WADA softens stance on marijuana

The World Anti-Doping Agency has raised the threshold for a positive marijuana test, significantly reducing the likelihood of detection for athletes who use the drug.

In a May 12 meeting of its Executive Committee and Foundation Board in Montreal, WADA focused on final revisions of the agency’s code, which is scheduled to be updated in 2015. WADA moved the threshold for a positive test for marijuana from 15 nanograms per milliliter to 150 ng/ml. That means that athletes who use marijuana weeks or months before an event would be far less likely to test positive under the revised threshold than those who would use the drug in the hours or days before competition.

“We wanted to focus on the athletes that abuse the substance in competition,” said Julie Masse, WADA’s director of communications, from her office in Montreal. “This should exclude cases where marijuana is not used in competition.”