Cannabis so strong V8 driver stoned for two years.

Re: Motorsport: NZ Race Driver Banned After Positive Drug Test

The V8 driver was tested for the presence of metabolites of cannabis. The metabolites are the left overs, the residual chemical structure from the active ingredient. They are not proof of impairment rather the opposite, their existence shows that what ever THC (and any impairment associated with the unfamiliarity with the THC experience) has been used up, its gone, no longer active however they are proof, even at nanogram quantities that cannabinoids have been in this driver system.

Personally, I would rather work, recreate and take risks (and have done so many times) with someone who can make a rational choice to consume cannabis in a responsible manner than someone for whom other drugs, many of them legal, can have confounding effects.

The former UK top cop, Det. Chief Super, Eddie Ellison described cannabis testing of drivers as the logical equivalent of licking the exhaust pipe to see if the car exceeded the speed limit last week.

That every driver on the circuit is pumping with adrenalin, dopamine, testosterone and more is clear to me. Whereas alcohol impairment is not just limited to cognitive impairment post use, it can debilitate a drivers capacity to sustain high levels of these natural drugs hours and days after binge drinking.

Cannabis [in this case] is being hung out to dry while alcohol and prescribed drugs escape attention.

Notably, the winners podium will be awash with fermented liquors, the venue replete with the obligatory ‘drink more beer’ hordings, the chardonay set swimming in corporate liquid refreshments and, going by the glass in the waste bins, spectators similarly fueled.High powered double standards… (that evidentialy sets up every one for failure…)

see

Motorsport: NZ Race Driver Banned After Positive Drug Test
A New
Zealand V8 racecar driver has been banned after returning a positive drug test for a banned recreational drug. Dale Lambert tested positive for cannabis at the Manfeild round of the NZV8s in February 2007. Drug Free Sport New Zealand officials arrived at the circuit for the first-ever drug screening episode of the sport without prior notice and selected three Toyota Racing Series drivers and four NZV8 drivers.”Our members are subject to WADA’s list of banned substances and it’s the first time the agency has turned up at a circuit,” said MSNZ general manager Ross Armstrong. “It’s disappointing that we’ve had a positive urine test first time up but it reinforces to competitors that drugs will not be tolerated in the sport.” Unlike alcohol and other recreational drugs that leave the human system relatively quickly, cannabis can be found in tests up to 23 days later. Testing for alcohol at meetings has been put in place and any driver found with any trace will immediately be stood down. The anti-doping authorities are also concerned about the use of m###########ine or P.

After testing positive for cannabis, Lambert was advised of the result and the matter
was referred to MotorSport NZ for adjudication. Lambert did not appear at the meeting but sent a letter admitting taking the cannabis, albeit some considerable time prior to the test. The tribunal ruled the allegation was proved and Lambert was excluded from the New Zealand V8 championships for 2007-08 and his competition licence suspended until May 2010.For a sport where the slightest miscalculation or lack of concentration can put a driver in the wall, motor racing has been a little slow over the years in introducing mandatory random drug testing. Formula 1 has a random-testing system in place where at any meeting drivers can be tested.

Nascar also has a system but tests only on reasonable suspicion.Other forms of
the sport have various testing processes in place, but there are calls for more
more stringent procedures.

Source: The New Zealand HeraldCopyright: 2008, The New Zealand HeraldContact: Eric ThompsonWebsite: Motorsport: NZ race driver banned after positive drug test – 28 Apr 2008 – Motoring including motorsport, A1GP, news, reviews and comment – New Zealand Herald

Blair Anderson
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com

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Narcotic use and athletic ability

“People under the influence of marijuana (cannabis) perform poorly in virtually every sort of mental and physical task, especially athletics. The increase in heart rate after smoking pot decreases the body’s maximum tolerance for exercise, makes the smoker more vulnerable to fatigue, and makes breathing more difficult. It also causes slower reflexes, a distorted sense of time, poor vision, and an interference with depth perception. ”

see Narcotic use and athletic ability KGET TV 17:

If this is so debilitating why is Cannabis ranked in NZ sport as an evil “unfair” enhancing drug…. indeed, sports drug testing is only checking for evidence of THC metabolites… the logical equivalent of licking an exhaust pipe to see if someone has been speeding yesterday.

Secondly, this has not been my experience. Playing Ice-Hockey presents one of the most complete challenges to the above ‘debilitating list’. While the prejudiced might argue ‘I was deluded’ that doesn’t account for the fact that my entire team was likely stoned and that we were consistent winners. I would have to also say that the sense of timing, unity and corp de esprit was as good as it gets… and before anyone says “yeah, had you not potted yourself, you could have gone on to be another Wayne Gillespie, Bobby Orr, Hull… “, hold it right there. There is no evidence they didn’t smoke either. (is that a nice way of saying it?)

50% of the entire Australian Rugby League at professional level (it is reported) are regular tokers. Andrew Johns is a case in point with 10 years at the top of the of one of the most ‘athletic’ and physically demanding sports on the planet (aside from Ice-Hockey). Less demanding in some peoples eyes, Many international and ANZAC Cricketers have found solace in the humble herb.

Perhaps the rule has more to do with alcohol sponsorship than the harm prevention of displacing social and excess alcohol than earnestly ‘treating’ ones aches and pains, which cannabis clearly and evidentially does.

The social inequity in the above item, is based on pure prejudice absent FACTS given that the latest research from Switzerland shows that young people who smoke a bit of the popular grass are “more likely” to participate in sport than those who drink, smoke tobacco making the cannabis related material patently absurd. That we dismiss these otherwise law abiding folk from SPORT to send a signal (as if anyone was listening) only twists the double standards knife all the deeper.

Finally: Cannabis is not a Narcotic. End of story.

/Blair

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