White: I don’t disagree that doping punishments should be harsher
Dana White: “But USADA deals with that, we don’t. We’re out of that business. We leave it to the professionals. But yeah, I don’t disagree.”
UFC president (bizarrely he is referred to by SI as “commissioner”) Dana White spoke recently with Sports Illustrated about USADA, which conducts the league’s independent anti-doping program. The current process is complex. Following a failed anti-doping test or doping admission, an investigation is conducted. Punishments differ for non-specified substances (steroids, HGH, etc.) and for specified substances (marijuana, cocaine, etc.) that are prohibited in-competition only.
Non-specified substances
1st offense – 2 years (with possibility of 4 years for “aggravating circumstances”)
2nd offense – Double the sanction for the 1st offense
3rd offense – Double the sanction for the 2nd offense
Specified substances
1st offense: 1 year (with possibility of 2 additional years for “aggravating circumstances”)
2nd offense – Double the sanction for the 1st offense
3rd offense – Double the sanction for the 2nd offense
Investigations often reveal extenuating circumstances, perhaps most notably with Jon Jones, who took a contaminated bootleg erectile dysfunction pill, but was determined not to have knowingly taken an anabolic agent, so received less than the full punishment. Indeed punishment is rarely the maximum.
White was asked if USADA should mete our harsher punishments for doping violators, as a number of fighters including Mark Hunt and Michael Bisping have called for.
I don’t disagree with that, said White, as transcribed by Oscar Willis for The MacLife. But USADA deals with that, we don’t. We’re out of that business. We leave it to the professionals. But yeah, I don’t disagree.
Jones is now looking at his second possible anti-doping violation. Bisping believes a second offense should result in a lifetime ban. However, White notes that it’s complex, as he is not in charge of the process.
Legally, USADA would have to handle this thing, he said. And whatever USADA says, [Jones is] going to have to follow that punishment, because they work hand-in-hand with the athletic commission, whether it’s Nevada or California or whatever it might be — which is essentially the government.
So the government works with USADA, and they figure out what the ban is going to be. But if it came back that Jon Jones would get a three-month suspension, legally owe him a fight. I legally owe him a fight, I have a contract with the guy.
But USADA deals with that, we don’t.”