New Zealand rugby player, Isaia Walker-Leawere, recently tested positive for THC and has been banned from playing on any team for one month. The 26-year-old lock (a second row rugby position) plays on the Hurricanes in Super Rugby; Hawke’s Bay; as well as the international rugby team, Māori All Blacks. According to the New Zealand Herald, he’s played in over 120 first-class matches over the past eight years.

Walker-Leawere tested positive following a match in Fiji on May 6, where he received two yellow cards and a red card. Due to the red card, Walker-Leawere went through the Sanzaar Super Rugby Pacific Judicial Process and the incident was reviewed by the Sanzaar Foul Play Review Committee on May 8. The verdict was that Walker-Leawere wouldn’t be suspended or punished.

However, on May 10 he spent time with friends to “wind down” from the week’s events, which is when he consumed cannabis. His suspension for testing positive went into effect starting on August 5.

“We don’t believe that cannabis is performance-enhancing,” said Drug Free Sport New Zealand Chief Executive Nick Paterson. “Getting Mr. Walker-Leawere substance of abuse support and back into sport after serving his sanction is the most practical outcome, and supports long-term athlete health and wellbeing.”

However, Paterson added that attempts are being made to remove cannabis from the list of illegal substances. “We’ve advocated to remove cannabis from the prohibited list for over 15 years and will continue to do so,” Paterson continued. “However, while cannabis remains on the prohibited list, the best approach to avoiding a positive test is to avoid using it.”

The Drug Free Spot New Zealand follows guidelines from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in terms of prohibited substances. According to WADA’s 2023 Prohibited List, cannabis is banned in all forms. “All natural and synthetic cannabinoids are prohibited except for cannabidiol (CBD). Cannabis, hashish and marijuana are prohibited. Products, including foods and drinks, containing cannabinoids, are also prohibited. All synthetic cannabinoids that mimic the effects of THC are prohibited,” WADA stated on its website.

Drug Free Sport New Zealand allows athletes to undergo a treatment program to reduce their ban duration. For Walker-Leawere, he would be banned for three months instead of one month if he decided not to participate in the program.

Like other athletes in the U.S., some rugby players have come forth about the benefits of cannabis consumption. Welsh rugby player Dominic Day and English rugby player George Kruis also spoke up in support of CBD in the past, which led to the founding of their athletic-focused brand, fourfiveCBD in 2019.

FourfiveCBD targets health and wellness for quality of life improvements. “At fourfive, our mission is simple—we want to help people lead healthier, happier lives through the power of CBD and Vitamin supplements—and we only use the highest quality plant extracts and ingredients. Our premium blends are designed by world class scientists to fit seamlessly into your daily routine, whether you’re taking CBD oil, capsules or vitamins,” the brand wrote on its website.

According to a BBC interview, Day started using CBD when recovering from knee surgery, which helped reduce inflammation and improve his sleep as well. “The first thing I noticed was my sleep was amazing. The inflammation in my knee also went down and it relieved the pain. I was sold from then on,” Day said.

Kruis also added the benefits of sleep, as well as reducing his use of opioids. “Sleep was definitely one of the things it helped with for me,” Kruis said. “But I also have low-level chronic pain and I was able to reduce the amount of painkillers I was taking.”

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Alex Berenson—author of Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence—received a permanent suspension from microblogging platform Twitter for spreading misinformation. While Berenson is known for his vocal opposition to cannabis legalization, this time, he was punished for spreading false information about COVID-19.

On his Substack page, Berenson posted a brief message, titled, “Goodbye Twitter” with a screenshot of his original tweet that led to his suspension. Berenson’s tweet that triggered the ban claimed that COVID-19 vaccines do not work. “It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission,” Berenson tweeted. “Don’t think of it as a vaccine.”

Twitter officials believe that Berenson can’t be trusted to tell the truth, and that the accumulation of misleading tweets justifies a suspension.

“The account you referenced has been permanently suspended for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation rules,” a Twitter spokesperson told Fox News in response to an inquiry on August 28.

“The first four states to legalize—Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington—have seen sharp increases in murders and aggravated assaults since 2014, according to reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Berenson wrote in a New York Times op-ed. “Police reports and news articles show a clear link to cannabis in many cases.” Berenson was a former employee of the New York Times several years prior.

Berenson’s op-ed was published at the time of the release of Tell Your Children, his book that attempts to link violence with cannabis use. One night, Berenson’s wife Jacqueline, remembered a case in which a man “cut up his grandmother or set fire to his apartment.” Later Jacqueline wrote, “Of course he was high, been smoking pot his whole life.”

Berenson’s New York Times op-ed and book were so misleading, that two leading psychologists felt compelled to debunk the article in The Guardian.

Carl L Hart is the chairman and Ziff professor of psychology and psychiatry at Columbia University and author of High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery that Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society. Charles Ksir is professor emeritus of psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Wyoming and author of Drugs, Society and Human Behavior.

“Back in the 1930s, when there were virtually no scientific data on marijuana, ignorant and racist officials publicized exaggerated anecdotal accounts of its harms and were believed,” the authors wrote. “Almost 90 years and hundreds of studies later, there is no excuse for these exaggerations or the inappropriate conclusions drawn by Berenson.”

Alex Berenson on Censorship

This is by no means the first time a publisher or platform has banned Berenson for the spread of misinformation. Amazon denied taking part in a few of his booklets. Berenson’s former employer The New York Times declined to review his latest novel. In a December op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Berenson warned that the COVID-19 pandemic had ushered in “a new age of censorship and suppression.”

In an op-ed in Reason, the writer explained that while Berenson tried to scare people from pot, and vastly underestimated the death toll of COVID-19, it was a mistake to ban Berenson permanently from Twitter. Banning him from Twitter may only make things worse. The implications of banning one person could be extended to another.

The writer explained that if anything, Berenson will just profit more from his “martydrom” from Twitter. “COVID-19 has allowed Berenson to fully embrace his role as a purveyor of delusions,” the article reads, but a ban will only fuel the fire of opposition to those opinions. 

Berenson’s ban got political very quickly. “I don’t know Berenson,” Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tweeted. “But all the Leftie Brown Shirts cheering his being banned—you are the problem. You’re supporting authoritarian billionaires’ arbitrary censorship. & you are contributing to so many people’s distrust of Covid info—by silencing dissent, many are skeptical.”

It’s important to note that there are vastly different opinions of Berenson. Senator Ron Johnson (R–Wisconsin) called him a “courageous voice of reason” and “a valuable counter-perspective.”

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