By David Owen
May 16 – The number of positive doping tests in football may be set to fall significantly because of a change implemented by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). WADA this week announced a 10-fold increase in the threshold level for marijuana.
This is to be set at 150 ng/ml with immediate effect, compared with 15 ng/ml until now.
The change will apply in all sports, but the consequences may be especially visible in football because of the relatively high proportion of adverse analytical findings attributable to the cannabinoid class of drugs in which marijuana is included.
An article published on FIFA.com following a meeting between FIFA President Joseph Blatter and John Fahey, his opposite number at WADA, in Zurich in February, said that cannabinoids accounted for 40 of the 119 adverse analytical cases registered by WADA in football worldwide in 2011.
This was out of more than 28,500 doping samples registered in the sport in total.
By way of comparison, cannabinoids accounted for 7.9 percent of adverse analytical – and atypical – findings reported by accredited laboratories across all sports in 2011.
Speaking to Insideworldfootball in a personal capacity, Dr Michel D’Hooghe, chairman of FIFA’s Medical Committee, said he was disappointed by the change because he thought social drugs such as marijuana ought to be forbidden.
This was to protect the general health of young people and because they could constitute a risk to an opponent if a marijuana user was not completely in control of what they were doing.
According to WADA, the change in threshold level would mean that athletes using the substance in-competition would be detected.
It said the substance had never been prohibited out-of-competition.
There was though no guarantee, WADA said, that an athlete who used marijuana shortly before a competition would not test positive, since it might remain in their system for a longer period.
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