Will skateboarding and cannabis go hand in hand at the 2020 Olympics?

Skateboarding will make its appearance in the ranks of competitions at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Problems: the skate spirit is more communal than competitive, and cannabis is part of the culture. Will WADA and the IOC adapt to this sport?

In 2012, Australia's professional sports coalition asked the World Anti-Doping Agency to remove cannabis from the list of doping substances. This letter remained unanswered, as WADA still considers cannabis to be a performance-enhancing substance that is contrary to the ethics of sport. However, it has decided to make a small gesture by raising the maximum THC threshold from 15 to 150 ng/l of blood.

A rather happy precedent

This development allowed competitors to consume during the months leading up to the competition, but not during the event itself. At the Nagano Winter Olympics in 1998, Ross Rebagliati won a gold medal in snowboarding. He was stripped of his title for having THC in his blood. His medal was reawarded because cannabis had been omitted from the list of banned substances. The Canadian weed enthusiast now runs his own cannabis brand, RossGold. His cannabis strains high in CBD will be available in U.S. and Canadian dispensaries in September 2016.

Doping controls would be a novelty for skaters, as they are not tested at Xgames, for example. Tom Hawk's rival in the 90s, Australian Tas Pappas, told Australian television that such tests could deter many athletes. He also reminds us that the spirit of skateboarding is open and prefers communion to competition: «In the skateboarding community, there are a lot of people who might consider the Olympics as old-fashioned. This country thing isn't like us. The community is unified, and when you meet a bunch of skaters, it's not us against them. It's guys and girls together with a skateboard.

Some skaters might boycott the Olympics, but no doubt many of them will be able to hold off consuming three weeks to represent their country. However, some athletes, In the United States, for the most part, people are calling for its use as a painkiller.