Robert Garrigus returns to the PGA Tour this week at the 3M Open following a three-month suspension after failing a drug test based on elevated THC levels in March.
Garrigus, 41, returned to play two weeks ago on the Korn Ferry Tour.
Garrigus said he was not trying to cheat and spared no time in speaking out against the current PGA Tour policies in regard to marijuana use. He believes any suspension for marijuana use should not be regarded in the same light as one for a player trying to use illicit substances to gain a performance advantage.
“I wasn’t trying to degrade the PGA Tour in any way, my fellow professionals in any way. I don’t cheat the game,” Garrigus told Todd Lewis of Golf Channel. “I understand HGH (human growth hormone), anything you are trying to do to cheat the game you should be suspended for 100 percent. Everything else should be a discussion.”
Garrigus told Lewis that he had been prescribed marijuana to treat the pain in his knee and back, had monitored his THC levels to try and keep them within Tour guidelines and he is no longer using it. He also said he is working with PGA Tour officials to get marijuana removed the Tour’s list of banned substances and plans to meet with Commissioner Jay Monahan next week at the John Deere Classic.
It “doesn’t help you get it in the hole,” said Garrigus, who owns a marijuana farm in Washington state, where recreational use of pot is legal.
“If you have some sort of pain and CBD or THC may help that, and you feel like it can help you and be prescribed by a doctor, then what are we doing?” Garrigus said. “If you are doing marijuana then we should be testing for alcohol, too. If you can buy it in a store, then why are we testing for it? That’s my opinion.”
