Marijuana in sport – Paddock Magazine

Sports commissions generally prohibit athletes from using cannabis. However, public opinion is rapidly changing, and official sports associations have had to relax their policy on white sports marijuana. 

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This concept encompasses increasing the permitted level of THC metabolite in the urine by a factor of 10, from 15 ng/ml to 150 ng/ml. On occasion, drug tests allow a level of 180 ng/ml to make an individual decision in case of uncertainty in the results.

The ethical issues of marijuana use in sports have been vigorously debated several times:

• In 1989, the International Olympic Committee organized the First World Doping Conference in Switzerland and created the World Anti-Doping Agency, WADA.
• Their 2004 code is now enforced by 700 sports organizations, including the IOC, the International Paralympic Committee, professional sports leagues, and national anti-doping agencies. The World Anti-Doping Code refers to cannabis as a prohibited substance.
• In 2012, the percentage of positive tests for cannabis was 9 per cent; in 2012, it was at 2.4 per cent.
• The scandal erupted in 2021 when American track and field athlete Shakarrie Richardson was suspended from the Tokyo Summer Olympics. This WADA decision was criticized by American society and U.S. congressmen, calling the approach “outdated and restrictive.”
• In September 2022, WADA announced the scientific results and left cannabis on the list of prohibited substances while still actively continuing to research the effect of THC in increasing exercise performance.

Sports where Marijuana Can Help

Is marijuana legal in any professional sport? The health effects of controlled substances are still a controversial issue to this day. In 2019, the World Health Organization recommended changing the level of cannabis control in the United Nations. 

As a result, the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs removed cannabis from Schedule IV of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (in effect since 1961). This was a symbolic victory for the supporters of legalization, but it did not directly influence the states’ decision on legalization.

Representatives from various sports are seeking permission from competent authorities to smoke weed legally:

• National Football League players wrote a letter to Doctors for Cannabis Regulation asking them to influence the NFL’s position on cannabis to use it as a neuroprotectant and for pain relief instead of opioids.
• The NFL…