UFC news: Marijuana no longer violates
anti-doping policy. https://t.co/SE25ebYQyh— Jeff Novitzky (@JeffNovitzkyUFC)
January 14, 2021
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your smart TV, computer, phone, tablet or streaming device via the
ESPN app. The
Ultimate Fighting Championship and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency
are turning the corner on marijuana in the sport. Per
MMA Junkie on Thursday, the promotion and agency announced
together that the marijuana policies in effect for the UFC athletes
has changed drastically. As a result, fighters that test positive
for marijuana, no matter the level or threshold the fighter
reaches, will not be found in violation of the anti-doping policy.
This new policy also applies to various substances found in CBD
products. Instead, fighters will be evaluated for if they used the
substance for “performance-enhancing purposes.”
This change will not impact commissions or federations that
prohibit marijuana, and will only come into play when the UFC
serves as its own regulatory body like in Abu Dhabi, United Arab
Emirates. Fighters that fail drug tests for marijuana in the U.S.
will still be subject to the commissions’ rules, and it does not
appear that there will be any ex post facto – or retroactive –
rulings from the policy change.
In a statement acquired by
MMA Junkie, UFC senior vice president of athlete health and
performance Jeff Novitzky explained the reasoning for what many
view to be a much-needed update.
“While we want to continue to prevent athletes from competing under
the influence of marijuana, we have learned that blood and/or urine
levels of carboxy-THC have little-to-no scientific correlation to
impairment.” He continued, “the bottom line is that in regards to
marijuana, we care about what an athlete consumed the day of a
fight, not days or weeks before a fight, which has often been the
case in our historic positive THC cases.”
Based on USADA’s analysis of UFC fighter conduct and discussion,
the use of marijuana has grown largely in the community as a way to
handle combat-related ailments like pain and anxiety. Fighters
cannot compete while impaired, but otherwise, will be allowed to
partake.
“Based on my informal discussion with athletes, there’s a
significant number of percentage of athletes that choose to use
marijuana, many for legitimate reasons outside of recreational,”
Novitzky admitted. “Many use it for pain control, anti-anxiety, to
sleep, in lieu of more dangerous, more addictive drugs, so
hopefully this being the first step to opening that up so that an
athlete on Wednesday night of fight week instead of going to a
Vicodin because their knee hurts and they can’t sleep can use a
little bit of cannabis and get to sleep and have that pain
control.”
Although this does not alter any commission regulations per se, the
goal of this USADA policy change is to inform these commissions and
eventually make this a uniform rule change.
“It has no affect [sic] whatsoever on a competition on Saturday
night, so it’s the right move, and I’m really excited about this
revision and that specific policy change,” Novitzky exclaimed. “I
would caution everybody to temper their enthusiasm about this
because we are still working on the commission factor here, but we
are actively working on that. We are educating, informing, lobbying
them, and I hope not too far in the near future that we can get
uniformity across all the rules as it relates to marijuana because
I think it would certainly be a benefit to the athletes.”
