Sha’Carri Richardson, a United States Olympic athlete revered for her 100 meter dash and known for her bright hair was disqualified from competing in the Tokyo Olympics due to testing positive for Marijuana.
Yahoo reported, “The World Anti Doping Agency (an Olympic Committee affiliated body) deems THC, the primary psychoactive compound of marijuana, a “substance of abuse” on its 2021 prohibited list. All cannabis-based products except for cannabidiol, or CBD, are banned “in-competition.” That means that if THC is found in an athlete’s system on the day of an event, that athlete is subject to punishment.”
An odd reality that we live in, where at the Olympics marijuana is considered a performance enhancing drug but biological men competing against biological women is considered completely fair.
The drug is decriminalized in most states, and legalized in some. None of the 4 major sports leagues in the United States (NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB) suspend players for its usage. Many athletes actually happen to use the drug both medicinally and recreationally.
“I understand that the Olympics have the ability to sanction players based on conduct and for using performance-enhancing drugs, but there’s no evidence that cannabis is performance-enhancing,” said Sue Sisley, a marijuanna researcher and physician from Arizona.
Allegedly the 21 year old athlete used marijuanna after her mother died in Oregon were the drug is legal. She did this despite knowing the drug was on the banned substance list.
“One of these days, we should probably either take it off the list entirely or say it’s there, but the minimum sanction should be something like a warning, so you’re not losing any period of eligibility,” said Dick Pound, an Olympic Committee member. Pound went on to say that he does not believe there’s evidence to suggest that marijuanna is performance enhancing.
But what might be performance enhancing? Possibly someone with the body of a male competing against someone with the body of a woman in weight lifting?