Osaze De Rosario

[An Observer]

7 hours ago, kacbru said:

It has nothing to do with the team or the league.  It is a mandatory suspension because Canada Soccer is a member of the Canadian Anti-doping program.  Ben Johnson / Ross Rebagliati legacy in full effect.

I still think it is ridiculous.

Thanks. THat makes more sense but agree its ridiculous.

I was responding to the point made about making an example of him to deal with another player who was using something harder

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

13 hours ago, Olympique_de_Marseille said:

... He unknowingly ingested an edible in late September 2022! ...

Guess that's the explanation that needs to be provided to avoid future issues crossing certain international borders.

[Shway]

Anybody who has smoked or ingested weed, knows it's not a performance enhancing drug. It does more of a hindrance. Many top professional leagues (MLB, NBA, NFL) either allow it, or don't suspend. 

The fact that it's legal in Canada, the players union (is it actually recognized) should fight on his behalf. 

[CanadaFan123]

1 hour ago, Shway said:

Anybody who has smoked or ingested weed, knows it's not a performance enhancing drug. It does more of a hindrance. Many top professional leagues (MLB, NBA, NFL) either allow it, or don't suspend. 

The fact that it's legal in Canada, the players union (is it actually recognized) should fight on his behalf. 

There’s a “rumour” that his old man was high every game. 

[InglewoodJack]

Weed is good as a relaxant- as players play more and more games at higher and higher levels each year, it's far from the worst thing you can use to relax and take a bit of physical pain off the edge after a big game. If I was the players union, I'd be making this our marquee cause. Through all of this, I even forgot that this shit is legal federally which makes this even more baffling.

[InglewoodJack]

1 hour ago, Shway said:

Anybody who has smoked or ingested weed, knows it's not a performance enhancing drug. It does more of a hindrance. Many top professional leagues (MLB, NBA, NFL) either allow it, or don't suspend. 

The fact that it's legal in Canada, the players union (is it actually recognized) should fight on his behalf. 

Pretty sure Kevin Durant openly talks about how he smokes weed every single day and when he's not at practice, he's at home smoking weed. Good enough for one of the greatest athletes of our generation, not good enough for one of the 10 best domestic leagues in concacaf.

[RS]

43 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

Pretty sure Kevin Durant openly talks about how he smokes weed every single day and when he's not at practice, he's at home smoking weed. Good enough for one of the greatest athletes of our generation, not good enough for one of the 10 best domestic leagues in concacaf.

This isn't a league rule.

[costarg]

14 hours ago, kacbru said:

It has nothing to do with the team or the league.  It is a mandatory suspension because Canada Soccer is a member of the Canadian Anti-doping program.  Ben Johnson / Ross Rebagliati legacy in full effect.

I still think it is ridiculous.

Oh yes, I hadn't read the article, I assumed it was the team that had suspended him!

It's not ridiculous if you look at it from the teams perspective, everyone knows canabis is not a performance enhancer.  If we're being honest, it's the opposite.  Hence I could understand the team wanting to act on it "to get the most out of him".

That being said, ya, I agree it's kinda ridiculous in this context.

[costarg]

1 hour ago, InglewoodJack said:

Pretty sure Kevin Durant openly talks about how he smokes weed every single day and when he's not at practice, he's at home smoking weed. Good enough for one of the greatest athletes of our generation, not good enough for one of the 10 best domestic leagues in concacaf.

There are always exceptions, nothing is black or white.  Using that logic everyone should smoke cigars every day, just like George Burns, look how long he lived.

For every KD there are way more that never attain the level they could have.

[InglewoodJack]

8 minutes ago, costarg said:

There are always exceptions, nothing is black or white.  Using that logic everyone should smoke cigars every day, just like George Burns, look how long he lived.

For every KD there are way more that never attain the level they could have.

I'm not saying smoking weed makes you a better player, I'm saying that if a guy wants to smoke some weed to chill out after a big game or to take the edge off of their aches and bruises, so be it- some of the best athletes in the world do so. That doesn't mean any random stoner can become an elite athlete.

[ray]

14 hours ago, kacbru said:

It was picked up in the in-competition urine test, according to the link above.  Doesn't change the fact that the team and league had nothing to do with the suspension.

I see De Rosario is not the only CPL player to have been suspended for having a banned drug in their system.  Is this voluntary on the part of the CPL to have its players tested by CCES ?  I don't see why a domestic league (a small one at that) would be obliged to participate in the drug testing program and if they did, why they could not decide on the punishment themselves.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

19 minutes ago, ray said:

...I don't see why a domestic league (a small one at that)...

Maybe worth bearing in mind that on paper at least they are the main D1 professional league sanctioned by the CSA, so if the CSA had to sign up to this to gain access to Olympic team funding (or something like that) then CanPL was going to be the focus of the scrutiny.

[SpursFlu]

Let's all argue on the internet!

I'm not buying it

[kacbru]

4 hours ago, ray said:

I see De Rosario is not the only CPL player to have been suspended for having a banned drug in their system.  Is this voluntary on the part of the CPL to have its players tested by CCES ?  I don't see why a domestic league (a small one at that) would be obliged to participate in the drug testing program and if they did, why they could not decide on the punishment themselves.

Interestingly, a similar incident was just reported in NZ - a rugby player suspended a month https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/sport/495372/hurricanes-player-suspended-for-cannabis-use .  Again, the league is sanctioned by NZ Rugby, as is the CPL by the CSA.  Because both associations participate in international competitions, they are part of anti-doping protocols that include random, in-competition testing and associated penalties.  In the NZ case, the suspension was imposed by Drug-Free Sport NZ which administers anti-doping for all sport in NZ, just as 

That is not the case for NBA, NHL, CFL, NFL, etc.  They have their own rules because those leagues operate independently.  It is only when the individual players are involved in international competitions that the same global drug testing/penalties apply.

Whether cannabis is more or less of a drug than alcohol or tobacco, whether it is legal/illegal, whether it is performance enhancing, etc. is a completely other story - and one that the Canadian Anti-Doping program (and equivalent in other countries) would have to take up internationally with whatever the international organization that Maurice Strong set up in the Ben Johnson fallout.

[Unnamed Trialist]

CPL simply adheres to the World Anti-Doping Agency standard list of substances. If you think they should cherry pick or make their own list, great. But you'd be suggesting they have the capacity to do so for hundreds of substances. You're asking them to have expertise enough to create the CPL special exceptions list. To customize CPL doping standards.

It's much easier to use a standard list. It seems illogical for weed to be on it, not because Canada legalised it, but because it's just there as part of a residual war against drugs inclusion. And the fact cannabis is listed, without setting maximums for CBD or THC, which would be more technically accurate.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Unnamed Trialist

[archer21]

It seems strange to me that they’re suspending players for weed. I played junior football and we had to go through drug testing through CCES. Nobody was ever suspended for weed, and like 90% of the league uses it. It was always technically banned according to their standards, but they just kind of ignored it as far as I could tell. I tested at the same time as 3 teammates, and I was the only one who didn’t regularly smoke weed. Nothing happened to anybody, and this was 10-15 years ago.

[h coach]

4 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

CPL simply adheres to the World Anti-Doping Agency standard list of substances. If you think they should cherry pick or make their own list, great. But you'd be suggesting they have the capacity to do so for hundreds of substances. You're asking them to have expertise enough to create the CPL special exceptions list. To customize CPL doping standards.

It's much easier to use a standard list. It seems illogical for weed to be on it, not because Canada legalised it, but because it's just there as part of a residual war against drugs inclusion. And the fact cannabis is listed, without setting maximums for CBD or THC, which would be more technically accurate.

https://www.wada-ama.org/en/prohibited-list?q=THc  Wada banned list re cannaboids

[Unnamed Trialist]

24 minutes ago, h coach said:

https://www.wada-ama.org/en/prohibited-list?q=THc  Wada banned list re cannaboids

Only THC at any level, not CBD, cannabidiol, much appreciated for that clarification. Well good for them. Not CBDA either. So if they take an isolate, which has modest therapeutic value, they don't risk a ban.

Still hard to grasp how the psychoactive effects of THC could benefit any athlete, apart from those related to psychological benefits.

[solsous]

Professional athletes have to be extra careful with what they put in their bodies, especially, the younger ones.

[Kent]

It's been addressed by others pretty well that the legality of cannabis is unrelated to it's banned substance status. I just wanted to point out that there are things on the banned list that are also perfectly legal and always have been. It's going back quite far but some here will remember Silken Laumann (rowing) got a Pan-Am games gold medal taken away for taking the wrong decongestant (Benadryl).

I agree with @Unnamed Trialist though that this shouldn't be a banned substance, and is on the list for (out of date?) political reasons, not sporting reasons.

[h coach]

info from Canadian Centre of Ethics in sport
 

https://cces.ca/cannabis#:~:text=Why are cannabinoids prohibited%3F,health of the athlete%3B and

[narduch]

Move to World Soccer maybe.

 

 

[Corazon]

Fully okay with this as he will likely never been CMNT quality and him joining Guyana slightly improves CONCACAF.  Some may disagree but I believe the whole of CONCACAF will benefit from moves like this.  I'm sure Osaze would have loved nothing more than to represent Canada like his father but realistically was never going to get that opportunity.

[BrennanFan]

Right move.  Still bothers me, personally.  

[Obinna]

25 minutes ago, narduch said:

Move to World Soccer maybe.

 

 

That's kind of surprising for obvious reasons, but putting aside who his dad is I still don't know what to make of it.

On one hand, he's not really knocking on the national team door right now, but on the other hand he's still only 22 years old with a pretty good strike rate in CPL. Over two seasons it looks like he has 18 goals in 51 games. I know this year was kind of a down year but is 6 goals a sophmore slump? Not really sure I could say that. I mean, you're not getting called up to the national team with those numbers, but if he rebounded with another 12, maybe he's transferring to a better league at 24 years old the following season (and getting NT attention). It's his career to choose what he wants and maybe he doesn't want to wait that long to start his international career, which is fair play.

I don't know, good luck I guess. I can't quite say it's a big loss and can't really be upset about it, but we don't want too many of these guys falling out of the Canadian system because a few of them should bloom late (in theory) and there's no such thing as having too much depth. 

Edited November 16, 2023 by Obinna