Sha’Carri Richardson Will Miss Olympics After Not Being Chosen for Relays
Richardson was competing in Oregon, where marijuana is legal for recreational use, at the U.S. trials last month when she said a reporter told her that her biological mother had died. She said the news blindsided her just days before the biggest race of her life.
Her suspension left in its wake a debate about whether marijuana should be on a list of banned substances that includes performance-enhancing drugs that athletes take to make them stronger, or faster, or have more endurance. Marijuana does none of those things.
Some leaders, like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, said banning marijuana reflected systemic racism and called on athletics officials to reverse the suspension. When asked about Richardson last week, President Biden said, “The rules are the rules.”
“Whether they should remain the rules is a different issue, but the rules are the rules,’’ he said.
Historically, the U.S. government has supported prohibiting marijuana, just as many other countries have, but its position has evolved during the last two decades. The United States has supported relaxing the rules around marijuana and world sport like increasing the threshold amount that needs to be detected to be considered a violation and shifting its classification to a substance of abuse.
Marijuana is on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s list of performance-enhancing drugs. The research on the drug is limited, but it can have both energizing and sedating effects, depending on the strain, and it could most often be used as a relaxation aid ahead of an intense moment like the U.S. trials.
Also, the list of banned drugs includes certain substances, the agency says, “because they are frequently abused in society outside of the context of sport.” In other words, doping officials do not want to be seen as giving approval to certain substances that have been historically viewed as damaging to society, even if those views have evolved in recent years.
Richardson’s suspension led to widespread claims of unfairness — though not by Richardson, who apologized for her mistake — because marijuana is legal in numerous states and has been significantly decriminalized in places where it is not legal. It is also viewed far differently by the general population than steroids like synthetic testosterone.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/06/sports/olympics/shacarri-richardson-olympics-team.html