Shaquille O’Neal revealed that he tested positive for cocaine in an Olympic drug test in 1996 because of a snack that he ate.
The legendary basketball player and co-host of Inside the NBA spoke on the show about the Bobby Portis scandal—where he accidentally took medication for severe pain and subsequently tested positive for a banned substance—and opened up about his own experience failing a drug test.
“Olympics, ‘96, Atlanta,” said Shaq, setting the scene. “They told us not to eat before we took the drug test.”
Shaq then explained that he saw a poppyseed muffin nearby that he wanted to eat anyway. After eating it, Shaq relived what happened next. “Horace Balmer walks in and says ‘Man, I’m disappointed in you.’ I test positive for cocaine.”
Shaq made it clear how he actually tested positive because he didn’t actually use cocaine. “They did the research and the poppyseed muffins had the same derivatives as cocaine,” he explained.
To drive home his point, Shaq expressed the difficulties that players face in regards to the drug tests and products that may not be illegal, but have some of the same chemicals as the illegal ones. “They tell you not to take this, that, and that,” he explained. “That ‘something’ that’s not on the list can be a derivative of something you’re not supposed to take and you can mess up that way.”
Portis was recently suspended for 25 games due to his violation of the league’s anti-drug policy. He’ll be sidelined for the remainder of the season.
Portis’ representative, Mark Bartelstein of Priority Sports, explained what happened in a statement. "Bobby unintentionally took a pain medication called tramadol, thinking he was taking a pain medication called Toradol,” he said. “Toradol is an approved pain medication that he has used previously and that teams and players use for pain and inflammation at times.”
“Tramadol, however, is not an approved pain medication and was just recently added to the banned substance list this past spring,” he continued. “The tramadol pill he took came from an assistant of his, with a valid prescription for the painkiller, which he mistakenly told Bobby was Toradol.”
“This was, again, an honest mistake that was made because of the similarity in the names of the drugs and the fact they both serve a very similar purpose,” Bartelstein added. “Bobby was using this anti-inflammatory pain-reducing medication to deal with an elbow injury he had this past fall and believed he was taking Toradol to alleviate some pain in preparation for that night's game."