Why are they still testing for pot?

It is not “performance enhancing”!!

It’s a relic from the war on drugs. But it is kind of funny…they consider pot to be performance enhancing and ban it because it gives an unfair advantage to an athlete. But…if John Smith had always dreamed of a medal in the long jump, all he needs to do is to declare himself to be a woman, call himself Jane Smith, and he’s in . Even if he is carrying extra weight between his legs.

Having played golf this weekend with someone that ate a pot cookie, I can tell you by his back nine, it did not enhance his performance!!

There’s still a little debate about whether it might be performance enhancing, or perhaps even performance worsening, or different for different people. But, yeah, just a relic. There’s not a good reason to keep doing this.

The literal only answer would be that it would calm the anxiety of someone who gets performance anxiety.

Under federal law, it remains an illegal substance.

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Forgetting her name, but that’s why the Olympian who got booted recently was taking it.

Not to hijack your thread, but interesting discussion on campus. In the library, where my office is, they put up a countdown clock, showing (for example) 16 days, 9 hours, 14 minutes…until the end of the semester. Response has been mixed. For some people, this is a light at the end of the tunnel, helps with end-of-semester anxiety. For others, exactly the opposite, it ramps up their anxiety.

I told the librarian it’s like pot that way.

Bingo and we have a winner.

Slavery was legal too, so was segregation, bans on interracial and gay marriage. We’re also allowed to debate what the law should be, not just what it is. And, the sports testing doesn’t need to follow the law. If it’s not about performance enhancement, they should articulate another reason to ban and test for certain substances.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with this issue.

The law is everything in the interaction between a government and its citizens. The USADA gets a few million annually in governmental grants. Should the federal government give money to an organization, and forgo taxation of that organization, if it allows an illegal drug to be used by recipients of those funds? The answer is change the law, not ignore it.

Walking is not enhanced when I have had a brownie.

Except the USADA is an NGO, not a government. And even if it were governmental, we’re allowed to debate what the law or policy should be, in addition to what it is.

There are substances in the banned list that I can take, but an athlete can’t.
It has nothing to do with federal law.

welll…sorta. The Agriculture Act of 2018 legalized Delta 8 and Delta 10 THC, but not Delta 9 (the THC found in pot). It’s not quite as strong as Delta 9, but that just means you need a wee tad more to get an equivalent high. I order mine online and it is delivered to my door in Kansas, which is a state that allows NO marijuana for anything. Funny thing is, they don’t seem to be in any hurry to make those illegal. While recreational pot is legal in Missouri, and I live 2 miles from the border, what I get online is a helluva lot less expensive that the pot in the Missouri dispensaries.

Oh yes…and in a urine test, you will test positive for THC. But my bike group is a bunch of old hippies and they say that Social Security and Pensions don’t require urine tests.

@jimtoo - For this reason, even though medical marijuana is legal in most states, it is illegal to use it for pain management at any nursing home, skilled nursing facility, or hospital in the United States because it is illegal at the federal level.

I never said it was governmental, I said they receive federal grant funds and they are a 501c3. For all we know, a condition of their grants and tax exempt status may be to test for illegal drugs.

This thread started with the question of why they tested for marijuana. I put forth the answer I thought made the most sense.