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NCAA Schools Are Easing Up on Marijuana Policies

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What exactly is the punishment for marijuana use within NCAA’s Power Five athletic conferences? The Associated Press did an investigation to find out.

The AP found that at least a third of the 57 schools in their investigation have reduced punishments for testing positive for marijuana use and other "recreational drugs."

Twenty-three out of the 57 schools in the investigation have reduced penalties or allowed athletes to test positive more times before being suspended or dismissed since 2005. Ten of the schools have separate policies for marijuana use specifically, which are less harsh than others. In one conference, the Pac-12, five of the schools don’t suspend athletes for as long a period as they used to. These changes are likely a result of the country’s changing attitude toward marijuana use in general, as more states are legalizing the drug.

A bigger concern for these schools in performance-enhancing drugs—The Big Ten and Big 12 conferences do their own separate testing in addition to those done by the schools and the NCAA. The Big 12 also tests for recreational drug use, but simply notifies the school and leaves further action to them.

One Nebraska football player, Randy Gregory, failed a marijuana test at the NFL scouting combine last February. He told the AP that he and his teammates don’t worry too much about getting tested for marijuana use.

"I'm not saying that we were kind of like invincible," he said. "But they don't make it a big deal. ... They didn't really test you unless you had failed one and then after that, they test you weekly almost."

Gregory also said that sometimes his teammates using performance-enhancing drugs would get lucky and wouldn’t be one of the people tested.

The NCAA suspends athletes for a full season for failing a performance-enhancing drug test. NCAA medical chief Dr. Brian Hainline said the organization should focus on athletes using PEDs and let the schools deal with other drugs themselves, since drugs like marijuana are unrelated to cheating.

"Maybe we look at recreational drugs differently, that we don’t test for them at championships anymore but that we look at recreational drugs as an issue that really is a social issue, moral issue, health issue. It’s not a cheating issue," he told the AP.

The NCAA is making a clear distinction between recreational drug use and cheating. What do you think about these changing policies, collegiettes?


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