Drug rules in professional and/or international sports

[Guest]

I keep hearing on the news outcries when US sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson was banned from the Olympics for using pot. Many insinuated that this was "unfair." Yet some of my readings suggest that marijuana use can enhance performance. I personally feel it's good policy to regulate what drugs professional and high-level athletes during training and competition. Otherwise, our athletes are just going to end up like lab rats, where coaches in all countries are going to experiment on which drugs and and what doses are best to enhance performance. Is this what athletes want? As long as the rules are applied equally to anyone, they seem quite "fair" to me. I would think that athletes would want to compete on the basis of their innate abilities, and not because their trainers knew which drugs to load them up with and at what doses. And after training for years and years, I would hope the athletes (or at least their trainers) would know what the rules are and how to abide by those rules... 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/02/sports/olympics/marijuana-olympics-shacarri-richardson.html

Edited July 7, 2021 by Unicorn

[+ sam.fitzpatrick]

While marijuana may not directly enhance performance, I have a college friend who has been smoking medical marijuana for years to address her arthritis pain.  It doesn't directly address the condition, just helps with pain.

I see how athletes could use this to allow them to show up and participate by masking their discomfort.

  

[Guest]

Well, if MJ can mask joint (or other) pain, wouldn't it logically follow that it enhances performance?