Two months after the United States’ top women’s sprinter was ruled ineligible for the Tokyo Olympics due to testing positive for marijuana, the international agency overseeing banned substances in sports said it is ready to review its prohibition on pot.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said Tuesday that it will act on an endorsement from its Prohibited List Expert Advisory Group and initiate “a scientific review of the status of cannabis.” Cannabis is on WADA’s list of banned substances, and the agency said it will continue to be in 2022.
The development comes on the heels of the July suspension of Sha’Carri Richardson, who had won the 100-meter dash at the U.S. Olympic trials earlier in the summer. Weeks before the Tokyo games were set to kick off, Richardson accepted a one-month suspension after the United States Anti-Doping Agency announced that she had tested positive for cannabis.
Both the United States Anti-Doping Agency and the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee follow WADA’s banned substance code.
The suspension of Richardson, 21, was widely criticized and mocked, with many observers in and out of the world of track and field pointing the inconsistency of banning marijuana at a time when a growing number of states in America––and even the federal government––are moving toward legalizing pot.
(The USADA’s official reasoning for banning marijuana use among its athletes is that pot poses a health and safety risk to athletes and that cannabis can be performance-enhancing.)
White House press secretary Jen Psaki lamented the suspension, noting that Richardson’s mother had recently passed.
“It does stink,” Psaki said in an interview on cable news at the time. “I don’t think there’s a better definition of