Spanish Athlete Banned For 2 Years After Failing Test For Marijuana

Spanish Water Polo player Jeronimo Firpo Cabeceran was handed a two year sanction from the Spanish Anti-Doping Agency (AEPSAD) for a positive doping test in February of this year.

Cabeceran was tested on February 21, 2015 during the Liga de Division de Honor de Waterpolo held in Madrid. He tested positive for Carboxy-THC, the active agent in the popularly abused street drug, marijuana.

Carboxy-THC is classified under Class S.8 Cannabinoids in the 2015 WADA Anti-Doping Code. Natural cannabinoids such as cannabis, hashish, and marijuana are all included in WADA’s S8 category, as well as synthetic cannabinoids such as “spice.”

The Mayo Clinic says that the active agents in marijuana have a long half-life and can be detected in urine for more than 7 days after a single use. If there is chronic use of the drug, the detection time can be longer than that.

This ban was passed out by the Spanish Anti-Doping Agency but will also be enforced by FINA. Cabeceran’s two-year suspension began on August 21, 2015 and will continue through August of 2017.

 

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Joel Lin
8 years ago

Marijuana dulls the pain while you are doing something? Oh sure, but the only thing you can really do well at that time is eat snack foods. Not seeing it as anything but a recreational drug incident. He made a mistake, but this sanction is silly.

PsychoDad
Reply to  Joel Lin
8 years ago

Yes, but eating snack food while swimming will get you disqualified in breaststroke and butterfly events. However, he is a waterpolo player, and reaching for nuts is part of the game, so you would think swimming stoned would help him. Maybe good folks in WADA got it right?

SwimSam
8 years ago

This seems a little harsh for something that would probably be more of a hindrance than a help. I have to wonder, if/when marijuana gets legalized, will it be looked upon with greater scrutiny in the athletic world since it will finally be able to be tested? Especially in a sport that, at least at the NCAA level, lots of people use it.

Catherine
8 years ago

^quite not quit

Catherine
8 years ago

I don’t quit get the wording “This ban was passed out by the Spanish Anti-Doping Agency but will also be enforced by FINA. ” does this mean that the Spaniards decided on the length of the ban, not FINA? Would that explain why Phelps got a couple of months, not 2 years? If someone smoked marijuana in one of the states that have legalized it (I mean Colorado) would they get a FINA ban?

Admin
Reply to  Catherine
8 years ago

Catherine – that’s what it means. I don’t have an exact number, but a significant portion of the bans of aquatic athletes are not handed out by FINA, rather by national bodies.

Yes, you can be banned for having a legal substance in your body if it is against the World Anti-Doping Code regulations. The first Olympic athlete to test positive for the use of performance-enhancing drugs was a Swedish pentathlete, Hans-Gunnar Lijenwall, who los his bronze medal for alcohol use in 1968, for example.

Everyone presumes that marijuana is a hindrance to performance rather than an aid, but that would neglect its ability to calm an athlete’s nerves before competition and its possible (though scientifically controversial) ability to dull… Read more »

M Palota
Reply to  Braden Keith
8 years ago

“Everyone presumes that marijuana is a hindrance to performance rather than an aid, but that would neglect its ability to calm an athlete’s nerves before competition and its possible (though scientifically controversial) ability to dull pain.”

If relaxation and “dulling pain” pain are reason to ban pot then why isn’t alcohol banned, too?

It’s a rhetorical question: No need to answer.

There is something stunningly rich – in the very ironic sense of the word – with a water polo player being banned for two years for toking up while Ming Zhou is back on the deck in China.

Joel Lin
8 years ago

WADA is a puppy looking for a pant leg to chew on.

I don’t endorse pot smoking, but let’s get real and acknowledge it is not performance enhancing in any way ad sanctioning this the same or more as doping or other PED offenses is dumb.

The deserved sanction here should be the swimming equivalent of a traffic offense and a probation period where any further offense would mean a material suspension period. That would be plenty good enough to scare a guy smoking weed straight from doing it again.

Lazy Observer
8 years ago

Not a huge fan of self medicating, but it does strike me as odd that the cost is so high for something that clearly works against your abilities and performance.

confused
8 years ago

Spanish Anti-Doping Agency > Russian Anti-Doping Agency….Guy suspended two years for something one can argue is nowhere near performance enhancing, while Russia has been cheating for the last three years and have yet to be banned from Rio..smh

PsychoDad
8 years ago

I am against marijuana criminalization in life and sports, but at least they are consistent – Phelps got 2 years and it is only fair for unknown Spaniard to get 2 years too.

Ferb
Reply to  PsychoDad
8 years ago

It’s totally fair that this guy gets a two-year ban, and Park Tae Hwan gets 18 months (which just happen to end a few months before the Olympics) for anabolic steroids.

About Tony Carroll

Tony Carroll

The writer formerly known as "Troy Gennaro", better known as Tony Carroll, has been working with SwimSwam since April of 2013. Tony grew up in northern Indiana and started swimming in 2003 when his dad forced him to join the local swim team. Reluctantly, he joined on the condition that …

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