Cannabis Campaign: Sport set to accept recreational use

THE decision to hand back the gold medal to the snowboader who tested positive for cannabis at the Winter Olympics in Japan last week may have set a precedent for sport. Some analysts believe that, as cannabis use becomes more widely accepted in society, so in turn more athletes will be found to have used the substance and administrators will be forced to turn a blind eye.

Indeed, Canadian Ross Rebagliati was not the only competitor caught out by the cannabis test at Nagano. The authorities discovered a second offender last week, but because the traces of cannabis found were so small they decided not to punish or even name the individual.

Ten or even five years ago, Rebagliati and his unnamed colleague would have been drummed out of all competition, to the approval of both fellow competitors and spectators. This time it was different.

"Sport's governing bodies do not want to be seen to be swimming against the tide of public opinion," said Simon Easson, director of the centre for applied sport philosophy and ethics research, at De Montfort University.

"Neither do they wish to see successive scandals concerning banned substances being associated with their medal winners. That makes for extremely bad publicity, which in turn is bad for business."

He believes that administrators realise that the public would draw a distinction between drugs taken for purely recreational use and those intended to boost performance.

"In the case of snowboarding it would seem likely that cannabis would not enhance performance so there can be said to be no intention to cheat involved," he said.

"People should realise that athletes are no different from the rest of us in society and only a minority take the 'my body is my temple' view of life.

"You only have to look at the number of soccer players who drink and smoke for confirmation.

"Therefore, as cannabis use becomes more prevalent, so it will be that more elite athletes will partake in the recreational use of the drug."

One of the difficulties confronting administrators at present is that because certain drugs, such as cannabis, are illegal, no research has been conducted to determine their precise performance effect on athletes. It has been suggested that in some sports, where a relaxed approach is more important than a fast reaction, cannabis could provide an unfair advantage.

"I believe that administrators would welcome more consistency from governments on the question of cannabis and other allowed drugs such as alcohol and tobacco," Mr Easson said.