Smoking marijuana decreases reaction time, alertness and impairs memory. It speeds up muscle fatigue, thus reducing the duration of exercise an athlete can sustain. Alterations in appetite and food cravings because of marijuana intake can negatively affect nutrition and body weight. Therefore, smoking bhang can be detrimental to athletes' performance, and these negativities should help athletes avoid it. The various significant factors that can hinder the usage of cannabis in athletes have often received minimal attention. There are no approved medications for cannabis treatment, with renowned remedy methods including inspirational interviews, preventing relapse, and contingency management.
There is a paradox when considering the impacts of cannabis on athletic performance. Some athletes believe that it may have benefits despite tangible evidence that using cannabis for recreation can severely affect psychomotor skills and cognitive function. Surveys show that usage of cannabis is rare but varies with sport and sex. Moreover, there could be geographic links since cannabis use is more prevalent in some nations than in others. It can be linked with prevalent attitudes and customs.
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Increased interest in the analgesic effects of cannabinoids is mainly caused by the function and components of ECS, which has proved to play a vital role in the modulation of various physiological processes. They include perception of pain, inflammation, and neurotransmission. However, the exact entities that make ECS a good therapy target also brings considerable challenges and undesired results (Ware, Jensen, Barette, Vernec, & Derman, 2018). These effects include activation of the CBI receptor negatively impacting memory, movement, mood, and other processes, making it difficult to isolate analgesic response from behavioural impacts.
Cannabis has been on the list of prohibited drugs by WADA for a long time. Even though there is insufficient evidence of its ergogenic impact, there are some health risks linked with the usage of cannabis, and many believe it contravenes the spirit of sport. The drug is banned in competitions only, with the minimum level of THC being raised because it remained in athletes' systems after recreational use out of competition. Athletes can apply for a therapeutic use exemption to use a banned substance and the request granted by a chosen committee on certain conditions. These include if the athlete would face a reasonable health impairment if the given substance is withheld, the consumption will not enhance performance exceeding a resumption to normal health, and if there is no tangible non-banned alternative. These conditions are judged case to case and subject to interpretation by the selected committee.
Cannabis usage in athletes reflects the cultural and societal norms and experiences in certain subcultures of sports. Consumption is dominant among some sportsmen engaged in high-risk sports, but there is no tangible evidence of causal impacts or performance facilitation. This lack of performance effect is echoed in many reviews. It implies that prohibiting is due to safety concerns, and using illicit substances is contrary to the sports philosophy.
Since assuming responsibility and banning some substances in sports, WADA faced controversies over the extension of cannabinoids prohibition to all sports. Some delegates strongly proposed that cannabinoids be excluded from sports regulations because their consumption is not performance-enhancing and should be a social issue. Conversely, others claimed it facilitated performance, building on its illegality in most countries and athletes’ role model nature. It followed that cannabinoids be banned at all times in and out of competition.
Using cannabis in sports diminishes the aspect of reciprocity because sport is a competition where parties have an equal front to win without being under the influence of substances. THC is the intoxicating component in marijuana prohibited by WADA because athletes using it are prone to reduced reaction time, losing executive function, and some probes showing the possibility of enhancing performance. This is explained by benefits associated with sleep and anxiety, which, taken together, aid in recovering from much exertion, thus possibly spun as a performance booster. Moreover, athletes are role models; thus, intaking cannabis violates the aspect of equality in sports.
Permitting the usage is contradictory because it corrupts the idea of banning cannabis in sports. It is not toxic and is backed by acknowledgement by the World Health Organization and many entities as medicine. However, it is complex to ban a substance approved and scheduled to have a minimal impact, although cannabidiol products may contain banned THC. Therefore, usage of these products has disqualification risks from a positive drug screen. Using cannabis is gradually more accepted in society, with many countries and states in the United States legalizing it for medical benefits. Most people support its legalization for recreation and medical use, diminishing the outdated and harmful drug legislation (Levinson-King, 2021) . Even though it may not happen at the federal level, athletes and entities are pushing to eliminate athletic ban legislation. While such risks are real, some experts consider that it is not fair to give marijuana a double threshold when other substances like alcohol have adverse effects. It is not included in WADA's banned list of substances yet is a health risk in terms of morbidity and mortality. The debate concerning marijuana in sport has come at a unique time, with attitudes shifting positively towards legalization for recreation and medics. It has resulted in changes in professional sports because some entities permit its use except for performance-boosting (Kwon, 2021) . Many entities and individuals are advocating for reforms in how WADA rules treat cannabis. They aim to ensure set rules are fit for purpose so that they do not punish legal and out of competition usage.
Cooperation and competition orientations of stakeholders have major impacts on increment and reduction of usage of cannabis in sports. Stakeholders include all agencies, governments, sponsors, and institutions in the sports community. The corporate efforts of these investors bring a significant direction of developing the field and sets up the momentum globally. It entails building collaborations and partnerships designed to leverage materials, widens the impact, produces critical expertise, and formulate policies that ensure long-term sustainability. It ensures fairness in sports, and athletes will appreciate the efforts by utilizing the online web materials to promote anti-doping. Those platforms provide news and ideas from all sectors since the conferences bring together diverse stakeholders to share knowledge and experiences to solve critical issues. To fully generate sports potential, proper government legislation, investment, and capacity should support and improve programs. The whole process involves a wide range of government actors, where national development entities must encourage using sports as a tool for peace and growth. It also entails integrating sports into international assistance programs and policies. Nations should educate all citizens, including sportspeople and authorities, on the power of sports in meeting domestic development objectives.
Moreover, encouraging all parties involved in sports to know the relevance of incorporating sport in development measures and approaches. Peace initiatives in sports can help developing nations can help fight poverty because finance departments are major stakeholders. When all parties agree concerning the conflict, it will have extra benefits to nations and sports because adequate financing, development, and poverty reduction measures will be available. Sports departments have a critical task given their ideal understanding, networks, and expertise in the field. Some international units are first links with nations, utilizing that opportunity to convince governments to get viable solutions concerning banned substances in sports. In other cases, the departments can work hand-in-hand with their counterparts in sectors of education, youth, health, women, economic growth, and labour. This helps to formulate, execute, and support policies to achieve a common ground on issues of banned substances in sports. Government sections, including state, local, and provincial, impact scaling policies and programs for sports peace. Some cases involve direct jurisdiction on education as well as sports infrastructure policies and programs. They can help leverage resources and foster involvement in sports for peace and development programs. National governments have a vital role in convincing key investors to enhance networking, partnerships, knowledge exchange, and corporate involvement to reach peaceful conclusions regarding the conflict of banned substances.
Non-governmental entities were frontiers in recognizing peace potential and sports development policies. They include NGOs concerned with sports as development media and grassroots entities that use sports to realize local growth and peace goals. NGOs have unique attributes that enhance peace, making them essential partners to sports policy formulation and implementation. They act as intermediaries between communities and governments, giving a medium for feedback and information regarding views on policies and programs in the sports field. Their missions are usually highly targeted and have deep insights into community knowledge; hence, their expertise and leadership are trusted and respected by stakeholders and members. As such, their effectiveness in service as partners in terms of peace and amicable solutions.
The usage of cannabis by athletes is more of a pathological conflict because all arguments lean towards the recommended medical impact. Recent clinical interventions have identified the substance as of therapeutic value. It consists of chemical compounds that have an obscure mode of action. Howbeit, their usage is highly limited. Despite the adverse addiction to cannabis and possible links of addiction to other substances of abuse, the therapeutic value of cannabis combined with cannabinoids is too important to be diminished. Many diseases, including inflammation, pain, multiple sclerosis and many others, are treated or can be treated by cannabinoid agonist compounds. Experts argue that denying the clinical value is not recommendable because of these compounds' low harm and benign impact (Kienzi et al., 2020). They prefer working on the development of more selective compounds as well as novel drugs with enhanced selection and distribution trends. Cases that are complex to separate intended clinical action and psycho-activity need careful monitoring of side effects.
Language and communication have an important role in the conflict of cannabis usage in sports. When preparing for such conversations, one needs to have the correct frame in mind. The process starts by letting go of judgements identified in self-reflection and establishing a clear purpose for talks. It involves considering the needs and goals of associated athletes. With awareness of biases concerning cannabis and youth consumption in mind, stakeholders should approach such conversations with open minds and avoid preconceptions of certain dimensions outdoing others. The main idea of holding these conversations should be identifying a viable solution to the usage of cannabis in sports and not any other. These talks require establishing values that enhance achieving solutions. They include being genuine, transparent, empowering, and practical. The mode of communication and language can help understand why some athletes use cannabis since it is used for medical, recreational, and stimulating reasons. It will help educate parties involved, like athletes and stakeholders understand the merits and demerits of its usage. World leaders have used sports often to reopen diplomatic conversations and make reconciliation moves. The unifying ability of language is important to end conflicts in sports and unite people and ideas (Ein, 2018) . It helps build on discussions that have lessons concerning teamwork, good health, self-reliance, continuous improvement, and fair play.
As the perception of marijuana usage for recreation and clinical reasons shift to tolerance and creative embrace, employers in almost every industry find it hard to adapt. This includes struggling to adapt to changing laws, state and federal legislation conflicts, and pressure from employees' expectations. Many professional sports teams have athletes using cannabis in states that legalized the usage of marijuana. Its use for medical reasons continues to be legal. Ontario's human rights code and the commission's policies apply to cannabis the same way as other substances. It protects people using cannabis for medical purposes related to a disability from unethical treatment in housing, services, and employment. The code also limits discrimination against individuals who have or are understood to have an addiction to cannabis based on disability grounds. Those using it for medics linked with disability and cannabis addicts also have the right to disability linked accommodation to the extent of undue hardship. It implies tangible safety and health concerns or excess costs. Individuals in search of accommodation may be required to show medical or other details to support their demands. Employees that use cannabis due to disabilities may be required t give details verifying their fitness for work.
Ontario prohibits smoking or vaping the substance for clinical or recreational reasons in enclosed workstations. A worker can consume edible cannabis for clinical purposes linked to a disability in an enclosed place only if it does not affect health and safety or tasks' execution. For instance, an employer or entity can accommodate a worker with breaks throughout the day to consume edible marijuana for medical purposes linked with their disability. The substance aids in treating some symptoms of multiple sclerosis, with the doctor determining the amounts to consume. This helps to avoid interfering with job performance or workstation health safety and enhances fitness for work. Accommodation does not imply employers accept impairment on the job since the duty to host ends when people fail to perform essential roles. This is after hostage has been tried and exhausted completely, or if it will cause undue hardship. Thus, employers should insist or inform workers who work in safety positions on the need to inform if they are using drugs that could cause impairment.
The National Football League is a good example of a backwards policy. It ignores the clinical merits associated with marijuana, especially the ability to treat severe pain that comes with the boundaries of being professional footballers. Prescription opioid painkillers are preferred modes of treatment. Retired players have raised concerns about developing an addiction to medications. As such, many people would support medical marijuana instead of taking many painkillers that have long term effects. The league is dealing with a crisis of many players retiring early, and some avoid playing football because of life consequences. These include having many head injuries. The psychoactive element of marijuana has the ability to treat and prevent concussions.
Just like in animals, human females and males are unique in the genetic and hormone-based behaviours since they process information uniquely, perceive emotions and experiences differently, and have sex-linked differences in brain anatomy. Drug addiction is a renowned relapsing illness that affects men and women (Blanton et al., 2021) . Sex-linked uniqueness is observed regularly in the biological and behavioural impact of substances like cannabis. For instance, men use marijuana in larger amounts and at higher rates than women. Similar differences in responses to cannabinoids have been observed in probes. Males are more sensitive to the effects of CB1 receptor agonists.
Moreover, women have more body fat than men hence experience weaker impacts of cannabis since more THC is stored by fat cells (Datta et al., 2020) . Drug disposition and body fat distribution are also affected by sex differences. High considerations of gender differences in using marijuana can be vital in formulating and implementing prevention or treatment initiatives. This is because reasons for smoking are different between sexes, specifically during puberty.
The conflict of cannabis use in the sports field is viewed differently by unique stakeholders and nations. There is the perspective of medicinal value, with experts supporting the legalization of recreational and therapeutic performances. Given the increased research concerning the impact of cannabis on relieving pain, many states are positively encouraging its legalization. On the contrary, stakeholders are supporting WADA to retain the substance on the list of banned substances. The ability to enhance performance or injure the athletes makes it considered a substance not worthy in sports. Cannabis has the impact of destroying the logical reasoning behind sports, discouraging fair play. Those who use it for recreation alone have a different version of the case, with many athletes using the substance only for that purpose.
Performance enhancement is an essential component f competitive sports action. Using doping accidentally is mostly unlikely except for nutrition supplement contamination. It demands deliberation, planning and commitment. The life-cycle model is effective since it enables the athletes to set goals and choose how to achieve them using hypotheses. The cycle has exit points where one can get the room for change (Abu-Rumman et al., 2020). The model helps identify prone factors in the development stages to inform about anti-doping and relevant interventions. Instead of focusing on banned enhancement measures, hindrance techniques will be more effective if they tackle influencing elements at relevant stages. It ensures a more effective intervention approach by aiming at particular risk factors.
The lessons learnt include the significance of reaching a common solution in times of conflict and utilizing the platforms to share knowledge and experiences. It entails concerned parties conducting intense probes on the issue and formulating potential solutions and implementation designs. Conflict management research and personnel training define directions in which future problems will be solved and get knowledge. Entities and governments can fund research projects to speed up such processes. Trained individuals can transfer skills and technical know-how to oncoming generations to encourage fair play in sports, and sportspeople remain good role models of the society. Creative agencies can formulate policies and programs that ensure total adherence to ethical thresholds in sports and other economic activities. Every individual hope to work in a system that gives equal chances for everyone to make dreams turn into reality. Theories like stoicism can be deployed to show anything can work once you accept the situation at hand (Yu, 2020) . Hoping for a just sports system and living up to see competition fairness can change minds against doping.
References
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