NEW YORK — When the pandemic hit in March, the NBA stopped testing for drugs completely. The league brought back performance enhancing drug testing at the bubble, but did not test for marijuana.
The league and union announced Friday that the drug policy would continue through this season, which starts again in just 18 days.
"Due to the unusual circumstances in conjunction with the pandemic, we have agreed with the NBPA to suspend random testing for marijuana for the 2020-21 season and focus our random testing program on performance-enhancing products and drugs of abuse," the league said in a statement.
Players are rarely suspended for positive marijuana tests. The current policy is that players are suspended five games if they test positive three times, with fines and a substance abuse program coming with the first two tests. They're only tested for all drugs four times per season.
The league took the testing off the table the same day that the House of Representatives voted to legalize marijuana.
Nets star Kevin Durant had called for the NBA to permanently remove marijuana from its banned substances list while he was rehabbing his torn Achilles last year.
