Sha’Carri Richardson’s Olympic Ban Over Weed Is America’s Fault

The saga of Sha’Carri Richardson—the fastest woman in the United States, banned from competing in the upcoming Tokyo Olympics after a drug test revealed she used cannabis last month—has united America in a way that COVID-19 could not. 

The conventional wisdom from just about everyone—President Joe Biden, USA Track & Field (USATF), blabbermouths on Twitter, and Richardson herself—is that the 21-year-old athlete didn’t do anything terribly wrong when she smoked some weed to deal with emotional turmoil after learning from a reporter about her biological mother’s death, as she recounted Friday on the “Today” show. 

But, as Biden said on Saturday, “The rules are the rules. Whether they should remain the rules is a different issue, but the rules are the rules.” USATF hid behind the same tautology on Tuesday, when it announced that although Richardson’s suspension ends in time for her to participate in the 4x100-meter relay, she won’t run in Tokyo at all.