulant, is not on the list of prohibited substances, while marijuana metabolites are. The justification for this is not clear. Enhancement of athletic performance has not been proven, and there is no evidence that past marijuana use would endanger competitors. No explanation of the inclusion of marijuana on the list is given anywhere on the site. Has the WADA included cannabinoids on its list of prohibited substances out of legitimate concern for fairness in competition, or is this simply a concession to the prohibitionist attitudes of authorities who wish to police athletes’ personal lives?

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