What’s the story?
Fighters, fans, and media have all been very vocal about their displeasures with the banning of marijuana use by the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC), but that all may change in a matter of days as the commission is set to vote on removing the recreational drug from its banned list. The meeting comes after a year of much controversy regarding the banning of the drug, with fines and suspensions being handed out like candy over the matter.
In case you didn’t know...
Former UFC welterweight title challenger Nick Diaz was handed an insanely ridiculous fine of five years and $165,000 after testing positive for marijuana metabolites shortly after his main event meeting with former UFC middleweight king Anderson ‘The Spider’ Silva at UFC 183 in January of 2015. After a ton of backlash from some of the biggest names in the sport, including a social media rampage from fans, Diaz’s punishment was alter reduced to 18 months and is now cleared to return to all combat sports related activities.
The heart of the matter:
The NSAC is set to meet this Friday (January 13, 2017) to discuss the removal of marijuana from its banned list, as the commission's’s agenda reads they will be discussing “the possible exclusion of cannabinoids (marijuana) from the list of prohibited substances and methods pursuant to passage of Nevada ballot initiative question 2.”
What’s next?
After the state of Nevada recently legalized marijuana recreationally state-wide in the United States’ recent election cycle, it may play a factor in the voting of Friday’s meeting. While the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) currently still considers marijuana a banned substance, the legalization by the NSAC could soon make that a thing of the past.
Sportskeeda’s Take:
Marijuana is not by any means a performance enhancing drug, nor does it give the combatant under the influence any type of advantage whatsoever. It’s presence on the banned list of any combat sports related commission is nothing more than a nuisance to the recreational lives of fighters. The NSAC is taking the right step and I can only hope USADA soon follows.
