Diaz tests positive following UFC 143

Raise your hand if you're shocked.
Anybody?

I just hope they go easy on him due to the weird situation where he is licensed to use it. They're not going to go easy, because Kizer has it in for him, but it would be nice if they did.....

With that said, I guess it's a good thing he didn't win, because that would have been a fucking mess.

Quote :

The former Strikeforce welterweight champion has tested positive for marijuana following his UFC 143 loss to Carlos Condit, and will be subject to a suspension and fine from the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

Nevada State Athletic Commission Executive Director Keith Kizer confirmed the news on Thursday.

“All (UFC 143 drug test) results received thus far have been negative, except Mr. Diaz tested positive for marijuana metabolites. A complaint for disciplinary action against Mr. Diaz has been filed,” Kizer informed MMAWeekly.com.

The following UFC 143 athletes were tested: Nick Diaz, Carlos Condit, Fabricio Werdum, Josh Koscheck, Renan Barao, Ed Herman, Dustin Poirier, Max Hollaway, Matt Riddle, Henry Martinez, Edwin Figueroa, Alex Caceres, Matt Brown, Chris Cope, Rafael Natal, Michael Kuiper, Stephen Thompson and Dan Stittgen.

http://www.mmaweekly.com/nick-diaz-tests-positive-following-ufc-143

Agree Trig, definitely a good thing he did not end up winning.

Regardless of having a license to use it or not, he knows he is going to fail the test;
I wonder if he is going to run into a similar situation as the one Sonnen was in regarding
the disclosure prior to the fight even happened.

I don't think it's a situation where he was stoned during the fight. I'm guessing that he used in the recent past and thought he'd be clean come fight time. So he probably didn't think he would fail the test.
However, it's gonna be made out to look like he went in there baked out of his mind and it was unsafe and the commission is the hero here for doing the right thing and blah blah blah.

I concur, he most definitely was not fighting high, (I don't rule it out entirely I suppose) but it is extremely unlikely. I have never heard of the circumstance which allow Diaz to smoke pot, sounds kind of out there; guy seems like he is in great shape so it couldn't be medicinal?

Hmmm supposedly there was so much THC in his system in the Gomi fight tests that they reckoned he was baked during the fight!

Completely not surprised. This is stupid - Nick knows it's a banned substance, why would he keep using it? He's either stubborn as fuck or dumb as fuck. I can only imagine he's going to be suspended for a while, probably a year. Which also means his "retirement" may be more likely than most of us assumed.

ill chime in as a medical marijuana card holder and someone who has a little knowledge on the subject....

no matter who the fighter...
if the person getting fined wanted to get a good lawyer it could more than likely be over turned...it is a prescribed medication, and the test doesnt prove that he even broke any laws....could have last partaken while in california up to 30 days before...(someone in as good of shape and as athletic as diaz would prob be clean in 2 weeks)..there are law suits of the same nature everyday. Also it is in no way a performance enhancer and i would put money on the fact he was not stoned during his fight.

and agree would be a mess if outcome was different.

side note anybody remember when luke cummo got popped for to much caffeine.....had a coffee inama (sp?)......is what makes me think about maybe taking it off the banned list and having acceptable levels like any other prescribed medication or caffeine.

The legalities and morals of using marijuana aside, it's still a banned substance. If it's something that is medically necessary he should have informed the Commission before the damn fight. He already got busted for it once before, he should have known better.

butterknifeninja wrote:

The legalities and morals of using marijuana aside, it's still a banned substance. If it's something that is medically necessary he should have informed the Commission before the damn fight. He already got busted for it once before, he should have known better.

But I think this is where you're missing the point being made.
It's no secret that he uses it. He's not trying to hide it. For all intents and purposes, he is allowed to use it as long as he's clean by the time he gets tested.
This isn't like cycling steroids, where you're cheating the system to gain a competitive edge. He uses it for medical purposes, and tried to be clean of it by the time he took the test. He obviously miscalculated the timeline and got dinged for it.

To make it seem like he's trying to be sneaky or something is inaccurate. It was sloppy on his part, but not unethical or dishonest.

A banned substance is a banned substance though. Legal or not, you're going to face license suspension and fines if you have it in your system come fight time. He knows it's banned, it's not his first rodeo. I just think he doesn't give a shit. Karo may be a bona-fide addict where I think Diaz is just not that concerned with being caught. Anyone who's been a smoker as long as Diaz knows how to beat a test. I think he just said "well I might test positive, if they make a big deal out of it I'll flash the card, if they don't accept my story then meh whateva". Knowing about it and caring about it are different. That said, I hate to see anyone waste opportunity like that because they can't lay off the schwag for 30 days.

I don't think he thought he could BS his way through it if he tested positive. He would have learned that through the Gomi fight. I think he genuinely thought he was clean by test time.

Before people get all up in arms and call him a pothead or whatever, remember that's it's a medication, and think of it this way;

If you take Paxil, and Paxil is banned at your job, and your job tests you regularly, what are you gonna do? Are you going to just not take it anymore ever again and just live with your symtoms and pray to god that they don't overtake your life and drive you insane? Or are you going to take it when you can and try to be clean of it by the time your job tests you?

If you say the former, you're either lying, or you have no idea how mental illness/medication works.

I just realized that my 1000th post was a post in which I was defending Nick Diaz.

Could there be a more perfect snapshot of my typical contribution to this site?

Give him another six month ban takes him into August just in time to train for GSP. Everybody is happy including Trigg.

Pot is not a PED no matter how you look at it so its not cheating just a technical rule. Time fine move on. Let Condit keep fighting to hold the interim.

He's probably getting a year (repeat offender), so maybe he gets winner of Condit/GSP? They were gonna do a rematch with Condit anyway.

Makes me wonder if Diaz even wanted to win the fight. He knew it was banned, did it anyway, and I'm sure he knew that he was going to get tested on it. Smoked the weed to avoid the GSP fight, cause even if he did win he would have been overturned by the AC. Makes me wonder if he had this all planned out, especially saying that he was going to retire.... all too convenient if you ask me.

I don't give that much credit to him. Nick doesn't view any of this as a game, or a chess match...plain and simple he views it as a back alley fight...that's pretty blatantly obvious. So I give him zero credit to the fact of "devising a plan of attack" to get certain fights he wants or anything like that.

The guys likes to smoke weed...regardless of the cost and reprocussions...and no one is going to tell him he can't.

Triggerman99 wrote:

butterknifeninja wrote:

The legalities and morals of using marijuana aside, it's still a banned substance. If it's something that is medically necessary he should have informed the Commission before the damn fight. He already got busted for it once before, he should have known better.

But I think this is where you're missing the point being made.
It's no secret that he uses it. He's not trying to hide it. For all intents and purposes, he is allowed to use it as long as he's clean by the time he gets tested.
This isn't like cycling steroids, where you're cheating the system to gain a competitive edge. He uses it for medical purposes, and tried to be clean of it by the time he took the test. He obviously miscalculated the timeline and got dinged for it.

To make it seem like he's trying to be sneaky or something is inaccurate. It was sloppy on his part, but not unethical or dishonest.

A few issues with this, whether he is prescribed the drug or not it is still a banned substance there are plenty of prescription drugs and even OTC supplements and drugs that are perfectly legal to take but are not allowed in MMA. It’s the rules of the sport regardless of if Diaz likes it or not if he wants to compete in a fight sanctioned by the state athletic commission he has to abide by them.

Second, there are exceptions to the rules (ie like what Hendo does with testosterone replacement therapy) but this has to be cleared by the commission ahead of time. You can’t test positive and then scramble to justify it (as we saw with Sonnen and Sherk in the past) I’m guessing (although I’m not sure) that if Diaz filed the proper paperwork with the commission including justification from his doctor on why he needs to use Marijuana for medical reasons then he could probably get cleared to test positive for it.

The fact is that Diaz either made a mistake or just didn't care, got sloppy and will now have to pay for it.

Agreed Grey. It doesn't matter what his reasons are or what the so called "justifications" are...if the commission says that ice cream is banned then don't eat ice cream unless they give you the ok ahead of time.

norcalmatt wrote:

ill chime in as a medical marijuana card holder and someone who has a little knowledge on the subject....

Your location gave that away buddy

^^^^lol....location is also accurate, i live @ 7500 ft

and grey put into word a little better what i was getting at about having acceptable levels...this an issue thats going on in cali and other medical friendly states right now (and that part of the discussion would be for the politics thread)

wonder if nates just smarter about it or doesnt smoke??

Grey Suit wrote:

Triggerman99 wrote:

butterknifeninja wrote:

The legalities and morals of using marijuana aside, it's still a banned substance. If it's something that is medically necessary he should have informed the Commission before the damn fight. He already got busted for it once before, he should have known better.

But I think this is where you're missing the point being made.
It's no secret that he uses it. He's not trying to hide it. For all intents and purposes, he is allowed to use it as long as he's clean by the time he gets tested.
This isn't like cycling steroids, where you're cheating the system to gain a competitive edge. He uses it for medical purposes, and tried to be clean of it by the time he took the test. He obviously miscalculated the timeline and got dinged for it.

To make it seem like he's trying to be sneaky or something is inaccurate. It was sloppy on his part, but not unethical or dishonest.

A few issues with this, whether he is prescribed the drug or not it is still a banned substance there are plenty of prescription drugs and even OTC supplements and drugs that are perfectly legal to take but are not allowed in MMA. It’s the rules of the sport regardless of if Diaz likes it or not if he wants to compete in a fight sanctioned by the state athletic commission he has to abide by them.

Second, there are exceptions to the rules (ie like what Hendo does with testosterone replacement therapy) but this has to be cleared by the commission ahead of time. You can’t test positive and then scramble to justify it (as we saw with Sonnen and Sherk in the past) I’m guessing (although I’m not sure) that if Diaz filed the proper paperwork with the commission including justification from his doctor on why he needs to use Marijuana for medical reasons then he could probably get cleared to test positive for it.

The fact is that Diaz either made a mistake or just didn't care, got sloppy and will now have to pay for it.

Yeah I'm not arguing any of that. He knows he's not suppoosed to use it around fight time. He did obviously, and he has to pay the price. There probably are better ways for him to deal with his situation when it comes to his prescription and fighting. But nobody ever claimed that Diaz was a good decision maker.....

However, I honestly can't see Kizer ever giving Diaz any sort of leniency or working with him on this in the future whatsoever in terms of granting him clearance. So unfortunately it's gonna be a situation where there will always be problems.

Dana the Kiz and Nick all just need to sit around a big hooka of primo shit and relax and have a good conversation about attitude and whats good for the sport.

Now I for one would like to see Nick and Carlos smoke about 10 grams of really good pot each and then rematch.

<<

Heh Pot heads fighting

hahahahaha...that's hilarious

I know rules are rules, but that doesn't mean they aren't stupid.
My own personal code of ethics goes ahead of pretty much any man made rules (ie.. subjective lines in the sand), so this kind of shit just gets me mad at the sport and situation (rather than the actual fighters).

I am 100 times more pissed at a guy for not making weight or committing other crimes (ie.. robbery, domestic violence, etc...) than for drugs.

I think what makes Diaz not give a shit about this is that he is a fighter. He doesn't and never will look at it as a game. I agree with that, and understand his frustration. There are guys that fit this mold, and I am always bigger fans of theirs despite their record on paper.