Marijuana remains a touchy subject to talk about

by Brian Lewis

We don't want to talk about it be­cause of how it will look and what peo­ple will say but call it what you 

want, gan­ja, weed, pot, grass, herbs, mar­i­jua­na or cannabis, it's on the agen­da.

T&T and mar­i­jua­na, for a num­ber of rea­sons, the re­al­i­ty of mar­i­jua­na for recre­ation­al and or so­cial use 

is not a top­ic many peo­ple want to dis­cuss. For some it is taboo, a top­ic to be swept un­der the car­pet.

Why and how mar­i­jua­na end­ed up along­side oth­er il­le­gal and dan­ger­ous drugs is a dis­cus­sion for 

an­oth­er time and place. What is un­de­ni­able is that in the year 2019, the busi­ness - med­i­c­i­nal, 

en­vi­ron­men­tal and oth­er ben­e­fits of mar­i­jua­na - have be­come main­stream. 

  

Mar­i­jua­na or cannabis use for var­i­ous rea­sons is now the sub­ject of aca­d­e­m­ic re­search. The ques­tion 

then is, what about mar­i­jua­na/cannabis and sport?  The World An­ti-Dop­ing Agency's (WA­DA) 

pro­hib­it­ed list sets out the pro­hib­it­ed sub­stances which are pro­hib­it­ed at all times and those that are 

on­ly pro­hib­it­ed "in-com­pe­ti­tion" (i.e. 12 hours be­fore com­pe­ti­tion through to the end of the com­pe­ti­tion

and sam­ple col­lec­tion).

Sec­tion 8 of WA­DA pol­i­cy states that both nat­ur­al and syn­thet­ic cannabi­noids in­clud­ing 

tetrahy­dro­cannabi­nol (THC), are pro­hib­it­ed in-com­pe­ti­tion on­ly. The on­ly ex­cep­tion is Cannabid­i­ol 

(CBD), which is a non-psy­choac­tive de­riv­a­tive of cannabis. As of 2018, WA­DA no longer lists CBD 

as a pro­hib­it­ed sub­stance. Ath­letes are re­mind­ed that CBD oil of­ten still con­tains some con­cen­tra­tion 

of the banned sub­stance THC. There­fore, the use of CBD oil is at an ath­lete’s own risk. 

It is im­por­tant to note that un­like, with all oth­er banned cannabi­noids, the lev­el of THC must reach a 

cer­tain thresh­old in or­der to re­turn a pos­i­tive test (a pos­i­tive test is re­ferred to for­mal­ly as an Ad­verse 

An­a­lyt­i­cal Find­ing or ‘AAF’).  

Ath­letes must re­mem­ber that the prin­ci­ple of strict li­a­bil­i­ty that op­er­ates in an­ti-dop­ing means they are 

re­spon­si­ble for every­thing they in­gest, in­clud­ing food, sup­ple­ments and med­i­cines. There­fore, as with 

any sup­ple­ment or med­i­cine, in­gest­ing prod­ucts con­tain­ing CBD is at their own risk.

Cannabis is de­fined as a spec­i­fied sub­stance which al­lows for a greater re­duc­tion in sanc­tion than 

non-spec­i­fied sub­stances so the start­ing point for the length of the Pe­ri­od of In­el­i­gi­bil­i­ty (i.e. ban) is 

two years. How­ev­er, if a pan­el de­ter­mines that an ath­lete knew that a CBD prod­uct con­tained an­oth­er 

banned cannabi­noid or knew that there was a sig­nif­i­cant risk this would be the case, the ban could be 

ex­tend­ed by up to four years.

How do we pro­tect our ath­letes from find­ing them­selves afoul of the World an­ti-dop­ing code and in the 

process, find them­selves in­el­i­gi­ble on the ba­sis of an an­ti-dop­ing vi­o­la­tion?

Frank talk, not just an­ti-dop­ing ed­u­ca­tion and aware­ness. The T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) and 

the T&T Com­mon­wealth Games As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­GA) in its ca­pac­i­ty as the de­fac­to Na­tion­al 

An­ti-dop­ing Or­gan­i­sa­tion (NA­DO), must take the "pull" by the horns and fa­cil­i­tate frank and can­did    di­a­logue about mar­i­jua­na in sport.

Giv­en the ad­vent of a cannabis in­dus­try, tak­ing a pull and the use of CBD oil and oth­er vari­ants will 

re­quire in­formed con­ver­sa­tions, not small talk and gos­sip.

Ed­i­tor’s Note: Bri­an Lewis is the pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) and T&T 

Com­mon­wealth Games As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­GA) and the views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of 

the or­gan­i­sa­tions.