Sports medicine providers “generally have favorable views toward CBD and cannabis,” and most believe marijuana should be removed from the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) list of prohibited substances, according to a new survey of 333 doctors published this month.
The study also found that most sports medicine physicians who participated support legalizing marijuana for recreational and medical use.
That said, there are still “varying views” about cannabis within the field, authors found, and those “appear to be significantly affected by age, practice type, and gender.”
Among demographic groups less likely to favor allowing marijuana for recreational use were women, older doctors and rural respondents, according to the survey, results of which appear in the journal Translational Sports Medicine.
“Similarly, these three factors were associated with a higher likelihood of disagreeing with WADA removing cannabis from the prohibited substance list and with the NCAA allowing CBD use by collegiate athletes,” it says.
Men and younger physicians, meanwhile, were less likely to identify marijuana as “performance-enhancing.”
WADA removed CBD from its prohibited substance list in 2018, but marijuana remains prohibited in competition by the international body as well as many other professional and international sports organizations.
The new study found that 72 percent of sports medicine physicians back the global athletics body’s move on cannabidiol and that…
