Friend,

American sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson, who wowed Americans with her record-setting win in the women’s 100-meter race at the U.S. track and field trials in Oregon last month, has been suspended from the Olympic team after testing positive for THC, the compound found in marijuana. 

It’s a prime example of how drug testing is yet another harmful tool of the drug war that can affect anyone—from denying people basic necessities like housing and employment to crushing opportunities for Olympic hopefuls like Sha’Carri Richardson.

These unfair policies have been ruining lives for far too long. Drug testing is an inaccurate tool that must be done away with from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) to the everyday workplace. 

Tell the USADA to stop its archaic, inhumane, and unscientific drug testing policy.

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DPA has been leading efforts to end drug testing. You can learn more about why we must end drug testing here [link removed] and learn more about how drug testing and the drug war have taken root in critical systems by checking out our Uprooting the Drug War initiative here [link removed]. 

Sha’Carri is just one of countless victims of disastrous drug war policies. She is a young, autonomous Black woman and she has the right to put whatever she wants in her body. She shouldn't have to apologize for the choices she makes to navigate her life. Yet she is being locked out of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity she has fought her entire life for because she chose to use marijuana to cope with the grief of losing her biological mother. But let us be clear: trauma is not a prerequisite for all drug use. 

She apologized, mentioning ‘I know what I am not allowed to do, and I still made that decision.’  But the rules are inconsistent. Sha’Carri reportedly used marijuana in Oregon—a state where adult use is legal. These inconsistencies force people to be stuck in the middle, navigating unclear rules and being faced with lifelong consequences. 

Help us stop unjust suspensions like Sha’Carri’s by contacting the USADA right away.

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Sha’Carri’s suspension serves as a reminder of how insidious the drug war is in our everyday lives with punishments that go far beyond arrests and incarceration. 

With your support, we must fight to end the drug war everywhere it shows up so that no one is subjected to contradictory and punitive rules about what they can and cannot put in their own bodies. 

Sincerely,

Kassandra Frederique
Executive Director
Drug Policy Alliance


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