Thursday, April 13, 2017

I got that all wrong

My beef with the way marijuana's treated as a banned substance in sports doesn't mean I think racing while stoned is OK. I don't. 

The problem is that almost all available tests for the presence of cannabinoids return positive results long after the effect of using marijuana has passed. In America in 2017, as far as rules-makers are concerned, pot should be treated like alcohol. The goal should be to ensure riders aren't under the influence. 

A test that bans a rider for using pot days before racing doesn't improve safety, it's just out of date moralizing.

I apologize for the error-riddled (but stimulating) opinion piece I wrote and posted earlier today, inspired by Dalton Gauthier's ban, which came after he tested positive for marijuana use after the Charlotte half-mile.

I wrote the original version of this post as if AMA Pro Racing/American Flat Track used the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA's) banned substance list. That would be the case if Gauthier'd been a Supercross rider, but AFT rules are, as Al Ludington graciously pointed out, based on Nascar's substance abuse rules.

I’ve written before about the flaws in borrowing, wholesale, a banned-substances list designed for sports like track and field or weightlifting. Some day I'll peruse the AFT banned list in detail, but the larger point of my initial post still stands: While tests for alcohol measure blood alcohol and correlate with impairment, most marijuana tests currently look for metabolites and can yield a positive result long after the effects of using the drug have passed.

More and more Americans in all sports are being tripped up by the inclusion of pot on banned substance lists. After all, recreational marijuana is legal in several states, and most states offer some kind of legal dispensation for pot use with (ahem) a doctor’s prescription. Even solidly conservative states like Missouri, where I live, are softening their stances on pot use; Kansas City recently voted to decriminalize possession of small quantities of pot for personal use.

I don’t know whether Dalton Gauthier was actually racing under the influence at Charlotte (in which case a ban’s justified) or whether a random test merely detected use in the recent past, or during post-event celebrations.

Regardless, AMA Pro/AFT, MotoAmerica and other sanctioning bodies would be well advised to acknowledge the relatively harmless reality of marijuana use and to  specify that cannabinoid drugs are banned in competition. AFT rules specify that alcohol must not be consumed for at least 12 hours before competition. A similar rule would be fair where pot's concerned. Merely using marijuana in the days or weeks leading to a competition, which probably would yield a positive test and result in a ban, puts us behind the times.

PS... For what it's worth, when I make a big mistake like that, I dock my entire salary for the day.

1 comment:

  1. My employer drug tests, and here in California, where recreational pot is legal, my employer still has the right to test me and send me on my way if I am not clean. The law currently allows this as the drug is still banned by the feds. Because this young man is being paid for his efforts in terms of prize money, like it or not, there is currently no reason he should be exempt from his tests and subsequent temporary ban--just like the rest of us. If I were to test positive, that would be it--no chance to go to a program to be re-instated. He is being given that chance--not to mention that should he go far, this will be a lesson well learned now, rather than when he is being drug tested by the FIM and someone is paying him millions to race.

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