Olympic Marijuana Ban Smoked

NAGANO, Japan: Does marijuana enhance the performance of a snowboarder? A slim majority in the International Olympic Committee believes it does, and voted yesterday to strip Canadian Ross Rebagliati of his gold medal after he tested slightly above the International Ski Federation’s threshold. But the Court of Arbitration of Sport overturned that decision today, ruling that Rebagliati would keep his medal.

In a rebuff to the IOC, the court ruled that the Olympic body had no business testing athletes for marijuana — good news for a hemp-friendly snowboarding community that had gotten all fired up over Rebagliati’s disqualification. The Japanese police were less forgiving, however, interviewing the athlete and searching his room for traces of the illegal substance. Rebagliati claims he hasn’t used marijuana in 10 months, and that the traces in his bloodstream came from secondhand smoke.