In another lifetime, nearly two decades ago, I took my first and only drug test for a job. By any standards, I failed it; in a bout of desperation, I’d smoked a couple bowls with one of my best friends about two weeks earlier, when I was sure I hadn’t gotten the gig I wanted so much, because I hadn’t heard from my would-be boss by his self-imposed deadline. I wasn’t much of a pot smoker—booze was my intoxicant back then, but on that day in November 2003, when I was certain I’d missed out on what I was sure would be a life-changing opportunity, when my former roommate handed me that artisan-crafted glass pipe filled with fragrant cannabis flower, I stared at it for a moment, and thought, Fuck it. What do I have to lose? and sparked the lighter. When I got the job offer a few days later, my excitement was quickly tempered by the realization that it would soon be rescinded.

I was shocked when I was called with a start date two days after peeing in that cup. Despite finding THC in my urine, the company hired me anyway. It was indeed the life-changing job I’d hoped it would be. It was the job that got me out from behind the bar, and it was the job that, two years later, propelled me back to college after five years dropped out, thanks to the encouragement of my boss and his boss above him, who’d both become great mentors, tipping the first educational domino that would lead me to graduate school, Ellen DeGeneres’ couch, and eventually, here to Daily Kos. 

Once I felt safe enough in my position to do so, I asked my boss about the failed drug test. “It was just weed,” he said. “You were the best candidate by far. Seemed silly to knock you out of the running for that.”

If only American sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson could be so lucky. 

Richardson’s losses and stakes are far greater than mine ever were: She toked to cope with the death of her biological mother, and she lost the chance to represent her country in the Tokyo Olympics next month in the 100 meters.

As my colleague Walter Einenkel noted Friday, Richardson, 21, has owned her behavior entirely; sports writers, athletes, and even sponsor Nike have voiced support for her, and decried the idea that marijuana is a performance enhancer. 

It’s not lost on many that if Richardson had opted to drink her way through her grief, she’d still be eligible to run in Tokyo, where she was expected to give Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce a fair fight for the top spot on the Olympic podium. 

Ellis is correct. Alcohol, despite being far more dangerous than cannabis, typically clears the system in a matter of hours, according to the Cleveland Clinic. More importantly, in our society, athletes are allowed to be boozehounds, though there’s talk of limiting alcohol use in Tokyo’s Olympic village—but that’s due to COVID-19, not concern about athletes’ performance.

Champagne and beer spraying is so deeply baked into American sports culture that tarps, face shields, and goggles are a staple in locker rooms after a big win.

Such celebrations are deeply normalized.

This feels like a good time to mention that my drug test was for a job in alcohol sales. 

Of course, American sports leagues have adapted to the realities of cannabis, which can provide pain relief to sore bodies and help keep elite athletes off of opiates, as well as offer stress relief, so I suppose such boozy celebrations are not a matter of complete hypocrisy.

Thankfully, Richardson has one more chance to run for gold in this summer’s Olympiad, because the 4 x 100 relay team will be chosen outside of her 30-day suspension. There’s no doubt she’d crush it on her leg of such a race. I, for one, hope that’s exactly what happens.

At 21, Richardson’s also young enough to compete in 2024, barring injury, and assuming she opts to continue a life of rigorous training. And thanks to the pandemic delay of Tokyo 2020, trying for Paris 2024 would be a three-year endeavor for the sprinter, rather than four. 

It doesn’t make Richardson’s suspension seem any more fair or right. It doesn’t make the death of the woman who gave birth to her any easier to cope with, or the lost dream of this Olympics any easier to process. It doesn’t make the USA and World Anti-Doping Associations’ stance on cannabis—namely that the plant is a performance enhancer because it “reduces anxiety, allowing athletes to better perform under pressure and to alleviate stress experienced before and during competition”—make any more sense.

But we all know that hope is something that can keep us going. And by Paris 2024, or even Beijing 2022, we may see changes to these stupid rules, or at least the punishments for breaking them.

May Sha’Carri Richardson, and other athletes who see benefits from cannabis, or choose it over alcohol, be so lucky.