The splen­dour of it all can’t be hid­den. It’s an­oth­er Car­ni­val Tues­day here in T&T. Sport takes a back seat. The two days of Car­ni­val, yes­ter­day and to­day, are a won­der­ful dis­play of Trin­bag­on­ian cre­ativ­i­ty.

Car­ni­val, this year, falls with­in the first few days of Ra­madan. Co-ex­ist. Both Car­ni­val and Ra­madan speak to our gift and tal­ent for cre­at­ing a melt­ing pot of dif­fer­ent in­gre­di­ents.

There is more to it than meets the eye. So many con­tra­dic­tions. Yes­ter­day, ear­ly Car­ni­val Mon­day morn­ing, while walk­ing to take in the J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions, the smell of mar­i­jua­na was ev­i­dent.

There was no hid­ing the fact—mar­i­jua­na was in the air. It served as a re­minder of a Caribbean re­al­i­ty not just T&T, the mar­i­jua­na cul­ture—it’s a top­ic that Things That Mat­ter ad­dressed be­fore. To be pre­cise—May 27, 2019. The col­umn head­line read: “Mar­i­jua­na re­mains a touchy sub­ject to talk about”.

In that par­tic­u­lar edi­tion, I made the point that mar­i­jua­na, for a num­ber of rea­sons, the re­al­i­ty of mar­i­jua­na for recre­ation­al and or so­cial use, is not a top­ic many peo­ple want to dis­cuss.

For some, it is taboo—a top­ic to be swept un­der the car­pet. I fur­ther made the call for frank talk, not just an­ti-dop­ing ed­u­ca­tion and aware­ness.

As life would have it, a head­line in a March 2, 2025 ar­ti­cle in the USA To­day read: “Cla­res­sa Shields says she’s nev­er used weed. Did sec­ond-hand smoke cause failed drug test?”

Ac­cord­ing to the ar­ti­cle writ­ten by Josh Pe­ter, Shields, a two-time Olympic gold medal­list and three-time undis­put­ed world cham­pi­on, is fac­ing a ques­tion in­volv­ing her in­tegri­ty.

The ques­tion many are ask­ing giv­en her de­nial of mar­i­jua­na use is could Shields have test­ed pos­i­tive for mar­i­jua­na even if she nev­er used the drug?

Ac­cord­ing to Shields, af­ter her last box­ing match—a vic­to­ry over Danielle Perkins on Feb­ru­ary 2 at Dort Fi­nan­cial Cen­tre in her home­town of Flint, Michi­gan—a sali­va test de­tect­ed “trace” amounts of mar­i­jua­na, a pro­hib­it­ed sub­stance in com­pe­ti­tion for pro­fes­sion­al fight­ers in Michi­gan.

She was sus­pend­ed by the Michi­gan Un­armed Com­bat Com­mis­sion (MUCC), which reg­u­lates box­ing in the state, and such dis­ci­pline gen­er­al­ly is up­held by oth­er states.

Shields faces a 90-day sus­pen­sion and a pos­si­ble fine. In an in­ter­est­ing, some will say bizarre twist, Shields was not the on­ly box­er on the Feb­ru­ary 2 card to test pos­i­tive for mar­i­jua­na. Eight of the 16 box­ers on that night’s card were drug test­ed by swab, and three test­ed pos­i­tive for mar­i­jua­na.

It has been spec­u­lat­ed that mar­i­jua­na smoke in­side the Dort Fi­nan­cial Cen­tre in Flint trig­gered the pos­i­tive tests.

Can sec­ond-hand smoke cause a non-smok­er to test pos­i­tive for THC (tetrahy­dro­cannabi­nol), the ac­tive in­gre­di­ent in mar­i­jua­na?

WA­DA tests for mar­i­jua­na and al­lows a thresh­old of 150 mg/ml.

Shields is adamant and in a state­ment said, “I stand by who I am, a clean ath­lete with noth­ing to hide. While this sit­u­a­tion is frus­trat­ing, I’m con­fi­dent the truth will come out.”

The im­por­tant point that Things That Mat­ter high­lights (yet again) is the need for much more dis­cus­sions and ed­u­ca­tion about mar­i­jua­na and sport giv­en the re­al­i­ty of the mar­i­jua­na cul­ture in T&T and the Caribbean.

Is the pos­si­bil­i­ty that sec­ond-hand ex­po­sure to mar­i­jua­na can cause a failed drug test fact or fic­tion? Food for thought.

Re­turn­ing to the fes­tiv­i­ties, I wish every­one a safe and en­joy­able Car­ni­val Tues­day.