Heartbreaking: American sprint runner had been Confirmed dead in an Airplane Crash….see…more…

Heartbreaking: American sprint runner had been Confirmed dead in an Airplane Crash….see…more…
stigmatizing and criminalizing marijuana.

Clearly, virtually nobody on earth considers marijuana to be a performance-enhancing drug. It is closer to the opposite.

I can testify, from a distant relationship with pot in my youth, that if I were lining up for a 100-meter dash after smoking, the only place I would be running to was the snack stand to sate a major case of the munchies.

Hasn’t been a gold medal won in Olympic history credited to cannabis.

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, in an article this past April, concluded that weed “does not act as a sports performance enhancing agent,” even stating, “Cannabis consumption prior to exercise should be avoided in order to maximize performance in sports.”

The WADA relies on a 2011 study that suggests marijuana presents a health risk, but that notion has become antiquated in 10 years.

Eighteen states, and counting, now have decriminalized marijuana use. MLB removed marijuana from its list f banned substances in 2019. The NBA no longer does random tests for pot use. The NFL now fines you for pot, not suspends you. Testing positive for cannabis is no longer a violation in UFC.

While the Olympics remains stuck in the past, suspending people for what clearly is not a performance-enhancing drug.

In the context of the global COVID pandemic that has cost 605,000 American lives, and that postponed the Tokyo Games by a year, the idea of banning a top sprinter because she took a few puffs a month earlier to help cope with traumatic news seems insanely and arbitrarily punitive.

Plenty agree. At move-on.org, a petition calling for Richardson to be reinstated and eligible for Tokyo had collected more than 493,000 signatures as of Tuesday.

The petition’s title is three words full of common sense, fairness and heart:

Let Sha’Carri run!