Gifted athlete Sha’carri Richardson is punished for making a good choice.
Drug policies have never been about drugs. The war on drugs, now 50 years old, can be described as nothing other than an abject failure. The latest manifestation of this is the banning of Sha’carri Richardson from the Olympics. Richardson is a 21 year old young adult and gifted athlete. She was considered a favorite to win gold at the Tokyo games. Instead, she is embroiled in controversy about use of cannabis. While a depressed nation sits in a post pandemic lull, looking for reasons to cheer, we instead get what can be described only as utter nonsense.
For decades we have been lied to about cannabis. From “gateway” to schizophrenia, we have endured stern warnings that are based in lore and racism, not science. The spectrum with “all of the perils” of cannabis-use is wide; from the after-school special where someone ends up doing a swan dive off the gym roof, to the DARE program sending untrained cops inside elementary schools to scare kids, it’s all crazy. On the innocuous end of the spectrum is an acquiescence to it being a safer drug, but even then it’s condemnation to a life of inert slack, sitting with video games seldom leaving the unkept environs of ones parents basement. While there may be anecdotal examples of these stereotypes, they all leave out the millions of people who use cannabis safely, without life impairment. Many of the naysayers sit in judgement with a glass of scotch in hand. So what gives with the latest lie?
Sha’Carri Richardson is a brilliant athlete. She was widely favored to win gold at the Tokyo Olympics and give a post pandemic nation something of which to feel good. Watching a young adult excel is something that can inspire us all. In a post 9/11 America, The Yankees in the World Series made New Yorkers and Americans feel like we were on the road to recovery, sports has that power. Watching this young woman win could have been that kind of experience. Instead, we get to watch Richardson be publicly shamed and disqualified because she had the audacity to use cannabis for some relaxation and stress relief.
There are so many great hypocrisies here. First and foremost, cannabis is now a “performance enhancer”? Wait, what? What happened to a life of Cheech and Chong caliber laziness? Additionally, Richardson said she was using cannabis to cope with the death of her mother. Were she drinking vodka, the Olympic committee would have been none the wiser and if they did know, nothing would have happened. Richardson made a good choice and for that she is punished? Sure the side line quarterbacks can sit and judge an athlete and morally pontificate that as a world class athlete, she can’t use anything. That’s a slippery slope.
The elephant in this collective living room is large and it’s breaking the furniture. Nero, fiddles away as Rome burns. What isn’t being said is that drug laws and policies have never had much to do with drugs but they have much to do with social controls, that’s always been the motivator.
All drug policy is successful to the degree to which we can be honest about it. The Olympic committee needs to join the modern world and reevaluate their list of banned substances. The old ideas about cannabis shouldn’t be the guiding principal for drug policy. It would be a massive help if the Olympics made statements about the benefits of cannabis use, using science and medicine instead of following the herd invested in reefer madness.
Ms Richardson did the mea culpa on TV showing that we still don’t get this. What she could have said was “yes, I used cannabis for relaxation and to help me sleep after the death of my mother. While there were other options, I felt this was the safest, I’m still a world class sprinter, I’ll be happy to debate this issue with anyone right after we have a race”.