NCAA makes strides on marijuana

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a major player in sports. In 2022, they helped 520,000 students in athletic college programs compete. This includes over 1,100 schools with more than 19,000 teams. They are a non-profit organization covering the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

In 2019, before the pandemic, NCAA Division 1 sports alone generated $15.8 billion in revenue. Colleges with football teams can expect to earn an average of $31.9 million per school. The average March Madness game had 10 million viewers. There are dozens of NCAA video games that help bolster the nonprofit’s over $900 million budget.

So you are a slow organization that is slow to respond to change. The President is former Governor and GOP member Charlie Baker. He’s a Republican while the Grand Old Party in Congress is icy moving toward a more modern and data-centric approach to marijuana.

So it’s a big deal when an NCAA panel asks the association to remove cannabis from its list of prohibited drugs and testing protocols. The tests have been conducted since 1986. The NCAA Committee on Competitive Protection and Medical Aspects of Sport said testing should be limited to performance-enhancing drugs, noting that cannabis does not enhance performance.

just wow.

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The committee also asked the NCAA to halt testing for cannabis at championship events while changes are considered. No decision has been made yet, but is being reviewed.

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The rationale for considering the change was set out at the Cannabinoids in College Athletics Summit in December 2022 and includes the consensus that cannabis is not a performance-enhancing drug and a harm reduction approach to cannabis is best implemented at the school level. Other justifications were:

• The focus is on studying substances that provide an unfair advantage by enhancing athletic performance.
• Transition to a harm reduction philosophy for cannabis, similar to approaches for alcohol.
• Refocusing on institutional testing and how these tests support/enhance campus efforts to identify problem cannabis use.
• Educating student athletes about the health hazards posed by modern cannabis and its consumption methods.
• Identifying and explaining relevant harm reduction/reduction strategies for student athletes who choose to use cannabis legally.

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To be removed from the NCAA list of prohibited drugs would require the three governing bodies of the NCAA divisions to introduce and pass legislation. The NCAA is reviewing this and will make a final decision in the fall.