Lifestyle

This March, John Coyles, the MLB vice president of drug, health and safety programs, sent a memo to players about marijuana. He warned major and minor players alike that CBD, much as any other cannabis substance, was banned for baseball players. Echoing what the PGA Tour told golfers earlier this year, he said using CBD could elicit a positive drug test for marijuana.

“Claims of CBD products being ‘THC free’ are false and misleading,” Coyles wrote in the memo. “We have seen multiple positive drug tests…in the past year for THC that appear to have resulted from the use of CBD products, despite the product labels.”

He isn’t wrong, by the way. Last month, Ellipse Analytics tested 250 top-selling CBD products and found THC in 45% of them. Among products that labeled itself “THC free,” 21% of them were detected for THC. While baseball players don’t sustain the level of injury and inflammation as football players, they still need effective and safe pain management tools. What constitutes as safe and effective is under review, the Los Angeles Times reports, following the death of Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs.

The toxicology report found that Skaggs had the opioids fentanyl and oxycodone when he died by choking on his vomit, as well as alcohol. Opioids and cannabis are listed as drugs of abuse under the MLB’s current policy. Though players undergo routine tests for performance-enhancing drugs, they don’t receive regular testing for drugs of abuse. But in the minors, players have stricter testing and this season 13 players were suspended after test revealed drugs of abuse in their system. However, 80% of those suspended were due to marijuana.

Now the MLB and its players union have discussed the possibility of loosening its testing on marijuana, according to the LA Times. What happened to Skaggs has also opened the possibility of teams testing players for opioid use (team doctors can’t prescribe players opioids). Currently the two sides are now discussing whether players could use cannabis following surgeries, or whether they could use it as general pain relief.

“The parties have discussed whether to loosen baseball’s restrictions on marijuana—not specifically as a trade-off for opioid testing, but as part of the annual review of the sport’s drug policy, according to three people familiar with the talks but not authorized to comment publicly on them,” reports the Times.

U.S. health officials on Thursday reported another 180 cases of vaping-related lung illnesses and announced plans to start testing aerosols produced by e-cigarettes and vaping products as they search for the source of the nationwide outbreak that has so far killed at least 33 people in 24 states.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also said it plans to start testing lung tissue and fluids collected from people who became sick in the outbreak. The CDC said the new testing may lend insight into chemical exposures contributing to the outbreak.

The CDC now reports 1,479 confirmed and probable U.S. cases of the mysterious respiratory illness tied to vaping, up from 1,299 a week ago, an indication that the public health crisis has shown no sign of slowing.

Last week, the CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said that while many patients became ill after vaping products containing THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, some had only used nicotine vape products. They said more than one root cause may be behind the outbreak.

Investigators primarily have been testing the liquids in vape products. Testing the aerosol produced after the liquids are heated might show whether that causes a chemical reaction that produces a toxic substance.

“They might be able to see components that we don’t see in the raw materials,” said an official in the New York Health Department’s Wadsworth laboratory, which has been testing product samples for the state.

A preliminary report seen by Reuters of vaping product samples collected from Wisconsin patients and tested by the FDA showed that more than half contained THC.Of the THC-containing products, two-thirds also tested positive for Vitamin E acetate, a cutting agent believed to be used to stretch the amount of THC oil, and an early suspect in efforts to determine the cause of the injuries.

The results from Wisconsin match up with earlier reports from state and federal officials. FDA officials last week said it found Vitamin E acetate in 47% of the first 225 THC products it had analyzed.

Among the results, 14 products contained THC, nine of which also tested positive for Vitamin E acetate, while another seven contained nicotine.

New York health officials have now tested nearly 200 products.

“We’ve got nicotine pens; we’ve got THC-containing pens; we’ve got Vitamin E acetate associated with a lot of the THC pens, but we are not in a position to say what’s the cause of this dreadful illness,” the official with New York’s testing lab said.

Many of the products have no labels. Health officials in New York and Utah said they suspect many THC products that do carry labels - such as those under the Dank Vapes brand - are counterfeit.

In Utah, state epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn said the outbreak hit a peak in July and has not let up.

More than 90% of patients reported having vaped THC, and only a handful of cases denied using THC, Dunn said.

The state has tested 20 nicotine vape products and found nothing unexpected. Of 19 THC-containing products, 89% showed evidence of Vitamin E acetate.

None of the state officials said conclusively that the cutting agent was the cause of the injuries, but it remains a suspect.

Dunn said THC is the common denominator in most of Utah’s cases, and until an exact cause is found, the state is focusing on getting people to stop vaping THC.

“It’s the only thing we have,” she said.