I don’t for the life of me understand why this rule exists. Weed doesn’t make you stronger.
Nor is Gwen Berry, but I’m pretty sure she follows the pattern mhendo is seeing.
I agree with the OP in all respects, but if you believe this line of garbage I have a bridge to sell you,
She had in fact just learned her mother had died FROM A REPORTER. It seems plausible to me.
What basis do you have NOT to believe her?
I have no doubt that she had a loss in the family, I don’t even doubt that she had some weed and booze afterwards. But this implication that this was an isolated incident brought on by uncontrollable grief is manipulative garbage. I think applying even a little common sense makes this obvious. Drinkers are drinkers, weed users are weed users. I happen to enjoy both on occasion and think every athlete should have the same freedom so long as it doesn’t get in the way of their obligations or embarrass their employer. But let’s face it, that’s just some spin thrown out there by a publicist to make her sympathetic.
I think you presume a lot and seem weirdly affronted based on knowing absolutely nothing about Sha’Carri Richardson and her situation.
And you seem to be a bit of a white knight.
Feel free to accept the trash the media feeds you at face value, cause the track record there is rock solid.
Y’know, I would not have much of a problem justifying rules about alcohol and events involving Ogdamned weapons without appealing to “performance enhancing”. Just sayin’ 
For relaxation, I’d go with massage, personally. And massage is usually encouraged for athletes.
I have to say that blowjobs, meditation, and massage do not leave traces that a blood test can detect, so they’d be hard to ban. Not sure about chamomile tea.
This is too personal for the Game Room. No warning but stay on topic and remember this isn’t the Pit.
RickJay
Moderator
It highly unlikely that he knows the woman in question or expects to win any favors from her. Without that aspect, “white knight” just means “someone who stands up for someone else,” which is entirely a positive trait.
Your claim is the one that doesn’t make sense. If she regularly partakes when she’s not supposed to, she would likely have been caught before now. It seems much more likely she remains clean.
Sure, maybe she also partakes during the off season. That would not contradict the claim that her current result is due to eating an edible after her mom died.
Now, if you’d argued she probably ate more than one or even actually smoked some? That would seem more plausible. But you don’t seem to consider the number of edibles or method of administration to be the issue. You just seem to think she must be a stoner.
I see no reason to come to that conclusion.
So, just call me a racist then.
I have no idea if you are one, so I don’t feel the need to call you one. I do think that the list of athletes that you gripe about is pretty narrowly focused, but I don’t have any idea as to your motives.
So why is Prozac not banned?
For world class athletes, there’s no off-season when it comes to drug testing.
Finding ways to relax is not prohibited. As to why one substances is allowed and other isn’t, I don’t know. My guess is that marijuana was put on the banned list since it’s illegal in many countries and had nothing to do with any performance-enhancing properties. But regardless, it’s on the list, along with lots of other substances. Many of those substances can be found in normal foods. That’s just something the athlete needs to keep in mind. They may have to avoid certain foods and nutritional supplements to avoid getting a positive drug test. In this case, certainly there were other ways for her to deal with her stress of the situation. It’s not like marijuana was the only way. It may have been the best way, but there are lots of other substances on the banned list which may also the best way to deal with whatever issue they address. Avoiding those substances is just one of the many sacrifices an athlete at this level needs to make.
Actually, that’s not quite the case for marijuana.
Marijuana is not banned (or tested for) all the time; it is banned only during competitions. From the New York Time article I cited upthread:
This is why I believe her story that she used weed during the competition as a way to cope with learning of her mother’s death.
I don’t see why it can’t be true that (a) she uses weed occasionally or regularly, and (b) she used weed on this particular occasion only because she was suddenly confronted with a personal tragedy, even though she would not normally use weed during competition because she knows it’s against the rules.
She never once said, “This is the only time I’ve ever used marijuana,” or “I’ve never done it before,” or “This was a one-off thing.” Her statement was that this particular incident was a result of coping with the death of her mother. I’m not sure why you find this so hard to believe, unless you’re looking for an excuse to ridicule her.
I’m also not quite sure why @dalej42 feels the need to call her a diva. She has not once expressed indignation or hostility at her suspension, or complained that she has been treated unfairly. She accepted it with more grace than most people would, she apologized to her fans and sponsors, and more than anything else she seems devastated that she has lost what might have been her best chance to be the fastest woman in the world, with all of the fame and fortune that would have gone along with it.
I was always under the impression that the title “diva” requires a certain sense of personal superiority and entitlement, a belief I’m above the hoi polloi and that the rules don’t apply to me the way they do to other people. I see none of that in Richardson’s response to this incident. Maybe there’s something else that makes someone a “diva” in @dalej42’s mind. It clearly not just playing in the NFL. Maybe he could explain his thinking.
I stand corrected. I wasn’t able to read the Times article.
I’m not an expert on testing people for marijuana use, but my layman’s understanding is that THC can hang around in the body for days after use, so it could be that athletes who compete on a regular basis do, in fact, need to stay off weed almost all the time.