“Skateboarding at the 2020 Olympics may have one big problem: Weed”

I have be enthralled by the Rio 2016 Olympics, but I have not had a chance to link the quadrennial fascination with quirky sports to my persistent obsession with marijuana law, policy and reform. Until I saw this Mashable article, which shares a headline with the title of this post. Here is how the article gets started:

Getting blazed and athletic prowess may seem like an unlikely combination, except in the world of competitive skateboarding. Skateboarding is one of five new sports set to make their debut at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, but the International Olympic Committee (IOC) — like your uncle who wants to get down with the youth — may not be ready for the anti-establishment nature of skate culture.

Australia’s Tas Pappas, one of the world’s top skateboarders in the ’90s, has suggested the use of marijuana in skateboarding might dissuade athletes from wanting to compete at the Olympics. “I’m wondering how it’s going to work as far as the drug testing is concerned, because some guys skate really well on weed and if they have to stop smoking for one competition (the Olympics) it might really affect their performance,” Pappas told ABC News.

It’s no secret weed and professional sport haven’t been the best of friends. Since the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) inception in 1999, cannabinoids have been on the organisation’s annual list of in-competition prohibited substances. Australian sporting codes tried to lobby WADA to remove the cannabinoid prohibition in 2012, suggesting the drug wasn’t performance enhancing. In response, WADA raised the cannabinoid threshold to 150 nanograms per millilitre in 2013, 10 times its previous limit.

While the relaxed measure reflects changing attitudes to marijuana globally, the current situation means if Olympic skateboarders get caught with a cannabinoid concentration above WADA’s threshold, they could be stripped of medals or banned from competition.