The NCAA Has Made Official Decision On Testing For Cannabis

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06/26/2024 03:07 PM

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA - JANUARY 20: General view of NCAA headquarters exterior on January 20, 2022 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)

Mitchell Layton/Getty Images

After announcing yesterday that its Division I council would be voting on cannabis testing for college football, the NCAA revealed the outcome of today's vote.

On Wednesday, the NCAA announced that it will no longer be testing players for cannabis ahead of championship games in college football. Any suspensions currently being served by players are reportedly going to be discontinued.

With cannabis now legal in nearly half of all U.S. states and long-since removed from the banned substance list in a number of major sports leagues, the NCAA's continued restriction against the substance has been looked down on as both archaic and draconian.

In a statement, Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman asserted that cannabis is not a performance-enhancing substance and should not be treated as one in terms of punishments. Whitman said that the focus of the Division I council is to direct policies towards "student-athlete health and well-being rather than punishment."

"The council's focus is on policies centered on student-athlete health and well-being rather than punishment for cannabis use," Whitman said, via KTVB.

The NCAA raised the threshold for the amount of THC one can test positive for to receive a suspension back in 2019. But it still resulted in several members of the Oklahoma football team receiving six-game suspension that season and carried over into the following one.

With this new policy, it appears that suspensions like that are a thing of the past.