A National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) committee is formally recommending that its divisional governing bodies remove marijuana from the list of banned substances list for college athletes.
The NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports said on Friday that members met this week and decided to advise all three of the association’s governing bodies to introduce and enact legislation to stop testing and punishing players for cannabinoids.
This comes three months after the committee first signaled its interest is formalizing such a recommendation. In June, it said members would be soliciting additional input before potentially taking action in the fall.
The committee said the rationale behind the decision was multifaceted. Ending the cannabis ban would 1) “acknowledges the ineffectiveness of existing policy (banning, testing and penalizing),” 2) affirm its belief that cannabis is not a “performance-enhancing drug” and 3) promote the “importance of moving toward a harm-reduction strategy.”
“The timing of discussion and adoption of possible legislation is a decision that will be made by each of three NCAA divisional governance structures,” the panel said on Friday. “This recommendation is based on extensive study informed by industry and subject matter experts (including doctors, substance misuse experts and
Read full article on Marijuana Moment
