Cannabis Use and the Spirit of Sport: A Response to Mike McNamee

‘When I use a word’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone ‘it means just what I want it to mean—neither more nor less’.

‘The question is’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things’.

—Through the Looking Glass, chapter 6.

Introduction

In a recent article in this journal, Mike McNamee (2012: 374–92) noted that “one particularly problematic aspect of present anti-doping policy relates to the existence of what are often and variously referred to as ‘social drugs’, ‘recreational drugs’ or ‘substances of abuse’, in the list of prohibited methods and substances that comprise ‘doping’ as defined the [sic] global body responsible for anti-doping: the World Anti-Doping Agency”. The focus of his article was, he wrote, “whether and how the presence of Cannabinoids on the Prohibited List (PL) is justified or not” (McNamee 2012: 374). He noted that many “scholars, scientists and key actors have argued that it should not be included” but he argued that, on the contrary, “Cannabinoids should be retained on the Prohibited List; that its [sic] use may be thought of as doping; and that the Spirit of Sport criterion, though vague, is still a defensible criterion for the demarcation of ‘doping’ ” (McNamee 2012: 374–5). As part of his argument, he criticised a recent call signed by many members of the International Network of Humanistic Doping Research (INHDR 2012) calling for cannabis to be dropped from the prohibited list. As signatories to that call, we wish to reply to his criticisms of our position.

The central aspect of the INHDR statement to which McNamee objects is our argument that marijuana should be dropped from the prohibited list because it is not performance enhancing; in this regard, we argued that since any athlete using the drug will not derive any unfair advantage from its use, it cannot be considered as a form of cheating. More specifically, we argued:

… it is nonsensical that an athlete can be banned under WADA rules for consuming a drug which has no performance-enhancing effects, for it is precisely the performance-enhancing nature of a substance which is the central defining characteristic of doping; in effect, this regulation means that athletes can be punished under the anti-doping code for a form of behaviour—the use of recreational drugs which are not performance-enhancing—which is not cheating and which does not constitute ‘doping’ in any meaningful sense of the term.

(INHDR 2012)

McNamee argues that, in suggesting that performance enhancement is the central defining characteristic of doping we are making an “essentialist claim”; he further argues that, on the contrary, “it is perfectly ‘meaningful’ that if one prescriptively defines a concept (doping) in relation to three defeasible criteria [performance enhancement, health and the spirit of sport], then recreational drug use may be thought of as doping” (McNamee 2012: 382). Drawing upon the philosophy of Wittgenstein, the central thrust of McNamee’s argument revolves around questions concerned with the definition of doping and the criteria which may be used to define what substances or techniques are included on WADA’s prohibited list, and a discussion of these issues therefore constitutes the central part of our response.

McNamee’s claim that we operate with an essentialist definition of doping is difficult to understand, not least because it runs directly counter to the position we have consistently taken in our published work. For example, in a longer version of the statement on the INHDR website, in which we developed our argument in more detail, we noted in the opening paragraph that substances believed to be performance enhancing have been used in sport and sport-like events for some two thousand years and that for almost all of this time they have been used without infringing any rules and without the practice giving rise to the highly emotive condemnation and stigmatisation which so often characterises the debate today. We noted that anti-doping rules only came into operation from the 1960s and pointed out that it was important to recognise that...