Rogan: More than half of fighters smoke pot

There is a general feeling in mixed martial arts that while the rules are the rules and must be enforced, stringent prohibitions on marijuana are not in keeping with sweeping changes in the way society views smoking pot.

“Society is changing, it’s a different world now,” said UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner last March. “States are legalizing marijuana and it’s becoming more and more of a problem with fighters testing positive and the metabolites.

“Right now I just cannot believe that a performance enhancing drug and marijuana can be treated the same. It just doesn’t make sense to the world anymore and it’s something that has to be brought up.”

One quick solution to the problem was presented by the The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which recently upped the standards for a positive test, to prevent fighters from competing while high, but not penalizing those fighters that choose to engage in marijuana on a recreational, or prescription basis. Under the new standard, the marijuana testing threshold will be raised from 50 ng/mL to 150 ng/mL.

Now, the UFC has raised the testing threshold for marijuana, but many Athletic Commissions still use older standards.

UFC color commentator and MMA personality Joe Rogan recently discussed the issue on his JRE podcast, and said accurately that a “tremendous” number of fighters smoke pot.

“Here is a weird thing about Martial Arts,” began Rogan, as transcribed by Karim Zidan for BE. “A tremendous amount of UFC fighters smoke pot. I mean a massive amount, where it is a huge issue for them involving drug tests. They have to stop smoking weed for the last four weeks or so to pass drug tests.

“More UFC fighters smoke pot than don’t smoke pot.”

Fighters should not fight drunk and they should not fight high, but out of competition use of marijuana or Budweiser should not be part of the regulatory process.

(1:03:45 mark)