New Olympic Drug Policy Allows Contestants to Smoke when Not Competing

A change this year at the 2016 Rio Olympics allows contestants to have cannabis in their systems, as long as they aren’t actively imbibing during the competition.

According to The Patch, this new policy from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), expanded the allowable amount of THC in one’s system from 15 nanograms per milliliter to 150. This is because cannabis can stay in the system for such a long time, and officials don’t want to penalize those who toke during their downtime. They are only looking for people who show up high for an event or are imbibing during their time in Rio.

“Our information suggests that many cases [of marijuana use] do not involve game or event-day consumption” stated a WADA spokesman in an interview with USA Today back in 2013 when the changes for this year’s Olympics were made. “The new threshold level is an attempt to ensure that in-competition use is detected and not use during the days and weeks before competition.”

The WADA still considers cannabis to be in the same category as cocaine, meth and heroine, which are strictly prohibited during the competition. However, they recognize that because of the way THC can show up on drug tests long after smoking, it is not fair to punish those who still have trace amounts in their systems.

Famous mishaps such as Nicholas Delpopolo from the U.S. being expelled for eating a cannabis brownie in 2012, and Ross Rebagliati, the Canadian snowboarder, getting his medal stripped after testing positive for cannabis in 1998, have probably helped to spur this change.

“More and more athletes are coming forward about their marijuana use, from a wide variety of sports, citing both medical benefits for treating injuries and the much lesser impact of recreational use compared to alcohol,” stated the Marijuana Policy Project in 2012. “Unfortunately, many continue to be punished for it. It is time we stop punishing the nation’s greatest athletes for using marijuana. These individuals have the ability and opportunity to smash the negative stereotypes that marijuana users have had to live with for so long, but are being cheated out of their shots at personal and national glory by closed-minded officials and archaic policies.”