A Higher Standard

The Olympics’ World Anti-Doping Agency relaxes rules on “out-of-competition” cannabis use

Millions of medical cannabis patients around the globe face discrimination at work, on the road, in schools and in the courts, but there’s one place it’s getting a little better: on the Olympic winners’ podium.

On May 11, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) amended its rules to raise the level of allowable traces of marijuana found in athletes’ urine from 15 nanograms per mililiter to 150 nanograms per mililiter. In a statement, WADA says they increased the limit because they don’t care what athletes do in their off-time, they don’t want them to compete high. The effect of the change is that athletes have more personal freedom, experts say.

A light “weekend” marijuana user who stays clean for two days before an in-competition test probably won’t face WADA consequences like suspensions of three months to a year, or the loss of a medal. (However, daily users might need up to three weeks abstinence to get under the 150 ng/ml limit, studies show.)

Athletes and activists say raising Olympic standards for traces of marijuana use is a step in the right direction, but the race toward real equality is going to be an ultra-marathon. Many athletes wonder why WADA considers marijuana a “performance enhancing drug” at all, especially given cannabis’ rising prominence in sports therapy.

DOPING PROBLEMS

The governing body of the Olympics yanked its first medal for drugs in 1968 after an athlete tested positive for alcohol under new rules that banned booze as a performance enhancing drug. After decades of doping scandals, the Olympics created a formal drug monitor in 1999 called WADA. WADA seeks to ban substances that meet at least two of three criteria: they enhance performance, they present a health danger; or they violate the “spirit of the sport.”

WADA added marijuana to its list of banned substances (which include testosterone, speed, cocaine, heroin, etc.) in 1999, after Canadian snowboarder Ross Rebagliati won the first-ever Olympic gold medal in snowboarding in 1998. All Olympic athletes are subject to random drug tests with no notification. All athletes who make it to first, second or third place also have to pee in a cup. Rebagliati’s urine came back positive for 17.8 ng/ml of THC-COOH (a molecule created when the liver metabolizes THC—the main active molecule in cannabis). Officials yanked his gold.

Rebagliati appealed, arguing the marijuana metabolites in his urine were the result of second-hand smoke. In arbitration, officials restored his medal on a technicality: weed was not yet on the list of banned substances at the time of the contest.

“I’m the only person to lose a gold medal and get it back again,” Rebagliati tells CULTURE.

WEEDED OUT

Drug testing for marijuana surged out of the U.S. during the Reagan-era ‘Say no to drugs’ ’80s, and the U.S. put immense pressure on WADA to include marijuana, historians note. Since then, countless athletes have been ensnared by unjust, discriminatory marijuana violations—athletes like U.S. Judo champ Nick Delpopolo and U.S. wrestler Stephany Lee who were kicked out of the London Olympics in 2012. In 2012, marijuana was the number-three reason why WADA-tested athletes failed a drug test, behind testosterone and speed.

WADA’s relaxed, new attitude to “out-of-competition” pot use is part of a shift in society, Rebagliati said. Twenty U.S. states have medical marijuana laws and two have ended cannabis prohibition. Canada has a national medical marijuana system and more and more countries—like Colombia, Uruguay, not to mention The Netherlands, etc—every year break with the U.S-led cannabis prohibition.

SMART MOVE

“I think it was a smart move on [WADA’s] part to reflect the shift that we’re seeing right now in society pretty much worldwide,” Rebagliati said.

WADA’s putting the focus on safety, not some notion of moral purity, he said. “They’re there to protect the athletes.”

But it’s clear we still have a ways to go. For one: WADA’s pee tests say “nothing about current impairment,” notes Dale Gieringer, PhD, and author of the 2013 California NORML Guide to Drug Testing.

WADA looks for “THC-COOH”, which indicates past use, not current intoxication. A clean athlete could take a bong-load right before giving urine and pass a THC-COOH screen. Only a blood test for active THC can correlate to impairment.

Rebagliati said athletes who want to win a gold medal in the Olympics have to make clean urine a priority. “I was pretty chronic before the Olympics,” he said. Quitting for competition “was more annoying, than anything. It’s like giving up TV.”

Rebagliati and Gieringer both think cannabis should be taken off the list of performance enhancing drugs entirely.

“It’s not going to make you jump higher or run faster or think more clearly,” Ross said.

The American Journal of Sports Medicine reports that “smoked cannabis can decrease anxiety, fear, depression and tension.”

But, “pot can be very stressful and cause a lot of anxiety especially under circumstances like being around a lot of people you don’t know, and TV cameras . . .” Ross said.

“I don’t know anyone who thinks that pot-smoking gives anyone an unfair advantage,” said Gieringer. “The athletic organizations feel compelled to tow the government’s line that the use of any illegal drug is somehow immoral and unsportsmanlike, or sets a bad example for kids—as if sportsmen were moral exemplars in the first place!”

Ultimately, athletes should not be penalized for using a substance demonstrably safer than alcohol or pharmaceuticals, said Rebagliati—who is opening the dispensary Ross’ Gold in Whistler, B.C.

“I think it’s a responsible decision that they’re making to consume a safe product and stay away from the classics: tobacco, alcohol and especially pharmaceuticals.”

SPORTS THERAPY

A number of studies show the naturally occurring components in cannabis like cannabidiol relieve pain and reduce inflammation.

“Cannabis is a huge painkiller, a huge anti-inflammatory, perfect for post-operation recovery,” Ross said. Ross’ Gold is developing a CBD-rich line of topicals for sore muscles and pains.

“A lot of athletes could profit from marijuana use to relax sore and beaten bodies,” Gieringer said.

The correlation between snowboarding—with its epic falls—and pot use is probably more than a vestige of its counter-cultural roots.

“Cannabinoids play a major role in the extinction of fear memories by interfering with learned adversive behaviors,” the AJSM reports. “Athletes who experienced traumatic events in their career [like, say, a huge spill] could benefit from such an effect.”

Ross’ Gold

No idea why people give Canada a bad rap but if there’s one noteworthy individual who gives the northern county a plus-one point on the cool factor, it’s Ross Rebagliati. He was the first to win a gold medal for men’s snowboarding in the giant slalom back in 1998. Of course his hard-earned efforts were almost undone when the presence of THC was discovered in his system, which threatened to permanently take his gold medal away from him.The past five years or so have left Rebagliati busy working with multi-million dollar real estate and residential construction projects in British Columbia, but his newest ventures lead him straight back to fighting for the rights to medicate—with his own chain of government licensed medical marijuana shops called Ross’ Gold. This MMJ chain has the humble desire of “helping provide relief for those living with pain through the use of medical marijuana.” Eventually you’ll be able to visit Bristish Columbia for a cup of coffee but for now, you can order stationary titled with supportive business quotes like “Marijuana, performance enhancer since 1998” and “Winners Smoke Weed.”