Cannabis, Culture, and the Science of the Runner’s High

Cannabis has gone from the subject of Reefer Madness propaganda to a mainstream wellness product. But for athletes, the debate over weed is still tangled up in stigma, patchy science, and confusing rules.

In this episode of Your Diet Sucks, Zoë Rom and Kylee Van Horn dig into the messy intersection of cannabis, culture, and sport. We trace how racist policies and industry lobbying shaped the “lazy stoner” stereotype, how the World Anti-Doping Agency still bans THC despite limited evidence, and what current research actually shows about cannabis and performance.

The science paints a complicated picture. THC doesn’t boost VO₂ max, strength, or coordination, and in some studies, it made performance worse. But many athletes say cannabis helps them manage pain, fall asleep faster, or feel less anxious before competition. CBD, once hyped as the ultimate recovery tool, has largely failed to deliver in clinical trials, though mislabeling and contamination remain widespread. And the runner’s high itself may be thanks to your body’s own endocannabinoid system, the same one cannabis taps into.

Cannabis isn’t a performance enhancer, but for some athletes, it may make training more enjoyable or recovery less stressful. With U.S. federal restrictions blocking high-quality trials, athletes are left to experiment on themselves while science struggles to catch up.

Episode Summary

Cannabis is probably not going to make you faster, stronger, or give you Simone Biles-level balance—but it might make your training feel easier, your recovery feel better, and help you fall asleep faster. And honestly, that's not nothing. For athletes and active people, perception matters. If something helps you feel calmer, enjoy your workouts more, or stick with your routine, that's huge.

The catch? The science is lagging because policy and stigma have outpaced the actual evidence. WADA's rules are built more on optics and culture than on physiology, and US research is still hobbled by outdated Schedule I classification. In this episode, Zoë and Kylee trace the racist roots of cannabis prohibition, break down what the science actually says about THC and CBD for athletes, and explain why the "stoner stereotype" was manufactured from the ground up.

The Racist History of Cannabis Prohibition

In 1930, Harry Anslinger became the first head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (now the DEA). Most Americans didn't have strong opinions about drugs—this was an era when you'd give your kid whiskey and morphine for a cold. But Anslinger noticed Americans were very open to racist ideologies. Cannabis had been a staple of pharmacies for generations (appearing in the US Pharmacopeia from 1850-1942), and even Anslinger himself had said on the record it was harmless.

His brilliant idea? A rebrand. He ditched the botanical name and started calling it "marijuana"—a term that sounded exotic (i.e., Mexican) to explicitly associate it with non-white people and frighten the public. In 1936, Anslinger proclaimed that "50% of all US violent crimes may be traced to the use of marijuana" and commissioned the propaganda film "Reefer Madness." US legislators voted for a federal ban in 1937 without hearing a single minute of medical evidence or scientific research.

Nixon, Reagan & the War on Drugs

The stereotypes intensified through the 1960s. Nixon's advisor John Ehrlichman admitted in a 1968 Harper's interview: "We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin... we could disrupt those communities." That's a politician saying that to a journalist, knowing it would be printed.

Reagan took it further in the 80s—seizing cannabis in international waters, pressuring South American countries to spray harmful herbicides on suspected marijuana fields (killing animals, poisoning water, and harming humans), and scrubbing positive references to cannabis from the NIDA database. Then Nancy Reagan launched "Just Say No." The anti-weed campaigns of the 80s and 90s were explicitly bankrolled by alcohol companies, tobacco giants, and big pharma—the same folks selling Marlboros, Budweisers, and Valium funding fear-mongering about cannabis because if weed gets legalized, their profits are on the line.

The Runner's High & Endocannabinoid System

The reason we get a runner's high has everything to do with the same system cannabis taps into: the endocannabinoid system. For decades, everyone assumed runner's high came from endorphins, but endorphins are actually too big to cross the blood-brain barrier. They help with pain modulation in your body but don't explain why your brain feels euphoric after a long run.

Your body makes its own cannabinoids. After exercise—especially steady-state running—levels of anandamide (aka "the bliss molecule") spike in your bloodstream. Unlike endorphins, anandamide does cross into the brain, binds to cannabinoid receptors, and produces effects similar to THC: reduced anxiety, less pain, and that calm, floaty mood boost. Scientists think it's evolutionary—if running made our ancestors feel awful, we wouldn't have been good persistence hunters. A runner's high might be nature's way of bribing us to keep chasing that gazelle.

Is Cannabis Performance Enhancing?

The science here is kind of a mess. For endurance: a classic 80s study found that people's heart rate and ventilation went up after smoking, while time to exhaustion went down—you hit the wall faster, not slower. Even recent reviews say the same: weed doesn't boost VO2 max, and at best does nothing. For strength and power: no quality evidence that THC makes you stronger or more explosive. It messes with coordination and reaction time, making high-skill sports harder, not easier.

Where it gets interesting is the vibes department. Some athletes report cannabis makes workouts feel easier or less miserable. THC can dull pain perception and lower how hard an effort feels—that doesn't mean your body is actually stronger, but your brain is less mad about what's happening. Cannabis doesn't enhance your capacity; it tweaks the experience of training. That's probably why WADA calls it "performance enhancing"—not because it gives you superpowers, but because it can shift your mental game.

CBD, Sleep & Recovery

CBD is everywhere—salves, gummies, shampoo, lattes. In the lab, cannabinoids show anti-inflammatory and pain relief properties, which is why everyone thought CBD would be the next big recovery tool. But in high-quality human RCT trials? Studies on muscle soreness and recovery markers show no real difference between CBD and placebo. A couple pilot studies found CBD made runs feel more enjoyable, but bigger studies failed to replicate it.

For sleep: a few small clinical trials suggest cannabis can help people fall asleep faster, but mostly in people with insomnia or chronic pain, not athletes. Heavy or long-term use can actually disrupt sleep architecture—cutting down on deep sleep and REM cycles, the stages active people need most for recovery. Athletes report that weed helps them wind down, and that perception is real. But if you're looking for high-quality objective evidence that cannabis improves recovery and sleep in athletes, we just don't have it yet.

The Strain Myth

If you've been to a dispensary, you've seen jars labeled Purple Haze, Girl Scout Cookies, or Durban Poison, described like wine varietals with distinct effects. Here's the thing: the science doesn't back up that level of precision. The term "strain" isn't botanically accurate—plants don't have strains, they have cultivars or chemovars.

When scientists test products sold under the same strain name, results are all over the place. One study showed two samples labeled the same strain often had completely different cannabinoid and terpene makeups. What really matters isn't the clever name or Indica/Sativa label—it's the specific chemical profile: ratios of THC, CBD, other cannabinoids, plus terpenes. Most dispensaries don't provide that transparency. Those claims that one type makes you sleepy and another makes you creative should be taken with a hefty grain of kief.

Why Athletes Use It Anyway

A 2019 PLOS1 study surveyed over 1,000 athletes (mostly runners, cyclists, triathletes). About a quarter were active cannabis users. The majority weren't trying to get high on the start line—they said it helped them sleep better, manage pain, and calm down after training. 70% pointed to pain and sleep, nearly 60% said it eased anxiety.

A CU Boulder study by researcher Angela Bryan surveyed 600 cannabis users expecting to find that pre-workout herb made people less active. Instead, roughly half said cannabis motivated them to exercise more. 80% reported using it before or after workouts, 70% said it made exercise more enjoyable, and nearly 80% said it helped them recover faster. That's perception, not physiology—but enjoyment is one of the strongest predictors of whether people stick with exercise. If something helps people enjoy movement more, that matters.

WADA, Testing & Why It's Still Banned

THC got added to WADA's prohibited list after Canadian snowboarder Ross Rebagliati won Olympic gold in 1998 and tested positive—not because weed was juicing performance, but because of the optics. The US Office of National Drug Control Policy said his medal "directly undercut our message to young people that drug use undermines a child's opportunities for success." They were essentially mad that this was objective proof marijuana doesn't ruin your future.

WADA justifies the ban on three criteria: potential performance enhancement (citing anecdotes about reduced anxiety and pain tolerance), athlete safety (impaired motor skills and reaction time), and "spirit of sport" (it's illegal in many places). The first two are shaky—meditation can reduce anxiety too. The third is cultural lag, not science. WADA raised its threshold in 2013 from 15 to 150 nanograms/mL, basically admitting the old standard was nailing people who weren't even high on competition day. CBD was removed from the prohibited list in 2018, but 35% of CBD products contain detectable THC—athletes are basically playing supplement roulette.

The Bottom Line

Cannabis isn't a miracle performance enhancer, but it's also definitely not the boogeyman. It won't make you insane, prone to violent crime, or lead you to heroin. It's just one more tool some athletes are using—sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse—while the evidence catches up to the culture.

Because cannabis is still Schedule I in the US, high-quality research is nearly impossible. Labs have to jump through DEA hoops, use government-grown cannabis that doesn't match what people actually consume, and deal with layers of red tape. In 2023, HHS recommended rescheduling to Schedule III, which would make research far easier. Until then, athletes are essentially running N-of-one experiments while science scrambles to keep up. Policy prescriptions: get it off the WADA banned list, get it off Schedule I, and let the science actually happen.

Key Studies & Sources

• 2019 PLOS1 study: 1,000+ athletes surveyed on cannabis use patterns
• CU Boulder study by Angela Bryan: 600 cannabis users on exercise motivation
• Research on anandamide and the endocannabinoid system in runner's high
• 2017 study: 43% of CBD products over-labeled, 26% under-labeled
• 2022 study: 58% of topical CBD products mislabeled, some with unlabeled THC
• 2022 Johns Hopkins study: 35% of CBD products contain detectable THC
• Classic 80s study on cannabis and time to exhaustion
• Nixon advisor John Ehrlichman's 1968 Harper's interview on drug policy

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References:

Bonn-Miller, M. O., Loflin, M. J. E., Thomas, B. F., Marcu, J. P., Hyke, T., & Vandrey, R. (2017). Labeling accuracy of cannabidiol extracts sold online. JAMA, 318(17), 1708-1709. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2017.11909

Bryan, A. D., Bryan, S., Magnan, R. E., Sauder, K. A., & Hutchison, K. E. (2019). Cannabis use and exercise behavior during a 4-month randomized trial of aerobic exercise training. PLOS ONE, 14(4), e0215763. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0215763

Johns Hopkins Medicine. (2022). Some CBD products don’t contain what they claim. Retrieved from https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org

Meier, M. H., Caspi, A., Ambler, A., Harrington, H., Houts, R., Keefe, R. S. E., McDonald, K., Ward, A., Poulton, R., & Moffitt, T. E. (2012). Persistent cannabis users show neuropsychological decline from childhood to midlife. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(40), E2657–E2664. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1206820109

National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse. (1972). Marihuana: A signal of misunderstanding. U.S. Government Printing Office.

Pacher, P., Bátkai, S., & Kunos, G. (2006). The endocannabinoid system as an emerging target of pharmacotherapy. Pharmacological Reviews, 58(3), 389–462. https://doi.org/10.1124/pr.58.3.2

Raichlen, D. A., Foster, A. D., Gerdeman, G. L., Seillier, A., & Giuffrida, A. (2012). Wired to run: Exercise-induced endocannabinoid signaling in humans and cursorial mammals with implications for the “runner’s high.” Journal of Experimental Biology, 215(8), 1331–1336. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.063677

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2023). HHS recommends rescheduling marijuana. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved from https://www.hhs.gov

World Anti-Doping Agency. (2023). The 2023 prohibited list: International standard. WADA. https://www.wada-ama.org

Hesse, J. (2021). Runner’s High: How a Movement of Cannabis-Fueled Athletes Is Changing the Science of Sports. G.P. Putnam’s Sons. (ISBN 978-0593191170)
[Penguin Random House listing] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/653009/runners-high-by-josiah-hesse/9780593191170 Penguin Random House Canada