{"id":765,"date":"2018-04-23T18:28:59","date_gmt":"2018-04-23T18:28:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vpms1.humber.smartmanagedservers.com\/sweatspring2017\/?p=765"},"modified":"2022-11-17T21:12:10","modified_gmt":"2022-11-17T21:12:10","slug":"clearing-the-air-the-haze-around-the-upcoming-legislation-of-pot-and-the-ocaa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/clearing-the-air-the-haze-around-the-upcoming-legislation-of-pot-and-the-ocaa\/","title":{"rendered":"Clearing the Air"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Upcoming pot legislation puts a cloud on the governing of such drugs in the OCAA (Photo by Chihiro Miya)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The upcoming pot legalization and the OCAA<\/h3>\n

BY: OLIVIA MORRIS<\/h4>\n

Athlete\u2019s competing within the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association will still need to abide by anti-doping rules when Canadian Senate dots the i\u2019s and crosses the t\u2019s on weed regulation Bill C-45.<\/p>\n

Cannabis will remain a prohibited substance on the World Anti-Doping Agency\u2019s list when the Canadian government legalizes cannabis by around August 1, 2018. The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports (CCES) is already planning ahead for the anticipated change.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re developing some education materials to ensure that our athletes are not confused by the legal status and its status in sport. That information will be developed and disseminated to athletes in the education we do with them at the college level,\u201d CCES CEO and President Paul Melia says.<\/p>\n

OCAA President and Humber Athletic Director Ray Chateau says his athletes must comply with the anti-doping rules if they want to compete. Like the CCES, Chateau plans on creating a new section on cannabis use for their drug education meetings next season.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be some discussion around the health effects and performance implications [of cannabis],\u201d Chateau says.<\/p>\n

Compared to legal over the counter medications, Chateau says the claim that cannabis enhances performance is questionable. Nonetheless, he says there will be more emphasis on its legal status.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think they\u2019re going to realize performance advantage and considering that a number of them are in sports that require significant cardio levels, smoking anything is not positive,\u201d Chateau says.<\/p>\n

The Canadian Anti-Doping Program (CADP) adheres to WADA\u2019s Prohibited List, which is an international standard under the World Anti-Doping Code. In other words \u2013 if cannabis remains criminalized in many other countries it will continue to remain a prohibited substance within the OCAA.<\/p>\n

The CCES will continue to test for cannabis, but only during competition. Not so fast athletes. There are several ways to ingest cannabis and depending on how and when it\u2019s consumed may increase the risk of testing positive in competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarijuana is a drug that is fat soluble, so it is stored in the fat cells of the body,\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Melia says. \u201cFor a college athlete, if they are using marijuana the night before a competition it is quite likely it will still be in their system during the competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Midfielder Joren Ramsay-Marshall was one of three players randomly selected for testing in 2016. The Ontario University Athletics Wilfred Laurier soccer player ingested an edible within the week of the first game of the season that produced a positive urine sample.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they did come in, it was disappointing. I played more than half of the season and then I took a voluntary suspension\u00a0of two months to get it out of the way and get back to the team as soon as possible,\u201d Ramsay says.<\/p>\n

Ramsay agrees that cannabis should not be removed from WADA\u2019S prohibited list. His only request would be for the CCES to decrease the length of cannabis sanctions once the substance is legalized.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe threshold that they\u2019re looking for and the sanction should be a game suspension. If it\u2019s legal I just don\u2019t think it would be fair for us to have such long sanctions,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The rulings surrounding cannabis in sport could see a change soon as its beneficial properties can be used to treat pain and certain medical conditions.<\/p>\n

Doctor of Chiropractic and neurological rehabilitation Daniel Demian treats 30 to 70 athletes every week at the P3 Health clinic in Toronto. He says he\u2019d support leniencies being made for athletes using medical marijuana to aid in recovery.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the strains that we\u2019d recommend medically, like CBD, could be 10:1, 15:1 CBD to THC so you almost get little to no high feeling, but you get all the strong neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory effects,\u201d Demian says.<\/p>\n

Demian says finding a doctor with a good understanding of the health benefits of medical marijuana for those who qualify would be difficult. Depending on the injury, most medical doctors wouldn\u2019t consider the substance to be a practical solution for treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough to say because someone can say, \u2018I have performance anxiety\u2019 or \u2018I have a concussion\u2019,\u201d Demian says. \u201cThose two may be equally deserving of that, but it could be that people with performance anxiety could be transient and it also could be a huge percentage of the athlete population, so it\u2019d be very hard to regulate after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the Government of Canada, there are potential health risks with regular use of cannabis. Some of the short-term effects on the brain include confusion, fatigue and impaired ability to react in any situation. Those who regularly consume cannabis increase the risk of permanently harming their concentration and coordination.<\/p>\n

Professor at the Centre for Research into Sport & Society at the University of Chester, U.K., Ivan Waddington, was at the executive meeting in Copenhagen when WADA adopted the world anti-doping code in 2003.<\/p>\n

In 2013, he co-authored research paper on doping in sport titled, Recreational Drug Use and Sport: Time For a WADA Rethink?, which focused on cannabis offering no performance enhancing capabilities to athletes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost all of the leading biochemists in the field are unanimous that cannabis is not performance enhancing. You can\u2019t say athletes who use marijuana are cheating because they\u2019re not taking it to enhance performance \u2013 in fact, it doesn\u2019t enhance performance,\u201d Waddington says.<\/p>\n

Having written a number of doping in sport publications in his career, Waddington argues that banning recreational drugs is a way for WADA to regulate the private lifestyles of athletes away from the field. He also says the negative connotation associated with the word \u2018drug\u2019 is partly to blame.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir primary concern was ensuring athletes do not use performance enhancing drugs. If you start going beyond then you are not doing anything to maintain a level playing field in sport,\u201d Waddington says.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cThe ban on drugs, which was originally limited until 2003 to performance enhancing drugs, has since been extended to include non-performance enhancing recreational drugs. The whole debate about drugs in sport has been bound up with a debate about drug use in the wider society. It really has nothing to do with sport.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Athlete\u2019s competing within the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association will still need to abide by anti-doping rules when Canadian Senate dots the i\u2019s and crosses the t\u2019s on weed regulation Bill C-45.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,192],"tags":[158,62,87,6,135],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/03\/Cannabis-Olivia-1.jpg",1080,608,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/03\/Cannabis-Olivia-1-160x160.jpg",160,160,true],"medium":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/03\/Cannabis-Olivia-1-640x360.jpg",640,360,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/03\/Cannabis-Olivia-1-768x432.jpg",696,392,true],"large":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/03\/Cannabis-Olivia-1.jpg",696,392,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/03\/Cannabis-Olivia-1.jpg",1080,608,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/03\/Cannabis-Olivia-1.jpg",1080,608,false],"td_150x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/03\/Cannabis-Olivia-1-150x84.jpg",150,84,true],"td_218x150":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/03\/Cannabis-Olivia-1-218x150.jpg",218,150,true],"td_300x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/03\/Cannabis-Olivia-1-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"td_324x400":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/03\/Cannabis-Olivia-1-324x400.jpg",324,400,true],"td_485x360":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/03\/Cannabis-Olivia-1-485x360.jpg",485,360,true],"td_696x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/03\/Cannabis-Olivia-1-696x392.jpg",696,392,true],"td_1068x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/03\/Cannabis-Olivia-1-1068x601.jpg",1068,601,true],"td_1920x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/03\/Cannabis-Olivia-1.jpg",1080,608,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"sweatmag","author_link":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/author\/sweatmag\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Athlete\u2019s competing within the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association will still need to abide by anti-doping rules when Canadian Senate dots the i\u2019s and crosses the t\u2019s on weed regulation Bill C-45.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=765"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":915,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765\/revisions\/915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/sweatmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}