'THERE WAS A LOT OF POT SMOKING GOING ON'

DID HE OR DIDN'T HE? THE EXPERTS SPEAK

Experts are divided on whether to believe snowboarder Ross Rebagliati's
claim that he inhaled -- but didn't smoke -- marijuana.

The amount of marijuana metabolites found in Mr. Rebagliati's bloodstream
was so insignificant, says Simon Fraser psychology professor Barry
Beyerstein, that the only thing it proves is that the athlete didn't smoke
a large amount of marijuana recently.

``It's a tiny, tiny amount,'' argues Mr. Beyerstein, one of Canada's
leading authorities on drug testing.

And the Canadian Olympic Association's key adviser on drugs in sport, Dr.
Andrew Pipe of Ottawa, says the appeal to restore Mr. Rebagliati's gold
medal was partly based on his ``plausible'' explanation for where the
marijuana traces came from.

But two other drug experts say the level of marijuana found in Mr.
Rebagliati's urine could not have gotten there from second-hand smoke. A
drug test less than one hour after Mr. Rebagliati's gold-medal-winning
performance showed 17.8 nanograms of marijuana metabolites per millilitre
of urine. The rules of the International Ski Federation permit a level of
15 nanograms per millilitre.

Mr. Rebagliati says he hasn't smoked any marijuana since April 1997, but he
did say he spends a lot of time in the company of marijuana smokers in
Whistler, B.C. He says he was exposed to marijuana at a going-away party on
Jan. 31 before he left for Japan.

Dr. Siu Chan, director of the Calgary Regional Health Authority Centre for
Toxicology, said if that's his claim, ``then the answer (as to whether this
explains the test result) is definitively, `No.' ''

Mr. Chan, a PhD toxicologist who ran the Calgary drug-testing lab during
the 1988 Winter Olympics and is now a consultant for the National Football
League and the College of American Pathologists, said Mr. Rebagliati must
have smoked marijuana sometime before the testing. But because the level is
very low it would probably have been a week or two before.

The active drug that can be detected in marijuana
(delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol or THC) is absorbed in fatty tissue in
various organs.

Mr. Chan, who's lab tests about 1,200 samples a year for drugs, said the
scientific literature shows that the byproducts of second-hand marijuana
smoke do not show up in significant quantities in the urine. Dr. Bill
Campbell, a Calgary specialist in treating addictions, agreed. He said he
hears the second-hand smoke claim all the time. It might get in the urine,
but not at measurable levels, he says.

``These tests are highly standardized. When they get a positive it means
the person has used marijuana in the last three to four weeks,'' said Dr.
Campbell, a member of the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

Those views echo those of Dr. Benno Nigg, a member of the IOC medical
commission and head of the University of Calgary's Human Performance Lab.

He said ``it's very unlikely'' the positive test for marijuana would have
come from second-hand smoke.

Mr. Chan said he doesn't think Mr. Rebagliati should lose the gold medal,
because the reading of 17.8 nanograms per millilitre is too close to the
permitted level of 15 nanograms. ``To give him the benefit of the doubt I
would disregard anything below 18,'' he said.

But Dr. Nigg disagreed: ``If you go into a race with one of those drugs,
it's like having an unfair advantage that other people don't have. You are
cheating,'' he said. ``You may go a different way into a race -- more
aggressively or more relaxed ... All drugs give an advantage. In general
those drugs change the way you approach something. It's not a fair game
anymore.''

But Mr. Regliati's defenders argue the small amount of marijuana detected
in his system would not have affected his performance -- in a good or bad
way.

``It's miniscule and the technology is there to pick it up now, but it
won't tell you how he took it into his system,'' says Mr. Beyerstein. ``It
won't tell you when he took it, and it won't tell you whether he was
intoxicated by it. All it says it that at some undetermined time in the
past this person was exposed to this product, whether through second-hand
smoke or personal use.''

Mr. Rebagliati has been tested twice for drugs, in mid-September and
mid-December 1997, prior to coming to the Games. On both of those occasions
there were small traces of marijuana, but below the level set out by the
international ski federation.

Dr. Pipe says, ``I don't know if it's possible, but I'd say it's
plausible,'' that the traces of marijuana found in Mr. Rebagliati's system
could have come second-hand.

``When we looked at the scientific literature on people exposed to high
concentrations of marijuana smoke -- say, 16 people in a room -- we found
it will produce marijuana metabolites in urine,'' says Dr. Pipe. ``The
question is, how long will those concentrations persist?''

Dr. Pipe says one of the difficulties in judging the Rebagliati case is
that most scientific research is based on testing of individuals exposed to
smoke from low-potency marijuana cigarettes -- in which pot makes up about
2.5 per cent of the substance smoked.

Dr. Pipe says the typical joint in British Columbia, according to experts
who contacted him after news of the IOC decision, has up to 30 per cent
marijuana.

``We're dealing with very, very potent marijuana,'' says Dr. Pipe, adding
that ``repeated exposure'' to such potent concentrations of the drug hasn't
been studied and that in these cases there's a strong chance of heavy
accumulation in the body.

``Nobody has done any studies on such high-potency marijuana,'' says Dr.
Pipe. ``That's an issue in the appeal developed by Canada.'' Mr. Beyerstein
says marijuana metabolites can stay in the blood stream up to six weeks,
much longer than the traces of alcohol, heroin or other drugs.

``Marijuana metabolites hang around a lot longer because they are highly
fat soluble and hang around in all kinds of nooks and crannies in the body
and are released over a period of weeks, and on certain occasions and for
certain people, months.''

The whole marijuana scandal is indicative of new testing practices that
detect the most minute amount of drugs, says Mr. Beyerstein.

``I've studied cases in the United States where bank tellers test positive
for cocaine use during company testing ... Now these are bank tellers who
are of impeccable character and are anti-drugs. The reason? There is
cocaine on the one hundred dollar bills coming out of the underground
economy. These people handling large numbers of those bills absorb enough
cocaine to test positive. It gets that crazy.''