ncaa-pot.jpg
The NCAA Legislative Council reduced the penalty for testing positive in an NCAA-administered test for a street drug such as marijuana from a full-season suspension to a half-season. (Photo illustration by marijuana.com)
This just in: The NCAA Legislative Council on Tuesday approved unlimited meals and snacks for student-athletes. In a related story, the Council also cut the penalty for marijuana use in half.
Happy National Student-Athlete Day!
OK, technically National Student-Athlete Day was April 6, but it's celebrated all month. Who says the NCAA doesn't have a sense of humor?
The all-you-can-eat legislation got most of the headlines, especially coming so soon after Shabazz Napier, the UConn guard and Final Four Most Outstanding Player, told the world that he and his teammates sometimes went to bed hungry.
People were quick to jump to the conclusion that
,
If, as required and expected, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors gives the final approval April 24, student-athletes on scholarship and walk-ons alike will never go hungry again. Because sometimes three meals a day or a food stipend, which a scholarship has covered, just isn't enough.
Sometimes, or so some ad wizard for Taco Bell wants you to think, you need a FourthMeal. So the kinder, gentler Legislative Council said, "Let them eat cake. It's on us."
Makes sense. Fill their stomachs to distract them from the emptiness of their wallets.
But the NCAA Legislative Council didn't stop there as it approved a number of what it called "student-athlete well-being rules." One of them is an attempt to shift the focus on the use of street drugs from punishment to rehabilitation, which should earn plenty of applause.
At the moment, if the NCAA drug-tests you at a bowl game or NCAA Championship and you test positive for any of its banned substances, you're suspended from your sport for a full season. That's especially harsh when you consider that some schools don't suspended their athletes for a single game for a first positive test for, say, marijuana.
Under the proposal the Council approved and the Board of Directors must ratify, a positive NCAA-administered test for a street drug such as marijuana will get you suspended from your sport for only half a season. The full-season penalty will remain if you test positive for performance-enhancing drugs such as steroids.
"Street drugs are not performance-enhancing in nature, and this change will encourage schools to provide student-athletes the necessary rehabilitation," an NCAA news release said.
Half a season is still terribly punitive, but it's a positive move, especially considering the NCAA last year lowered the threshold for a positive test for marijuana. Could this be the first baby step toward the NCAA eventually
as
Maybe, but don't expect that kind of radical change anytime soon. Look how long it took the NCAA to give its athletes all the Snickers they can eat.