Cannabis Control NBA 20/21 Season

Cannabis NBA controls have stopped. It’s not the first time it happens, in the Orlando bubble, too, they made the decision to stop testing players.

National Basketball Association, has made the historic decision to not carry out any cannabis control in the NBA during the 2020/2021 season, which will start on 23 December, almost two months later than usual.

“The NBA players’ union has decided to put an end to marijuana testing. This way we will focus on monitoring and controlling that players are not taking performance-enhancing products”, Mike Bass commentated, NBA’s spokesman. This is the second time in history that they decide to remove such controls. The first time was this same year in Disneyland Orlando, where NBA finals 2019/2020 took place due to COVID-19.

Up until now NBA was the only big north american league that penalized the consumption of marijuana. Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League stopped doing these random marijuana tests some time ago.

Yes to Cannabis in the NBA, but with control

It is worth noting that the NBA commissioner makes it it clear that -“we have to be careful and see what message is going through to young people. We surely have to teach them how to use products like the ones we have just decriminalized properly”. He added that -“from the NBA we have to think about the medicinal effects and what can of course help the players”. Until now, players received a five-game suspension for every three positive tests for marijuana.

Marijuana in sport

Millions of people know that NBA players are regular cannabis consumers. You should know that many of them do so for its medicinal effects. In most cases they consume strains with high CBD content, the famous medicinal cannabinoid. They do so to relieve stress caused by living in the world they live in. However, the vast majority do it to solve health problems and to end the pain caused by injuries.

Sportsmen who smoke cannabis, a normal thing in the NBA

CBD can solve many problems that traditional medicines cannot eliminate. CBD has different consumption methods like by smoking, in the form of vapor, with gummies or with other products rich in this cannabinoid. United States is one of the countries that does allow the ingestion of CBD.

Kevin Durant, a player for the Brooklyn Nets, too defends marijuana consumption and points out that “after games my teammates usually drink wine and other beverages, marijuana should be on the same level”. Durant added that the fact that the drug is decriminalized is not going to make you “try it or not. If you don’t want to try it, you won’t try it”.

Several bodies have decriminalized cannabis in 2020

This news comes just days after the United Nations, through its Commission on Narcotic Drugs, removed cannabis from Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and surely defended its medicinal effects. This comes on top of the favorable vote of the US Congress to legalize cannabis in the different states.

A couple of months ago WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency, made it clear that heroin, cannabis, ecstasy and cocaine will not be considered doping substances, if they are detected outside the competition environment. Therefore, the sanction will be much lower than in the past.