All about the Benjamins.

What recent controversy?

You mean Goss lying about CBD cream triggering her positive THC test?

You do know that CBD can be THC free? And that is how most people use it?

They embrace money. Not CBD.

what is your point?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I made it pretty clear didn't I?

my clear takeaway is that you think USAT is mostly a venal enterprise, and that any sponsorships are entirely about money, no consideration given to the fitness or appropriateness of the product or service. balance bracelets, faith healing, gatorade flavored vapes, all fine.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

General question, Ironman took a beating for signing a partnership with Aleve. How is that different here? The idea being CBD alleviates pain. I'm gonna bet that thousands of athletes take some type of anti-inflammatory (I currently don't). And I definitely look at these within the same construct. However, I might say to this: if you're taking a CBD supplement that is a different brand. You should probably switch to this, because of the NGB is partnering with it and you pop you could probably go after the NGB. (Provided you're also not hot-boxing your van before a race!)

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

The scientific research proving the efficacy of CBD is minimal. I'd say it's barely a step above snake oil at this point.

Based on my experiencing volunteering for a governing body, I don't think they should take any kind of sponsorship money. But they probably wouldn't be able to survive without it...

i don't think IM should've taken a beating for that deal, therefore i don't see any problem with this deal.

we probably turn down more brands than anyone in triathlon, and if there is any media entity that is pickier than we are i'd like to know who. we turn down deals constantly. we turn down deals some of your favorite athletes won't turn down, and the real double standard is that the athletes don't get taken to task for deals that IM or USAT get flayed for taking. but to the point...

i would absolutely not turn down a deal from a CBD company. am i convinced of its efficicy? no. am i satisfied that it's not efficacious? no. i think there's plenty of reason to remain agnostic, so i'm remaining agnostic. i knew about this deal last week, and what i told USAT, privately (i guess it's not so private now since i'm telling you all), is that what USAT ought to do is test a random bottle every couple of months to make sure what's in the pill is what's on the label. my only concern about CBD - what i could control as a brand partner, or as a media entity - is that if it says 25mg of CBD and no THC that this is what's actually in the gel cap or whatever it is.

as to the efficacy of CBD, i'm not convinced yet in either direction. i have zero problem turning down an ad from a company that produces snake oil. have done it many times. i have no CBD deal now and don't anticipate one, so it's no skin off my teeth one way or the other. to me, it feels like tri-specific virtue signaling to criticize USAT for this.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I received an email from USAT 20 minutes ago about a partnership with "Pure Spectrum CBD". I'm guessing if you are a USAT member you received this email as well.

The NYT article is paywalled, but I found the announcement on the USAT Site:

https://www.teamusa.org/...Form-CBD-Partnership

It states that USADA and WADA allow for CBD use in an out of competition, and claims that Pure Spectrum ensures that no THC is in their products by using batch-specific testing.

Yet USADA claims here: https://www.usada.org/...w-about-cannabidiol/

that "it is very difficult, if not impossible, to obtain a pure CBD extract or oil from the cannabis plant"

It seems that USADA is strongly cautioning athletes to avoid CBD altogether, because you can never be sure. If that's the case, really strange why USAT is promoting CBD oils.

So what would happen if I used a "tainted' CBD oil that actually had some THC in it? I could be given a suspension (as others have) and possibly lose my job (my work randomly drug tests). Is that probably going to happen? no, but that's like saying, having a beer on the drive back from work is OK, because you won't be "drunk", and how often do you get stopped anyway?

Also worth pointing out, that Phil Gaimon is a strong anti-doping advocate, yet promotes CBD oils on his instagram. Seems odd that he would support something that has a direct connection to doping (e.g. Lauren Goss).

Why take the risk? Heaven knows we don't need yet another supplement to purchase....

I'd need to read through the USADA document. But I'm going to guess most of it is based off of athlete claims that their CBD supplement was contamination and not from actual testing. Every time an athlete does that it creates a problem when the concentration of THC in a CBD cream would have basically make it all THC as I understood it from the previous thread on Goss popping. So if Pros don't want to just own that they hot boxed their van the day before a test, that's on them.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

You’re saying she lied - why? What do you think really happened?

There is a 99.999999% chance she lied. Did she use CBD cream? Probably.

But given how high the thresholds are for triggering an adverse analytical finding for THC, there is absolutely no way in hell a CBD cream alone could trigger a positive, even if it was "tainted". She was just consuming a lot of weed, but didn't want to admit it. I have no idea why she didn't want to admit, but that is very obviously the situation.

Not the 1st and far from the biggest.

Pros aren't straight-up smoking weed very much. Vaping some? Sure. But by and large, it's edible consumption to help unwind at night, promote sleep, and relieve some of the chronic joint/muscle pain associated with training 20-30 hours per week for years on end.

Now what percent of pros are taking edibles? I have no idea. But I can tell you that I leaned on them during my career, and know several others who also did. But, I did my research on testing protocols and elimination rates, so that I knew I was never going into race day with a risk of violating WADA rules. (remember - THC is only tested for in-competition, WADA does not regulate it out-of-competition)

Per the USADA release on Goss:

https://www.usada.org/...pts-doping-sanction/

"USADA has always recommended that athletes use only dietary supplements that have been certified by a third-party program that tests for substances prohibited in sport. USADA currently recognizes NSF Certified for Sport® as the program best suited for athletes to reduce the risk from supplements."

I took a look at their product browser:

https://www.nsfsport.com/certified-products/

I didn't see PureSpecturm in their manufacturing list, and their were no hits under "CBD Oil"

I found the protein powder I use: https://www.nsfsport.com/...etail.php?id=1256427 , but I didn't find any hits under "Advil" or "Ibuprofen", so not sure how comprehensive this site really is.

looking back at the USAT press release, the claim

"All Pure Spectrum products undergo batch-specific testing in multiple third-party labs"

Is kind of BS because A) they don't name these labs, and B) There are lab's within a company that are certified as "independent" on paper, but in reality are just a department within the company (I work for a chemical company)


It's unfortunate if Goss was lying about this (and history shows us that most people caught are lying about what they actually did), but it doesn't seem implausible that her CBD cream was the culprit (vs say, protein powder)

People, and athletes with a following lie all the time. If lying and saying it was her CBD supplement helped retain some of her sponsor dollars that's a you betcha.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I'm just taking inferences from the posts previously in a thread about Goss, you'd basically have to hot box the van the night before to meet the threshold that would be considered for USADA to enact a penalty.


I'm not saying it's smart for them to get a sponsorship. However, NSF and GMP certifications are about factories and what is used in manufacturing. You can easily have a CBD supplement produced in an NSF/GMP Compliant facility. But I highly doubt you can get that thing certified by Informed Choice/Sport.

I'm just saying it's interesting.

And back to Goss...skin absorption for those thresholds as I wrote wouldn't make it because the thresholds for THC are insanely high compared to other PEDs.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Or eat 20 mg of edibles the night before, with some residual THC already built up in your system from prior use. Something of that nature.

At the threshold required to trigger a positive, it's virtually impossible that CBD cream, no matter how "tainted", could trigger a positive test for THC. She'd basically have to be *eating* buckets of a topical cream, and that seems.... unlikely.

Gotcha, thanks.

I can't imagine using and not disclosing, but I guess it's possible.

".....the real double standard is that the athletes don't get taken to task for deals that IM or USAT get flayed for taking."

IMO there is a difference between sponsoring an athlete and sponsoring a media outlet or governing body. There are two things that sponsorship money can buy: marketing and influence. With sponsoring athletes it's strictly the former; with media and federations there is always concern about the latter. Def. not insinuating anything about ST (y'all have a pretty strong firewall in this regard), but there are lots of media outlets that will preferably cover their sponsors and avoid negative reviews on them. For governing bodies, just look at how NOP was getting favorable treatment by USATF.

Athletes still get taken to task for certain sponsorships (ex. Bahrain 13), but the bar is definitely higher. It's a double standard because the sponsored entities (and potential benefits of sponsoring) are not comparable.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

1: you seem confident about elimination rates- and I’ve read the : you’d have to hot box a van etc.
but thc metabolizes one the fat- so even if she were using edibles and cream or smoking, well out of competition- a week or more let’s say. You could still pop for thc. The threshold arguement has little backing to hold up other than people saying its true.
2: banned in competition. Yet there’s no way to test if an athlete was high during the race. And as you said they don’t regulate out of competition testing. I think we can safely assume she wasn’t likely smoking pre race.
3: the consequences of the ban aren’t the ban- but a professional leaving the sport bc or loss of sponsorships- and the inability to race professionally without financial backing from sponsors.
I suppose one could go race without sponsors, for little to no money- but that seems irresponsible if it were in fact the way you’d made a living.
It’s too bad- bc she was a legitimate competitor in a sport watered down with start lists that might as well be amateurs.