SPEAKER_1: Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide.
SPEAKER_1: StarTalk begins right now.
SPEAKER_1: This is StarTalk Sports Edition.
SPEAKER_1: Today, we're going to talk about weed.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, I said it, marijuana.
SPEAKER_1: And what effect that has, does, should, shouldn't have in sports.
SPEAKER_1: And I got Gary O'Reilly with me.
SPEAKER_1: Gary.
SPEAKER_1: All right.
SPEAKER_1: Ex-footballer.
SPEAKER_1: Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_1: Football, as in soccer, I guess.
SPEAKER_1: Round ball.
SPEAKER_1: And Chuck.
SPEAKER_1: Chuck.
SPEAKER_3: Yes.
SPEAKER_1: Always good to have you, dude.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: Ex-weed smoker.
SPEAKER_3: Ex-weed smoker and current weed smoker.
SPEAKER_3: That's right.
SPEAKER_3: And future weed smoker.
SPEAKER_3: So yeah.
SPEAKER_1: So what we've got here today is, other than Chuck having been a former weed smoker and possibly future one, we don't have particular expertise in what role any of this plays in athletic competition.
SPEAKER_1: So we combed our, searched our Rolodex and we came back to one of our previous guests and it's Staci Gruber.
SPEAKER_1: Staci, welcome back to StarTalk.
SPEAKER_1: You're one of the world's experts on what marijuana does to the brain, to our thoughts, to our decisions, to our abilities.
SPEAKER_1: And let me just get your full title here.
SPEAKER_1: You're Director of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroimaging at the McLean Hospital's Brain Imaging Center and you're an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
SPEAKER_1: So that's, you sound, you got all the right stuff here and your research includes neurocognitive models and multimodal brain imaging.
SPEAKER_1: And the best part here is you're assessing risk factors of substance abuse and the psychopathology of it all.
SPEAKER_1: Did I get that right?
SPEAKER_3: You left out one thing, Neil.
SPEAKER_3: My hero.
SPEAKER_3: You left that part out.
SPEAKER_2: The only thing I would tell you is we started the MIND Program, Marijuana Investigations for Neuroscientific Discovery or MIND.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, I see what you did there.
SPEAKER_1: Very good.
SPEAKER_2: Because there was really no data up till very recently on the long term effects of cannabis when people use it for medical purposes as opposed to recreational or adult use.
SPEAKER_2: Really important distinction and factors into our talk today for sure.
SPEAKER_1: Very excellent.
SPEAKER_1: So we'll get right to it.
SPEAKER_1: I mean, I don't want to delay this any further.
SPEAKER_1: Many of us think about cannabis as a recreational drug and with very little sort of side effects to it from what's intended.
SPEAKER_1: And also medicinal use has been around for millennia as I understand it.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, thousands of years.
SPEAKER_1: And so let me ask you, let's get straight into this because this is StarTalk Sports Edition and Sha'Carri Richardson's Olympic band.
SPEAKER_1: She was the 100 meter sprinter that was tested positive for cannabis.
SPEAKER_1: And so she got booted from the Olympics.
SPEAKER_1: She's not in her key event in the Olympics because she tested positive for cannabis.
SPEAKER_1: So I have to ask and start off this segment.
SPEAKER_1: In what way does smoking weed increase your muscular skeletal reaction time and make you run faster?
SPEAKER_1: In what way does it enhance your performance in the 100 meter dash?
SPEAKER_2: And I'll tell you, most people say things like, hey, if you can smoke weed or use cannabis and perform and win, you should get something for it.
SPEAKER_3: Because you're two medals, you should get two medals.
SPEAKER_2: And to your point, you know, cannabis has been around for thousands and thousands of years.
SPEAKER_2: First documented use was as medicine, you know, and it was part of our pharmacopoeia since 1850.
SPEAKER_2: We prescribed it.
SPEAKER_2: Then it became illegal through a series of events that I know Chuck knows.
SPEAKER_3: You know, talking well, I know it.
SPEAKER_2: Right.
SPEAKER_1: They just let Chuck out of out of jail.
SPEAKER_1: He just got out, OK?
SPEAKER_2: The mid-90s saw us revisit this and California was the first state to legalize cannabis for medical purposes.
SPEAKER_2: But in terms of sports, you know, the Water List, the World Anti-Doping Association has cannabis on on the list of prohibited substances.
SPEAKER_2: And you know, there's been a lot about this, especially with regard to Chitauri Richardson.
SPEAKER_2: And I think you have to meet two of three criteria to be on that list.
SPEAKER_2: It poses risks to your athletes.
SPEAKER_2: It provides a performance and health risk, health risk that I think the I think the language is pretty open and vague.
SPEAKER_2: That's part of the concern here.
SPEAKER_1: I risk winning the sport.
SPEAKER_1: Okay.
SPEAKER_1: There's a risk for you.
SPEAKER_2: There you go.
SPEAKER_2: And it violates the spirit of the sport, which is one of those casual caveats that anything can fall under.
SPEAKER_2: But to your point, most studies to date document that one does not have improved, let's say, or faster reaction time or improved or increased coordination.
SPEAKER_2: Quite the opposite when we're talking about what we think of as typical conventional recreational or adult use of cannabis.
SPEAKER_2: That's not what we see.
SPEAKER_2: Individual constituents might confer some benefit.
SPEAKER_2: But when we're talking about flower, whole plant products typically used for adult or recreational purposes to change one's current state of being, we don't see improvements in reaction time.
SPEAKER_2: That's not what we see from a research perspective.
SPEAKER_2: And most of the science that leads us back to where we are now in terms of it being prohibited is a little bit questionable.
SPEAKER_2: And I think a lot of people are now taking a much closer look at exactly why it's on the list.
SPEAKER_3: So, so does this have anything to do?
SPEAKER_3: I mean, I don't want to get into the whole history of weed, but you know, and Reefer Madness and why that happened and, you know, being connected to Jazz.
SPEAKER_1: Reefer Madness, the the public service film that was produced.
SPEAKER_3: And going up before that is the connection between black people and white people coming together.
SPEAKER_3: Believe it or not, that was the problem.
SPEAKER_3: Forget all that.
SPEAKER_3: 2020, I believe they removed it from schedule one or I don't know if they actually removed it or did they take a vote?
SPEAKER_3: But I read about it sometimes.
SPEAKER_3: So can you tell me about that?
SPEAKER_3: Is that?
SPEAKER_1: And what is schedule one?
SPEAKER_1: Just put it on the same page there.
SPEAKER_2: So just a real quick history thing again, to your point, it was part of our pharmacopoeia.
SPEAKER_2: Reefer Madness really refers to a period of time in which the nation really fell under this spell, and there are a lot of psychosocial reasons that this happened and we won't get into it.
SPEAKER_2: But it fell out of favor.
SPEAKER_2: The Marijuana Tax Act made cannabis illegal, and it not only was removed from the pharmacopoeia, which doctors used to prescribe, not recommend or suggest, prescribe, it became illegal.
SPEAKER_2: In the 1970 Controlled Substance Act, it was placed in the most restrictive class, schedule one.
SPEAKER_2: Schedule one, which by definition, gentlemen, no accepted medical value.
SPEAKER_2: That's where cannabis sits today.
SPEAKER_2: Chuck, to your point?
SPEAKER_1: I'm sitting sitting right next to other drugs like what?
SPEAKER_2: Heroin.
SPEAKER_2: No, cocaine schedule two, sir.
SPEAKER_1: Chuck, did I ask you the question?
SPEAKER_3: I was just thinking about cocaine.
SPEAKER_1: Okay, so schedule one, what's who's to his left and who's to his right and schedule one.
SPEAKER_2: So cannabis is in schedule one alongside things like heroin, LSD.
SPEAKER_2: So no accepted medical value, which people have of course begun to question because individual constituents from the plant, this place is complicated.
SPEAKER_2: There's over 400 compounds.
SPEAKER_2: A hundred of these interact with our brain and body system of chemicals and receptors.
SPEAKER_2: The question is, if there's no accepted medical value, how is it that you have an FDA approved medication like Epidiolex, a single extracted purified compound for kids with pediatric onset seizure disorders that's not only FDA approved, but not in schedule one.
SPEAKER_2: So schedule one by definition, most restrictive class.
SPEAKER_2: And to your point, Chuck, cannabis remains illegal at the federal level.
SPEAKER_2: In 2018, you're thinking of the Hemp Act, the Hemp Act was passed, which basically said that all cultivars or chemovars, all plants basically of cannabis sativa L that had less than 0.3% THC primary intoxicating constituents of the plant is what gets you high.
SPEAKER_2: It's what our recreational or adult users are typically looking for.
SPEAKER_2: Every plant that had less than 0.3% THC by weight was okay.
SPEAKER_2: It's industrial hemp.
SPEAKER_2: Interesting shift that we've had because this is the proliferation that we've seen of CBD high products, products high in CBD that may or may not have THC up to a certain point.
SPEAKER_1: The IOC which banned Shaqari Richardson, where are they getting their information from?
SPEAKER_1: Are they getting it from?
SPEAKER_1: Who is it?
SPEAKER_1: WADA?
SPEAKER_1: What is the acronym?
SPEAKER_2: I think it's the World Anti-Doping Association.
SPEAKER_4: World Anti-Doping Agency.
SPEAKER_1: Are they getting their insights from the World Anti-Doping Association and are they getting it from outdated federal legislation?
SPEAKER_1: I mean, who's mind is in the store here?
SPEAKER_2: Another really great question.
SPEAKER_2: So the question is where does this science, where does the sort of evidence for this come from?
SPEAKER_2: And most people are turning back to some studies that happened in a review paper that was published in 2011, I think, and they lean into it pretty hard.
SPEAKER_2: And that was enough evidence to sort of maintain its current status.
SPEAKER_2: Whether or not it should remain there is something different.
SPEAKER_2: Again, I would say this, if we know that people who let's just think of people who smoke or vape cannabis for for fun or recreational purposes, is their reaction time faster?
SPEAKER_1: No.
SPEAKER_1: Do they even want to run in the race?
SPEAKER_1: No.
SPEAKER_3: Is there a competition where you can sit on the couch and eat doughnuts?
SPEAKER_2: But not everybody uses the same types of products, right?
SPEAKER_2: So here's the big distinction.
SPEAKER_2: So when people think of things like that and they ask the question, should this or should this not be prohibited?
SPEAKER_2: Is it performance enhancing actually?
SPEAKER_2: From that perspective, no.
SPEAKER_2: But some people have raised the following question, well, it relaxes people.
SPEAKER_2: It allows you to let things go.
SPEAKER_2: It's great for anxiety.
SPEAKER_2: Again, very low doses of THC, good for anxiety, higher doses, not so much, don't go there.
SPEAKER_2: Other constituents are great for that too.
SPEAKER_2: But if that's the case, if it's an indirect effect that we're seeing, it's not the same as a steroid, which allows you to build muscle significantly faster and with less effort, right?
SPEAKER_4: With an elite athlete, and we kind of bounced back into the Shikari Richardson scenario here, what difference would there be for them to consume THC as opposed to CBD?
SPEAKER_4: I know each individual athletes will react differently.
SPEAKER_4: I appreciate that much.
SPEAKER_4: But in a broad stroke, could you explain that to us, Doctor?
SPEAKER_1: And just to be clear, THC is tetrahydrocannabis.
SPEAKER_1: Is that what that stands for?
SPEAKER_2: It stands for delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, and it is primary intoxicating constituent of the plant.
SPEAKER_2: Again, lots of players here.
SPEAKER_2: The other big player, the other big player here that people have spent a lot of time and attention on is cannabidiol, or CBD, a primary non-intoxicating constituent of the plant, often touted for its therapeutic potential.
SPEAKER_2: So when we think about what could happen if you are exposed to large amounts of THC versus CBD, what you typically find is CBD, again, is not intoxicating.
SPEAKER_2: People use it for all sorts of reasons.
SPEAKER_2: There is very scant evidence here from a scientific perspective.
SPEAKER_2: As a neuroscientist, we like to have empirically sound data.
SPEAKER_1: Evidence matters.
SPEAKER_2: Evidence matters, exactly.
SPEAKER_2: And here, policy is outpaced science.
SPEAKER_2: So we want to be very clear about what these constituents do and don't do.
SPEAKER_2: And we don't know the whole thing yet.
SPEAKER_2: We really don't.
SPEAKER_2: It's a complex story, especially when we start thinking about multi-compound products, not just THC or just CBD, but the ways in which people typically use them, like Shaqari Richardson.
SPEAKER_2: So to your point, Gary, what do we expect?
SPEAKER_2: Again, products that are higher in THC typically are used for those who are looking for, from a recreational perspective, looking to change their current state of being or sort of take themselves out of something.
SPEAKER_2: CBD is not intoxicating.
SPEAKER_2: Would you find that somebody has any physiologic change after using CBD?
SPEAKER_2: There have been some preclinical studies suggesting that, and there are some human studies suggesting it, but the evidence is pretty, pretty smart.
SPEAKER_2: We have to do a lot more work in this area.
SPEAKER_1: All right, listen, when we come back after this break, this short break, what we really want to get to the bottom of is how is it that these chemicals that all extracted from weed can be banned or not banned, yet there's all manner of other chemicals that we take that do influence us physiologically that just get completely overlooked, like, for example, ibuprofen to get rid of pain or even coffee.
SPEAKER_1: So when we come back, we're going to see how does everything else we do and ingest measure up to cannabis on StarTalk.
SPEAKER_1: We're back, StarTalk Sports Edition.
SPEAKER_1: We're talking about cannabis, marijuana, and what role it can play, has played, should or shouldn't play in athletic competition.
SPEAKER_1: And we've got Dr Staci Gruber, not her first rodeo with us here on StarTalk.
SPEAKER_1: This time, we're just really trying to find out what's going on in the Olympics.
SPEAKER_1: How is it that Sha'Carri Richardson got banned?
SPEAKER_1: But more importantly for this segment, Staci, I want to know how is it that I can take sort of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug.
SPEAKER_1: N-SED.
SPEAKER_1: N-SED, okay, you got an acronym for that.
SPEAKER_1: Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory to N-SED.
SPEAKER_1: N-SED, yep.
SPEAKER_1: N-SED.
SPEAKER_1: And the Olympics, and they'll find that in my pee or however they measure it, and all is fine.
SPEAKER_1: Okay, but if I took a cannabinoid, that's bad.
SPEAKER_1: Don't they have similar effects on our bodies, and what's going on there?
SPEAKER_2: So, you know, they really, again, these rules, these regulations, these guidelines, I think are set in place sometimes in the absence of clear evidence.
SPEAKER_2: And in the case of an N-SED, which is very clearly used as an analgesic or a pain reliever, which also helps with inflammation, these are actually two things that people often use cannabis for.
SPEAKER_2: You happen to raise a really good point.
SPEAKER_2: N-SEDs are legal and they are not, again, sort of on the illicit substance, they're not in the controlled substance group and they're not in the CSA at all.
SPEAKER_2: So could someone make an argument that N-SEDs could themselves be performance enhancing because they help reduce inflammation or help with pain?
SPEAKER_1: Sure.
SPEAKER_2: Cannabis or marijuana I think is prohibited for a number of reasons.
SPEAKER_2: And they did change the amount of cannabis, it's actually a metabolite of THC that's detected in the urine.
SPEAKER_2: They raised the limit of detection from I think 15 nanograms to 150, but you may still test positive for THC.
SPEAKER_1: Well, wait, nanogram?
SPEAKER_1: That's a billionth of a gram.
SPEAKER_1: Nanogram.
SPEAKER_1: Did I hear that right?
SPEAKER_1: That's, oh my gosh, okay.
SPEAKER_1: That means they're really getting into your pee.
SPEAKER_1: I'm just saying.
SPEAKER_1: If they know nanogram contents in my pee, bam.
SPEAKER_4: I hope it's in a bottle first, Neil.
SPEAKER_4: So doctor, right, so here I am.
SPEAKER_4: I've gone into the lab and I'm being creative and I come up with a drug that's A, a stimulant, B, if I test it on mice could be proven to improve muscle growth.
SPEAKER_4: And if I mix it with water, it's rich in antioxidants.
SPEAKER_4: Would WADA ban this drug?
SPEAKER_1: WADA, again, the-
SPEAKER_4: World Anti-Doping Agency.
SPEAKER_2: That's a great question.
SPEAKER_2: I'm not sure what criteria they use because-
SPEAKER_4: Okay, what if I called it coffee?
SPEAKER_2: No.
SPEAKER_2: You know, I could make the same argument for so many things.
SPEAKER_2: Again, I have a feeling, and I could be wrong because I don't live in the WADA sort of bubble or in the International Olympic Committee, but I have a feeling this has a lot to do with the bank that cannabis remains schedule one at the federal level.
SPEAKER_1: That's what I was wondering, because if somebody thinks it's bad, then you don't wanna be the one who says it's not bad, right?
SPEAKER_1: Or maybe that they're afraid to be the first out of the gate on that.
SPEAKER_2: And I think that there have been some studies that have perhaps prematurely or perhaps without a huge amount of evidence behind it decided that it can in fact help people with their performance.
SPEAKER_2: So therefore it must be a performance enhancing substance.
SPEAKER_2: That has really come under a fair amount of scrutiny these days.
SPEAKER_2: And again, when you do a comparison between cannabis and other substances like alcohol, alcohol is not on the band list.
SPEAKER_3: So it sounds to me like water really should be what are you talking about?
SPEAKER_3: Or what are you out of your mind?
SPEAKER_3: Like that kind of is what water is.
SPEAKER_3: That's not it.
SPEAKER_4: So doctor, we kind of immediately default to an impairment of cognitive skills on using cannabis or marijuana.
SPEAKER_4: But are there, and I do believe the term that you use is downstream effects of cannabis use that could be seen as an aid to performance.
SPEAKER_4: Performance not being I run fast, I jump higher.
SPEAKER_4: But in recovery, I maybe aid sleep.
SPEAKER_4: Do we have those downstream effects from this drug?
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, and why not ban sleep?
SPEAKER_1: Because getting sleep enhances your performance.
SPEAKER_3: It's the best thing you can do for your performance.
SPEAKER_2: I think the best thing you can do actually across the board almost for anything, you know?
SPEAKER_1: Right, so we should ban it because it enhances performance.
SPEAKER_2: I think to your point, again, there's a difference between direct and indirect effects.
SPEAKER_2: And how do you start to measure what will or won't have an effect downstream?
SPEAKER_2: So some of these constituents have certainly been shown to be anti-inflammatory and help promote sleep, help reduce anxiety.
SPEAKER_2: Could those at some level help someone function day to day?
SPEAKER_2: Remember that athletic performance is also an extension of how that individual is any given day.
SPEAKER_2: This young lady was quite brave and quite open and honest and told the world why she used it.
SPEAKER_2: And I think most people had a rather visceral response like, ah, I get that.
SPEAKER_2: She also knew what the stated sort of guidelines were and did it anyway.
SPEAKER_2: The point is, who's to say what is and isn't going to have a downstream effect?
SPEAKER_2: We know that exposure to cannabis or certain cannabinoids, when an individual is very young, can result in some decrements.
SPEAKER_2: Absolutely true.
SPEAKER_2: Sure, that's not necessarily the case for individuals as they get older.
SPEAKER_2: And we've had some evidence to sort of contradict what we've seen in the recreational consumers.
SPEAKER_2: But again, the story is pretty unclear here.
SPEAKER_1: Well, how about this?
SPEAKER_1: There's some people, as we know, who have sort of genetic inability to process alcohol in ways that others do.
SPEAKER_1: Are there genetic variations in people's reactions to the cannabinoids?
SPEAKER_2: Cannabinoids, yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_3: And can I just dovetail on Neil's question?
SPEAKER_3: Can you, as you answer that, tell us about cannabinoid receptors in our brain?
SPEAKER_3: Because I've read somewhere that it's the only so-called drug, the THC being the psychoactive constituent, it's the only drug that actually our brain is already designed to latch on to.
SPEAKER_2: I heard that.
SPEAKER_1: I heard that too, I heard that too.
SPEAKER_2: People say I'm wired for weed.
SPEAKER_2: Look, quick primer, you have CB1 and CB2 receptors.
SPEAKER_2: They're part of the endocannabinoid system, a system of chemicals or receptors throughout the brain and the body.
SPEAKER_2: THC binds pretty effectively to CB1 receptors, for example.
SPEAKER_2: We also have things like mu and kappa receptors that are, again, are endogenous, but they are the targets for opioids.
SPEAKER_2: So, you know, it's not just cannabis, but to your point, the cytochrome P450 enzyme system in your liver basically dictates how you process things.
SPEAKER_2: And again, really great point, genetically, we are not all created equally.
SPEAKER_2: We're just not.
SPEAKER_2: And there are some groups that don't process alcohol, right?
SPEAKER_2: Some cultures, Ashkenazi Jews, for example, we don't have a ton of alcohol dehydrogenase, the thing that breaks down alcohol and allows us to process it effectively.
SPEAKER_2: So there are many people who are poor metabolizers of THC.
SPEAKER_2: And as a result, they are often very, very high for a very long time.
SPEAKER_2: These are the people here that say things like, oh my God, I was, you know, I was out of my mind for 12 to 14 hours.
SPEAKER_2: There are other people who metabolize so effectively and so efficiently, they can have 30, 40, 50 milligrams of a product and these edibles, and they don't show an effect.
SPEAKER_2: So we are not all created equally.
SPEAKER_2: And your genetic profile, your makeup actually really will dictate how you process these products.
SPEAKER_1: But I look at your list of three criteria, right?
SPEAKER_1: Does it, or was it the IOC's criteria?
SPEAKER_1: Does it have the potential to enhance?
SPEAKER_1: In New York City, W-A-T-E-R is pronounced water.
SPEAKER_1: So that's, I can't, it's hard for me to have this conversation.
SPEAKER_1: W-A-T-E-A, water.
SPEAKER_1: With water.
SPEAKER_1: Give me a, I need a cup of water.
SPEAKER_1: It's a very New York City accent.
SPEAKER_1: But, so these three criteria, does it have the potential to enhance performance?
SPEAKER_1: Is there a health risk?
SPEAKER_1: And does it violate the spirit of the sport?
SPEAKER_1: And I think coffee, you can put a check in all three of those boxes for coffee.
SPEAKER_1: And so, marijuana and other drugs also apparently, but they're outlawed.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, it's a huge disparity and one that people are really looking at much more closely now.
SPEAKER_2: And again, I think, you know, the other things, you have to have two of the three criteria.
SPEAKER_2: One is it violates the spirit of the sport.
SPEAKER_2: One is it poses risk to the athlete.
SPEAKER_2: And three, I mean, not in this order, it enhances athletic performance.
SPEAKER_1: The spirit of the sport is, I want to be as best as I possibly can be.
SPEAKER_1: That's the spirit of the sport.
SPEAKER_1: Faster, higher, stronger.
SPEAKER_1: That's the whole fricking point.
SPEAKER_4: Yeah, it's the mantra.
SPEAKER_1: Don't get me started on this.
SPEAKER_3: I thought the spirit of the sport was, I don't care if I win or lose if I smoke this weed.
SPEAKER_1: That's a new thing.
SPEAKER_3: That's the new Olympic motto.
SPEAKER_3: I'm gonna smoke this weed and I give a damn.
SPEAKER_1: No, here's what you do.
SPEAKER_1: No, you put a couch instead of that flying cat that rolling camera along the 100 meters.
SPEAKER_1: And you sit on the couch and watch other people race while you smoke.
SPEAKER_1: The couch Olympics.
SPEAKER_1: Staci, before we take a break, what about the sports where you can't be excited and pent up for it because you need the stability of precision such as in the pistol shooting or in archery?
SPEAKER_1: Can we say that cannabis enhances your performance because it settles your physiology in a way that doesn't make you nervous and then miss your target?
SPEAKER_2: I would take the opposite perspective, which is that cannabis isn't one thing and it doesn't have one effect for all people, right?
SPEAKER_2: Some chemovars or cultivars or products are actually in some ways stimulating for people and they feel more energized.
SPEAKER_2: They feel the term is euphorogenic.
SPEAKER_2: I wanna make, I wanna do, I wanna, I think we talked about this once before.
SPEAKER_2: So that wouldn't necessarily sort of support the point of settling.
SPEAKER_2: It would actually sort of go against.
SPEAKER_2: When people feel really blah or down, they often use a little cannabis that might be a product or a strain or a chemovar that influences or increases their energy.
SPEAKER_2: So that would argue against that.
SPEAKER_2: Not all products are the same, not all people are the same.
SPEAKER_2: And the ways that you use these products absolutely dictates the outcome.
SPEAKER_1: Okay, so the takeaway is weed is highly chemically complex and you can't generalize its effects as a product without thinking more precisely about the biochemistry of each of the molecules.
SPEAKER_2: That's exactly right.
SPEAKER_2: It's not one thing and it shouldn't be, one size does not fit all here.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, but to my point, if there's some sports where you need to be calm relative to other sports where you need to be up, this same drug could help you in one and harm you in another.
SPEAKER_1: Your performance.
SPEAKER_2: I think that would be true across multiple classes, yes.
SPEAKER_1: So enhanced performance doesn't always mean faster, higher, stronger.
SPEAKER_1: It can mean more laid back.
SPEAKER_2: And again, direct versus indirect effects, right?
SPEAKER_1: Exactly.
SPEAKER_1: We gotta take a quick break, but when we come back more with Staci Gruber, our marijuana expert up at the Harvard Medical School, and we're gonna see what the future of sports legislation looks like in the face of new science or not on StarTalk.
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SPEAKER_1: We're back, third and final segment for StarTalk Sports Edition, all about marijuana in sports.
SPEAKER_1: And of course, we can't do this without the singular expert out there who thinks about this, who measures people's brains, who has all the fluency necessary to settle these arguments, Dr.
SPEAKER_1: Staci Gruber.
SPEAKER_1: Again, welcome back, Staci.
SPEAKER_1: And continuing our deep dive into this, what is gonna happen with the future of sports legislation in the face of your research or more broadly research into the chemistry that might help us perform?
SPEAKER_1: But if not, it might help us recover from injury for having attempted to perform.
SPEAKER_2: Great question.
SPEAKER_2: I wish I knew more about how these agencies made their decisions in terms of the scientific literature.
SPEAKER_2: It is constantly evolving.
SPEAKER_2: Every day we have new reports, right?
SPEAKER_2: On different constituents or different approaches to addressing different symptoms or conditions using cannabis for medical purposes.
SPEAKER_2: How does that dovetail with our elite athletes and what they may or may not be using it for?
SPEAKER_2: Should there be a distinction in terms of what they're using and how?
SPEAKER_2: I think a lot of people are very interested in this and for good reason.
SPEAKER_2: It's important to be up to date and to let science guide the policies, to allow people to live the way that they live and to understand if certain things are very comparable.
SPEAKER_2: It's really difficult for people to understand why one thing would be banned and another would not.
SPEAKER_3: Is there a comprehensive study that's done or being done that lets us know exactly how cannabis will affect us?
SPEAKER_2: I think there are lots of different studies that are currently underway that look at different aspects, but part of the problem is that cannabis remains illegal at the federal level.
SPEAKER_2: So doing research, depending on the type of research questions you want to ask, is not as easy as you think.
SPEAKER_2: And when we're talking about anything that is a cannabis, chemo bar or cultivar, and its effect on whether it's athletic performance or all sorts of things, there's stuff that we know, and there's an awful lot that we don't know.
SPEAKER_2: The question will be, where does the intersection of some kind of benefit versus some kind of performance enhancement get made?
SPEAKER_4: So in 2020, Neil, the NFL, the NBA, Major League Baseball and hockey all said no suspension if you test positive for cannabis out of season.
SPEAKER_4: Now, in season, they said you get a fine.
SPEAKER_4: Now, they obviously have moved away from the WADA cannabinoids, bad, not happening, you're banned.
SPEAKER_4: So they must be using some kind of research, some kind of proven data.
SPEAKER_4: Yes, so we are at an elite professional level saying, that's cool, but we're going to stick you on the naughty step with a big fine, but with WADA, it's an outright ban.
SPEAKER_4: So there seems to be a lag between what's happening here in the US and globally for WADA.
SPEAKER_4: And I think there might be a reason, but I'd like to hear what the doctor's thinking is.
SPEAKER_1: And if it's NFL, NBA, MLB and NFL, that's the whole kit.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, that's everything.
SPEAKER_1: Especially the caboodle, it's all in there.
SPEAKER_2: Highly technical term, the caboodle.
SPEAKER_2: Don't forget the caboodle.
SPEAKER_2: You know, I think it's a great point.
SPEAKER_2: And I think that again, there is a sort of a philosophy and an approach to this.
SPEAKER_2: Remember that cannabidiol or CBD is not prohibited, but they changed the lower limit of detection from, I think it was 15 nanograms per mil to 150 for exactly this reason, I believe, to make sure that they were only looking for what they've considered current use, as in right before competition.
SPEAKER_2: How that gets determined is a pretty slippery slope, I think.
SPEAKER_2: And to your point, Gary, it's a very, very important distinction when we talk about global versus more local decisions that are being made here in the United States.
SPEAKER_3: And so I would say, though, I might conjecture that part of this is due to the fact that we have decriminalized marijuana on a state level pretty much everywhere, not to mention the however many teen, I don't know if it's 13 or 19, the last I checked, states that say, yo, man, you can go ahead and do this.
SPEAKER_3: So I think the removing of the removing...
SPEAKER_1: Is that what the legislation says?
SPEAKER_3: Yo, man.
SPEAKER_3: That's the way I read it.
SPEAKER_3: I read it as, hey, Chuck, go ahead.
SPEAKER_3: I think when you strip it from the penal code, that you allow people to say, okay, and you allow sports organizations to say, hey, you know, if this is not illegal, if it is not like a class felony or whatever it was, it's not criminal, then who are we to say, like, you can't do it?
SPEAKER_1: Right, so what really should be happening here at the risk of being kept an obvious is governmental legislation should actually lead the scientific enlightenment on this and then let the official sports organizations follow.
SPEAKER_1: If you're going to have sports organizations allowing it, but in principle, they could have allowed it decades ago.
SPEAKER_1: If the science was there, Staci, if municipal federal legislation is at the core of this that everyone then reacts to, what access do you have to the writing of laws and members of Congress?
SPEAKER_1: Shouldn't you have a seat at the table there?
SPEAKER_2: You know, I think a lot of us are trying to have a seat.
SPEAKER_2: I don't know that that's really the only pivotal point here.
SPEAKER_2: I think there are multiple points that are critical.
SPEAKER_2: You know, I think when you are involved in the conversation, you have a better chance of seeing things done comprehensively in a way that is centrist, that makes sense, that isn't motivated by other, let's just say, agenda items.
SPEAKER_2: I think it's very, very important.
SPEAKER_2: It's important to have...
SPEAKER_1: The emphasis on centrist, right?
SPEAKER_1: I mean, there's a point where you can land that is scientifically reasonable and sensible.
SPEAKER_2: You know, let science be your guide.
SPEAKER_2: There is truth in science, right?
SPEAKER_2: We know that.
SPEAKER_2: And not everybody believes that.
SPEAKER_2: But I think there is truth in science.
SPEAKER_2: And if you allow science and...
SPEAKER_1: You don't think there is, you know there is, and we all know there is.
SPEAKER_1: You don't have to have soft vocabulary on this show, okay?
SPEAKER_2: You allow the science to take its place and allow decisions to be based on evidence and not rhetoric or other things.
SPEAKER_2: I think it's a different landscape.
SPEAKER_2: It's a terribly difficult landscape to navigate with regard to cannabis in this country and across the globe, but especially in this country, the discord between federal and state regulations and it's created a lot of confusion.
SPEAKER_4: So if we think the problem lies with WADA, not water, WADA, World Anti-Doping Agency, the clue may be in the first of those words, world.
SPEAKER_4: Because as Chuck's highlighted, cannabis is pretty legal in just about every state.
SPEAKER_4: But world hasn't all come to that conclusion yet.
SPEAKER_4: There are countries around the world where marijuana is illegal.
SPEAKER_4: And so they have a problem that is so multifaceted, they are not probably able to solve it in one simple move.
SPEAKER_1: Because they are international, they need some international sensitivities.
SPEAKER_1: They can't all be in Staci's lab.
SPEAKER_3: That's a very good point, Gary.
SPEAKER_3: I didn't even consider that.
SPEAKER_3: So I have the answer.
SPEAKER_3: We must get the leaders of that country high.
SPEAKER_1: Why didn't I think of that?
SPEAKER_1: Diplomatic solution.
SPEAKER_3: I love it.
SPEAKER_3: The next UN General Council, I will be there.
SPEAKER_3: What's up, y'all?
SPEAKER_4: Handing out the...
SPEAKER_4: The next UN General Meeting is going to be held in a park across the street.
SPEAKER_1: Wait, wait, if you got them all high, that would end all war.
SPEAKER_1: There'd be more solved by that.
SPEAKER_2: Instead of things like a G20 Summit, you could ask for an OG20 Summit.
SPEAKER_3: Nice, and it wouldn't be OG20.
SPEAKER_3: It'd be OG420.
SPEAKER_3: What?
SPEAKER_1: We just solved world peace here on StarTalk.
SPEAKER_2: People need to get on board for sure and come together and review what we know, what we don't know.
SPEAKER_2: Then whatever we don't know, we should address specific empirically sound research studies to help clarify.
SPEAKER_1: Staci, I say this because I've been invited to various committees and commissions that serve Washington interests because I have expertise that they value.
SPEAKER_1: It's not a weird thing for someone with expertise to be brought into the room.
SPEAKER_1: I'm going to vote you into Congress.
SPEAKER_1: How about that?
SPEAKER_1: It will be on the weed ticket.
SPEAKER_2: I have testified at Congress previously and I very often contributed and I continue to do that in lots of different ways.
SPEAKER_2: I'm happy to continue that.
SPEAKER_1: Forgive me for even thinking that had not already happened.
SPEAKER_2: To your point, we really need a little bit more science and a little less rhetoric to help guide the discussions both in this country and across the globe.
SPEAKER_1: Well, I think Chuck solved that.
SPEAKER_1: So I think part of the problem is regardless of what Congress does, there are influential politicians who might think one way or another about it and they have their followers who just do what they say.
SPEAKER_3: Even our president, actually, even our president, who I think has done a great job in shepherding us through this COVID crisis.
SPEAKER_1: Thinking about the science as it relates to it.
SPEAKER_3: He is adamantly opposed to marijuana being decriminalized on a federal level.
SPEAKER_1: Because he's the Reefer Madness generation.
SPEAKER_1: That's why.
SPEAKER_3: I just love the term Reefer Madness.
SPEAKER_4: So are we still in the wake of the war on drugs and we're waiting to get out of that wash to find a cause?
SPEAKER_1: That spills into sports committees.
SPEAKER_2: I think a lot of folks are taking a much closer look these days.
SPEAKER_2: But again, there is the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
SPEAKER_2: The ideas and scientific evidence that allow people to make good, sound decisions needs to be up to date.
SPEAKER_2: And it needs to be read and understood.
SPEAKER_3: Can we just extend that to everything that we do?
SPEAKER_3: It's just everything that we do.
SPEAKER_3: Let me ask this though, because I know we're running short on time.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, we're running really short.
SPEAKER_3: I have seen people get very upset and heated in this debate.
SPEAKER_3: And they talk about the fact that marijuana is indeed addictive.
SPEAKER_3: And the reason why it should not be allowed for use.
SPEAKER_1: Or it's a gateway as a gateway drug.
SPEAKER_3: Because you can become addicted to it.
SPEAKER_3: And that it is indeed a gateway.
SPEAKER_3: And all of those things, those tropes that we've heard, can you just talk about it?
SPEAKER_3: I don't care if it's true or not.
SPEAKER_3: Just from a scientific standpoint.
SPEAKER_1: What does that mean, Chuck?
SPEAKER_1: Give me an answer whether or not it's true.
SPEAKER_3: What the hell kind of...
SPEAKER_2: Here's a giant essay type question.
SPEAKER_2: I don't care whether it's true or not, but can you talk about it?
SPEAKER_1: Comparing contrast.
SPEAKER_2: Two schools of thought is cannabis or marijuana addictive.
SPEAKER_2: There are certainly people who wind up with what we call cannabis use disorder.
SPEAKER_2: In the old days, we would call it abuse versus dependence.
SPEAKER_2: Now we have a new term, cannabis use disorder.
SPEAKER_2: And the numbers of individuals who use cannabis, who wind up with cannabis use disorder, vary depending on the study that you're looking at.
SPEAKER_2: And it's really important to keep in mind that you have to actually meet the people who are using the cannabis and talk to them about their use, as opposed to just assuming that because they use daily, they must have a use disorder first and foremost.
SPEAKER_2: Number two, gateway phenomenon, gateway hypothesis, gateway theory.
SPEAKER_2: The use of cannabis will obviously lead to the use of harder drugs, because people who use cannabis or people who use heroin often use cannabis first.
SPEAKER_2: That doesn't mean that the use of cannabis led to heroin use.
SPEAKER_2: In terms of the receptors in your brain, again, these things get turned on in terms of exposure to certain substances, like drugs or sugar or sex or all sorts of things.
SPEAKER_2: So the gateway hypothesis is one that I think most people have sort of let go of at this point.
SPEAKER_2: There's not really great evidence suggesting that one leads to another.
SPEAKER_2: Is there an overlap in those who use, let's say, quote, harder drugs who have used cannabis?
SPEAKER_2: Sure.
SPEAKER_2: And why is that?
SPEAKER_2: Usually that's more a factor of their sort of psychosocial experiences and people who are...
SPEAKER_1: Or just practicality.
SPEAKER_1: My first drug is probably not going to be heroin.
SPEAKER_1: It's going to be some other drug.
SPEAKER_1: So, B implies A, but A does not give you B, right?
SPEAKER_1: In that case.
SPEAKER_2: So, the transitive property A equals B, B equals C.
SPEAKER_2: So, A equals C, but not in this case.
SPEAKER_2: I don't think there's a huge amount of support for it.
SPEAKER_2: Absolutely clear cannabis leads to the use of harder drugs.
SPEAKER_2: I don't think that that's really been well-prepared.
SPEAKER_1: All right, guys, we got to end it there.
SPEAKER_1: This has been wonderful, Staci, to have you back on.
SPEAKER_1: And this conversation is not going to end here.
SPEAKER_1: You know it.
SPEAKER_1: Marijuana is with us to stay.
SPEAKER_1: And it's going to show up in all kinds of ways.
SPEAKER_1: And you don't just have insights on sports.
SPEAKER_1: You have insights into all facets of society where marijuana could manifest and all of its chemical derivatives.
SPEAKER_1: So anyhow, I just want to thank you for being on StarTalk again.
SPEAKER_1: And Gary, Chuck, always good to have you here.
SPEAKER_4: Pleasure, Neil.
SPEAKER_1: Thank you.
SPEAKER_3: Always a pleasure.
SPEAKER_1: All right, this has been StarTalk Sports Edition, all about cannabis in sports.
SPEAKER_1: I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, as always, bidding you goodbye.