Robert Garrigus, back on the PGA Tour this week at the 3M Open after a three-month suspension for marijuana use, is talking with Tour officials about its banned substances list, he told Golf Channel.
Garrigus, 41, was suspended in March after a drug test showed elevated levels of THC, the principal psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.
He said he was using prescribed marijuana at the time to treat knee and back pain and had monitored his TCH levels throughout the fall and winter.
Now he's back on Tour — and, he says, no longer using medical marijuana. But he has approached PGA Tour officials with the hopes of getting marijuana removed from the list of banned substances given that it has been legalized in multiple states in recent years.
"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."
The PGA Tour declined to comment to Golf Channel on its story. Garrigus owns a marijuana farm in Washington state, where marijuana is legal, and according to Golf Channel he will meet with Tour commissioner Jay Monahan at next week's John Deere Classic.
Garrigus didn't appeal his suspension in March and maintains that his failed drug test was not the result of an attempt to use marijuana as a performance-enhancer.
"I wasn't trying to degrade the PGA Tour in any way, my fellow professionals in any way. I don't cheat the game," said Garrigus, who has won once on Tour (2010 Children's Miracle Network Classic). "I understand (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."
