It Now Only Takes One Third As Much Marijuana—Or "Street Drugs"—To Fail An NCAA Drug Test

Maybe you thought the NCAA would be busy covering its ass for illegally paying Nevin Shapiro's attorney to help it gather information to incriminate Miami. But the NCAA is big enough that it can break its own rules while stupidly making other stupid rules even stupider. To that end, it's cracking down on the green menace.

Whereas you used to require 15 nanograms per milliliter of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, to fail a drug test at an NCAA championship event, it now takes just five ng/mL to get suspended. Why? The science has gotten better, and what's science for if not to ensure college kids can't have fun?

Here's NCAA Chief Party Pooper Medical Officer Brian Hainline on the changes:

"There is no good scientific evidence that marijuana is a performance-enhancing drug, and it makes both scientific and philosophical sense to treat marijuana usage by student-athletes differently than anabolic-androgenic steroid use. We want to deter use, but it is also our moral responsibility to try to change the behavior of student-athletes who may be abusing street drugs such as marijuana."

Street drugs! There's more bad news: the NCAA has closed a giant loophole, and will now test for synthetic marijuana as well.

Don't panic yet, normal teenagers of America who happen to play sports: you're probably still not going to get caught. Outside of championships, the NCAA barely tests anyone because of cost issues (for example, only 18 players in each football program are tested each year, and just once apiece). Instead the NCAA leaves more rigorous testing in the hands of the universities. The universities are able to decide which drugs to test for, how often to test, and even whether an athlete should be punished after testing positive. So keep doing those drugs!

[ NCAA]