Pubdate: Thu, 23 Apr 2015
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2015 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/wEtbT4yU
Website: http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: Joe O'Connor
Page: A3

STONERS' STEROID

Olympian Rebagliati touts pot as a performance-enhancing drug

Ross Rebagliati had just finished smoking his seventh joint of the
day. But he was not high, he said, or stoned, or baked or whatever
else one might assume another human being would be after smoking their
seventh joint of the day - by 3:30 p.m.

"I am just keeping an even keel," Rebagliati said, adding that
cannabis use is all about individual tolerance and dosing. Smoke or
eat too much and a user risks feeling anxious, or paranoid. But the
1998 Olympic snowboarding champion who rocketed to fame in Nagano for
winning the gold - before rocketing to infamy for testing positive for
marijuana afterwards - definitely wasn't paranoid. He was kicking back
against a brick wall, and puffing away, in clear view of a Toronto
streetcar stop while an immense cloud of marijuana smoke hovered over
nearby Dundas Square.

The Whistler, B.C., resident had come east to add his voice to a pro
marijuana rally and to market some product - including a gold-plated
water pipe that retails for $24,420 - as the chief pitchman and
namesake behind Ross' Gold, a "premium branded medical cannabis."

Rebagliati's medical pot company is wending its way through the
government licensing process, leaving him plenty of time to
proselytize on the merits of marijuana as medicine, but also as a
performance-enhancing substance for elite athletes. That's right: a
steroid for stoners. "The stereotype of the pot smoker was pretty much
thrown aside when I came along in 1998," Rebagliati says. "I had short
hair. I was an Olympic gold medallist. I was in the best shape of my
life ...

"And for me, whether you are skiing, or snowboarding, or riding a road
bike, or working out at the gym, (marijuana use) puts you in the moment.

"You get in a zone where you can give it 110 per cent."

I know what you are thinking because, traditionally, science has
thought so, too: the only performance pot smoking will enhance is how
much pizza a person is capable of eating at a single sitting.

Studies have shown that THC, the main active chemical in pot - and the
compound that gets one high - impairs hand-eye co-ordination, reaction
times and the ability to concentrate. It also makes you sleepy. Not
ideal when getting ready for the big race.

But Rebagliati's ideas about pot and elevated performance aren't
necessarily the ramblings of a middle aged snowboarder - he turns 44
in July - who has smoked a few too many joints on the chairlift.

Mark Ware is an associate professor at McGill University and the
executive director of the Canadian Consortium for the Investigation of
Cannabinoids. He can't say whether cannabis boosts performance or not,
because the data doesn't exist. No studies have been done.

What is available are anecdotes, from the likes of Rebagliati, NFL
players, ultra-marathoners - and even professional cage fighters - who
say that using pot is an integral part of their training.

"We owe it to these people to follow up," the professor
says.

"These are very interesting ideas and hypotheses, and I would take
them very seriously."

Andrea Giuffrida, an associate professor at the University of Texas,
says cannabidiol - or CBD - another chemical compound present in
marijuana, may, in isolation, boost the production of endorphin-like
molecules during prolonged exercise.

Endorphins produce the so-called "runners high," a feeling of
euphoria, where an athlete transcends the aches and pains, and runs
free.

"But again, there is not very much science around this topic yet,"
Giuffrida said in an email.

Nate Jackson played six NFL seasons with the Denver Broncos. He smoked
pot throughout, using it to dull the pain, and as a natural
alternative to the handfuls of painkillers team trainers freely
dispensed. He has urged the NFL to remove marijuana from its banned
substance list, and believes that the drug boosted his performance -
though has cautioned that what works for one athlete could be a
disaster for the next.

"Some people get high and their muscle memory locks in and they feel
like they can't miss," Jackson told Men's Journal last year. "Some
people get high and fall apart."

Rebagliati was smoking weed at the pro-pot rally in Toronto as a show
of solidarity. For the most part, he ingests it. Mixing cannabis
infused honey with his morning coffee, in smoothies and other assorted
marijuana-as-food concoctions.

He has two young children now, with another due in July. So how will
pot enhance his parenting performance when, for example, his
six-year-old son hits 16 and comes home late reeking of marijuana?

"There is no sure way you can protect your kids from everything,"
Rebagliati says, sounding like a concerned dad, and citing studies
indicating marijuana use may impair brain development, especially in
young males. But as a parent, you just have to try your best."

Try your best, and maintain an even keel.
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