Positive Cannabis Test Strips US Long Jumper Tara Davis-Woodhall of National Title

UPDATE 8/9/2024: Davis-Woodhall has won the Gold Medal at the Paris Olympics. Sha'Carri Richardson took the Silver medal in the 100-meter and won Gold as part of the women's 4x100-meter relay with Gabby Thomas, Melissa Jefferson and Twanisha Terry. Brittney Griner and the U.S. women’s basketball team soared past Australia 85-64 to advance to Sunday’s gold medal game.

PHOTO: Patrick Smith

Another black woman track star has been penalized over a positive cannabis test. 

US long jumper Tara Davis-Woodhall has been stripped of her recent national indoor title and hit with a one-month suspension after a positive test for cannabis, the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) announced yesterday.  

According to the agency's statement, Davis-Woodhall, 23, tested positive for 11-nor-9-carboxy-tetrahydrocannabinol (Carboxy-THC), an inactive urinary metabolite of the psychoactive chemical Δ9-THC, above the urinary Decision Limit of 180 ng/mL. Her urine sample was collected at the 2023 USATF Indoor Championships in Albuquerque New Mexico on February 17, 2023, the same day she had won the title with a jump of 6.99 meters.

Inactive metabolites can be detected in the urine days or months after use, and apparently Davis-Woodhall's use was deemed "out-of-competition," meaning she had only a one-month suspension, but had to forfeit all titles she won on and subsequent to February 17. 

Despite public outcry over the 2021 suspension from the US Olympic team of champion sprinter and Tokin' Woman of the Year Sha'Carri Richardson, cannabis remains prohibited in-competition under the United States Olympic Committee National Anti-Doping Policies and the World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules. 

The World Anti-Doping Agency still classifies THC as a “substance of abuse” because it is frequently used outside the context of sport. In the 2021 World Anti-Doping Code, THC is classified under a special category that allows for a reduced three-month sanction if the athlete establishes that their use of the substance occurred out-of-competition and was unrelated to sport performance. The sanction may be further reduced to one month if the athlete satisfactorily completes a treatment program approved by USADA.

Davis-Woodhall’s period of ineligibility was reduced to one month starting on March 21 because her use of cannabis occurred out-of-competition and was unrelated to sport performance, and because she successfully completed a substance of abuse treatment program regarding her use of cannabis. 

“WADA seeks input on each year’s updated version of the Prohibited List,” USADA’s press release states. “USADA has advocated and will continue to advocate to WADA, the rule maker, to treat marijuana in a fairer and more effective way to identify true in-competition use.” 

Tara Davis, who married Paralympian Hunter Woodhall last October, is from Agoura Hills, California, where she was a champion hurdler and long jumper in high school. Her win in the 100 meter hurdles in 12.83 beat the National high school record, and she also set the state record in the long jump. 

Davis competed for the University of Georgia where she struggled in her freshman year, losing four weeks of training due to mononucleosis and fractures on her L4 and L5 vertebrae in her back, all the while dealing with her parents’ divorce. According to The Daily Texan, "Davis said all these factors contributed to her depression and dissociation with Georgia."

She switched schools to the University of Texas, but was forced to sit out her first season due to transferring. As things began to turn around for her, the then-junior broke her foot in December 2019 and three months later, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and the remainder of the indoor season, as well as the entire outdoor season, was canceled. 

But she endured, placing 6th in the women's long jump at the 2020 Summer Olympics, and becoming a a two-time NCAA champion in 2021. It's fitting that the word "sacrifice" is tattooed on her ribcage, because her father taught her at a young age one must sacrifice for success.

After overcoming all physical and emotional pain, for which cannabis may well have been helpful to her, Davis-Woodhall must endure one more sacrifice, to a policy that sorely needs changing.