USA today reports in an article “NCAA drug testing shows increase in pot use”:
“Although the positives represent less than 3% of the total samples tested by the NCAA, the increase worries Travis Tygart, CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which is the national anti-doping organization for the Olympic movement.
“Tygart said with medical marijuana use on the rise and increased calls in some states for legalization of the drug, more positive tests for athletes are not surprising…”
The whole discussion is amazingly naive. The huge…immense… yes terrifying problem with today’s college youth is the large proportion who binge drink over the weekends. This is rampant at the best universities and colleges, with traditional dating being replaced with weekend promiscuity.
College officials don’t talk much about this, let alone do much. Isn’t the drinking age 21?
Students smoking a joint while they socialize is one heck of a lot safer and more desirable than downing half a dozen shots of whiskey or two quarts of beer.
As for athletes and other pain sufferers, marijuana often helps allay their pain better than the high price prescription pain medicine. Of course, the pharmaceutical companies have long been major funders and supporters of the War on Drugs in order to suppress the use of marijuana. What red blooded American businessperson doesn’t want to ban his or her competitor?
This phenomenon is at far away campuses. It is universal…yes, even here in bucolic Lancaster.
NewLanc doesn’t espouse the use of any drugs, be they tobacco, alcohol, marijuana or hard drugs, with the exception of the use of marijuana for the treatment of pain and other medical problems. (The Watchdog does indulge almost daily in a bottle of beer, a glass of wine and, this time of year, a gin and tonic.) But we would much rather have our youngsters smoke pot than binge drink. And it triples our concerns if they are likely to be driving.
Wake up Lancaster! Wake up America!
