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Fox Sports: "Zach Arnold's Fight Opinion site is one of the best spots on the Web for thought-provoking MMA pieces."

« | Home | »

Nevada issues Nick Diaz a de facto lifetime ban over marijuana usage

By Zach Arnold | September 14, 2015

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Imagine if he had been involved in a hit-and-run or proclaimed he needed medicine from Thailand.

What’s another writ of mandate lawsuit amongst friends?

Read Brett Okamoto’s pain-staking summary of Monday’s Nevada State Athletic Commission meeting. Ben Fowlkes dispenses with the Barney Fife-level quasi-police attitude that was on display with the commission board. Mike Chiappetta on the unconscionable nature of a five year ban.

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 40 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

40 Responses to “Nevada issues Nick Diaz a de facto lifetime ban over marijuana usage”

  1. 45 Huddle says:

    I see no problem with the 5 year ban.

    The reason he got it was very simple:

    1) This is his THIRD time getting caught. He obviously has not learned his lesson.

    2) The amounts he had in his system were so high he probably was slightly high for the fight itself. That is extremely dangerous to be in combat sports and have any sort of mind altering drug currently effecting your state of mind.

    I am a pro weed person. Should be legal in all 50 states and they should retro-actively take people out of jail who were busted for weed only offenses. But it has no business being in your system during a fight. Just like many other legal substances have no business being in your system during a fight.

    • DIAZ'S PACKED BOWL says:

      The problem with your pedantic reasoning is that…

      1 weed metabolites, thats “inactivate cannabis” stays in your system for months AFTER initial usage.

      2 that means that with the low level he had in his system he wasn’t smoking anywhere near fight time.

      3 THC was not detected, were he smoking within a day or two of the fight THC would have been in his blood stream.

      4 THC IS the active psychoactive ingredient which makes you high, its effects wear of within a day or two.

      5 He failed one out of three tests. When you are exerting yourself like Diaz does he’s going to burn some fat cells which is where the INACTIVE weed metabolites reside for months after smoking.

      6 His other failures were also for metabolites NOT ACTIVE THC. So this only shows that the comish has their collective heads completely up their asses as far as a legal standpoint their bs would not stand the scrutiny of an actual cross examination in an ACTUAL court of law. hearing.

      I could go on and on about Diaz’s medical recommendation and how its legal medicine which does in fact have medicinal properties and how nevada is ass backwards and how its NOT a PED, but its clear he has been railroaded and made a scapegoat in a criminal manner just to steal his income.

      If an employee of some supermarket chain which has a no tolerance drug policy has a mandatory physical and is found to have thc in his/her system and is fired, that company cannot go back and take 1/3 of employees wages. Nor can they ban them from working for 5 years.

      • 45 Huddle says:

        There are a lot of substances that are not PED’s that are still banned for competitions in sports. It’s also about athlete safety. Beer is perfectly legal. You still can’t drink one right before a fight.

        Having a Medical MJ card has nothing to do with it. The substance is banned.

        Even the NSAC admitted it wasn’t as much for the weed as it was for the fact that he got busted 3 times for the same issue. He never learned and has even gone on record to say he would keep on smoking and didn’t care about the rules.

        When you spit in the face of the officials like that, what do you think will happen?

      • Safari_Punch says:

        He broke the rules. Never learned his lesson. Likely never will.

        The end.

    • Mark says:

      It is dangerous to the fighter in that it restricts reaction time, so they could get brutally knocked out. But, the problem is the AC seem to think marijuana is giving a fighter an ability to feel no pain, which is absurd. After the Gomi fight, they were claiming the only way he was able to fight with a busted up face was because he was high. Unless we’re talking about something like PCP, where guys can be shot and not even notice, you’re going to hurt, and it doesn’t prevent you from being KOed. Are we to assume Kim Couture was high when she kept fighting with a broken face? Or Tim Sylvia didn’t tap with a broken arm in the Mir fight because he was too? If you’re going to fight, you’re going to be kinda tough, I think it’s fair to say.

    • DIAZ'S PACKED BOWL says:

      The failed test was #1 not observed. #2 It had Diaz’s name on it. That collection is completely invalid.

      It doesn’t matter whether it was a plot to discredit Diaz or if it was simply a completely botched test. The fact that it wasn’t handled in a legitimate manner that the 2 basic protocols used to validate the legitimacy of the testing were both ignored means that the NAC violated every tenet of a legitimate investigative hearing.

      Furthermore, the NAC came in with a predetermined verdict of guilty simply because in the words of Matt (crap for brains) Hughes, he was a punk.

      What the NAC did was 100 times more contemptible than whatever perceived contempt Diaz had for the NAC. It proves that the NAC broke the rules, not Diaz, and that NAC is a corrupt governing body just like all governments this day and age.

  2. Diaz, 32, submitted three urine samples on the night of Jan. 31: one prior to his fight against Anderson Silva (administered at 7:12 p.m.), and two in the hours afterward (administered at 10:38 p.m. and 11:55 p.m.).

    Of those three samples, the first and the third were administered under World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) protocol and submitted for testing to the WADA-accredited Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory in Salt Lake City, UT. Both of those tests came back clean.

    The 10:38 p.m. test, however, was administered by a separate testing representative and submitted to Quest Diagnostics, a non-WADA accredited lab in New Jersey. That test came back over the threshold for allowable marijuana metabolites, resulting in the lone positive test.

    The ‘B’ sample for the Quest result was never requested for testing.

    Diaz’s defense, led by Middlebrook, argued that the existence of two negative tests taken the span of a few hours, both conducted under WADA protocol, cast the Quest result as “scientifically unreliable” and an “inexplicable outlier.”

    • Steve4192 says:

      It boggles my mind that they never tested the Quest B sample, considering how much of an outlier it was compared to the two SMRTL results.

      • 45 Huddle says:

        But….

        That “outlier” backs up what Nick Diaz has said that he will continue to smoke before fights.

        Lets be honest here. Nick Diaz has a serious addiction problem. He can’t stop smoking weed and has been caught 3 times for it in drug tests. He has a DUI on his record. He also has been known to do far too many marathon type of events… which is just pushing one addiction for another.

        Perhaps it is time he stops fighting and worries about getting his life back in order.

        • Muscle Hamster says:

          “Lets be honest here. Nick Diaz has a serious addiction problem. He can’t stop smoking weed and has been caught 3 times for it in drug tests. He has a DUI on his record. He also has been known to do far too many marathon type of events… which is just pushing one addiction for another.

          Perhaps it is time he stops fighting and worries about getting his life back in order.”

          The NAC’s job is not to be a vice cop or his parent. And his participation in marathons/triathlons are irrelevant.

  3. DIAZ'S PACKED BOWL says:

    Under the proposed amendments to the NAC drug code, which go into effect later this year and were not valid at the time of Diaz’s fight, a third-time positive test for marijuana metabolites would constitute a three-year suspension.

    kangaroo court ’nuff said

    • DIAZ'S PACKED BOWL says:

      The “failed” test was done in New Jersey?!?!? That right there should tell you this was illegitimate.

      No testing of B sample?

      They sent that piss to Jersey and someone left the lid off and and evaporation took place. Thats the only way you can get that type of discrepancy. So whether it was done “accidentally” or on purpose, the very fact that it was transported 3000 miles to a non accredited lab in New f’n jersey doesn’t pass the smell test.

      I would be looking into who runs that lab and who works there.

  4. Nepal says:

    For Pot!!! NAC and reality disconnected.

    Insane ruling. Nick’s appealing. Let’s see how that goes.

    • Safari_Punch says:

      How is it “disconnected” when it’s in the rules of substances that are on their no list?

      Three time offender for the same issue. No remorse shown. Could have had a longer sentence.

      Why are you letting your addiction affect your reasoning or has the damage already been done?

      • Nepal says:

        Safari, please.

        Just read everything that Diaz’s Packed Bowl wrote.

        This whole thing is a mess on so many levels.

        • Safari_Punch says:

          I read it.

          It’s not like Nick Diaz denies being a user. He laughs about being a using it.

          He’s one of my fav fighters, but the guy need to get his life in order. He is 32 and acts like he is in middle school.

          Why would NSAC or the people behind them try to rail road Nick Diaz? He’s a main event fighter in today’s UFC. The people that support Nick Diaz are either drug users themselves or don’t understand that laws do not recognize relationships. It is impartial. You do the crime, you do the time.

          Nick Diaz needs to grow up and be accountable to himself. The Commission is playing the role of his parents now.

        • edub says:

          “It’s not like Nick Diaz denies being a user. He laughs about being a using it.”

          Which is irrelevant in this situation. All that matters what was in his system when the test was administered.

          “Why would NSAC or the people behind them try to rail road Nick Diaz?”

          Because he hasn’t played their game, and kissed their ass. The questioning alone by the panel showed they had it out for Diaz and his lawyer.

          “You do the crime, you do the time.”

          The time for that particular “crime” (3rd failed test) would be 3 years by their own standards.

          “Nick Diaz needs to grow up and be accountable to himself. The Commission is playing the role of his parents now.”

          Diaz is doing pretty well for himself, and the commission trying to play the role of a parent is exactly the problem.

  5. Chris says:

    I think that suspending any athlete for marijuana use is ridiculous. But Diaz has to take responsibility here. He knew the rules and continued to break them. And because he signed a contract extension with the UFC, it’s not like he can pull the old Vitor Belfort move of fighting overseas, because he’s under contract. Yeah, he’s screwed.

    • Jonathan says:

      Wow, what a read.

      Nick Diaz reminds me a lot of my Uncle Ray. Black Sheep of the family, did time in Sing Sing back in New York, got drunk a lot. The one he taught me, or rather, that I learned from him, is that it is always someone else’s fault. Not yours.

      That is the attitude that Nick Diaz has. He blames his problems on everyone else, when at the end of the day, it’s the unhappy person staring back at him in the mirror each morning that he needs to blame the most.

      • 45 Huddle says:

        He has serious mental issues and instead of going to a proper doctor and getting on the right medication…. he is self medicating with weed and alcohol. He is now an addict who can’t stop which is why he has a DUI and got busted for weed 3 times.

        I’m sure a lot of those mental issues come from his home life, as he talked about in that article.

        I’m sure fighting and training is also a way for him to self medicate.

        He isn’t well.

        • DIAZ'S PACKED BOWL says:

          the right medication, LOL you stupid establishment suck up. You mean adderall? they will allow a tue for speed, or how about some of those meds that most of americas mass shooters use like the holmes and the rest? You are whats wrong with america, people who have narrow minded opinions which you believe everyone should adhere to. You are such an ignorant tool you can’t even admit that the system has been abused and he has been screwed. I guess if chamomile tea was on the list of banned substances you’d say the same idiot thing. you dont even understand what pot is, what it does or what a metabolite is. I cant waste any more time trying to educate you because you are full of bs.

        • Mark says:

          Aren’t SSRI’s banned as well? I remember Tyson was going crazy before fights in the 90s because he stopped taking them in training camp. But I can’t remember if it’s because NSAC banned them or he felt he wasn’t the same boxer on them.

          At any rate, the stuff Diaz claims to have (ADHD and anxiety disorder) are treated with medications like aderall and xanax that are definitely banned.

      • DIAZ'S PACKED BOWL says:

        I think his mirror is broke, i’m sure he would appreciate you standing in his bathroom in the moring spraying your specious commentary. 1 of 3 test came back showing metabolites, no b testing, so when a fight goes to a decision who wins? Yeah, of course the fighter who lost 2 out of 3 rounds on the judges scorecard. Not Diaz who was up 2 rounds to 1 on the testing score card.

        • Nepal says:

          Diaz’s PB,
          I don’t always agree with everything you write but in this case you are spot on. Also amusing is your very accurate take down of 45.

          Let’s see how this goes. I suspect, we’ll see the ban lifted after the appeal. It appears too weak, too many loopholes, NAC too unprofessional. We’re talking about pot metabolites for god’s sake.

  6. DIAZ'S PACKED BOWL says:

    The outlier in this instance is an anomaly in a sequence of at least four separate tests for cannabis metabolites.
    Consider he had a clean test 3 days PRIOR to the fight. This was mandatory to be licensed.
    This anomaly test was #1 done at a non wada approved lab. #2 It wasn’t double checked by testing the B sample to validate its accuracy. If B if B sample was the same as the A sample its still an anomaly for the sequence of tests within the testing time period.

    Because Diaz is a heavy smoker he obviously has metabolites in his system at all times. From a physiological health standpoint this is a good thing as cannabinoids work with the bodies endocannabinoid system to maintain the body’s balance.

    Diaz has stated that he generally stops smoking 8 days prior to the fight. Since he is a heavy user theres a lot of metabolites in his system and while he can test below 150 ng he can also test higher than 150 at any given time even though he still hasn’t consumed cannabis(been high) for 8 days prior to testing. However when a sequence of tests is done they should all be done in the same lab. Or you can do a sequence of tests at both labs. But you cant do 3 at one and 1 at another and then pick the anomalous test as the adjudicator.
    I mean if you have 4 witnesses to a bank robbery looking at a police line up and 3 of them pick the midget with a fedora while one witness picks a tall balding black man, you would investigate that witness in order to exclude them, in lieu of “quest”ioning that one witness and with such a discrepancy you would have to assume the midget did the robbery.

    This ONE test which showed over 150 doesn’t prove Diaz smoked in the days prior to and hours after the fight. Like the other 3 tests all it shows is that metabolites were present in his system. And for a regular user like Diaz he’s going to have metabolites in his system for months after he quits. He could quit smoking 3 months out and test under 150, but test higher after fight time simply because he burned off a few fat cells during the fight. Furthermore to conclude that he must have consumed before or after the fight during the sequence of tests is absolutely 100% wrong.

    There was no reason to send one sample 3,000 miles away to new jersey when they could have simply drove it to the quest diagnostics right down the street in Las Vegas Nevada.
    Thats just crazy intentional mishandling right there. Did they send it in the mail? did they have someone fly it on a plane personally? Did it go ups ground? Who knows?

  7. DIAZ'S PACKED BOWL says:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/irving-mayor-defends-school-and-cops_55f9dbc0e4b08820d917310e?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

    Another crazy blonde bimbo with too much power and too little intelligence. This kid had a clock, well anyone knows a clock can be used as a timer for a bomb that muslims make right? Just like Iran has a nuclear power plant, we all know nuclear power is what makes nuclear bombs right? We all know that white man has a god complex and mexicans muslims blacks etc are not to be trusted and due process is not for them.

    This kid was guilty until proven innocent. Diaz was guilty until he proved he was innocent but it didn’t matter they were both charged and arrested in the kids case, while Diaz may possibly have his charges dropped he most likely won’t be headed to the white house for a visit with Nobel peace prize winner anytime soon. Nor will either of them get an apology from these power mad white do nothing bitches and their furtherance of fascism.

  8. rst says:

    Im going to miss appreciating Diaz’s skills, but I’m not feeling a bunch of sympathy either.
    He’s a shameless repeat offender.

    He could have stopped smoking weed long enough to do his job.

  9. Rob Maysey says:

    He did his job–incredibly well. . . repeatedly.

    • DIAZ'S PACKED BOWL says:

      https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/lift-nsac-ban-mma-fighter-nick-diaz

      This will reach 100000 sigs over the weekend most likely.

      • 45 Huddle says:

        And 30% of republicans want to vote for Donald Trump…

        Not sure why it is so hard for you to understand. He broke the rules THREE times. And he did so while saying he wasn’t going to change.

        The legal system in America works the same way. Punishment is worse for repeat offenders AND for people who show no remorse for breaking the rules.

        Glad MMA is finally rid of Nick Diaz.

        • nottheface says:

          But he didn’t break the rules according to 2 of the 3 tests he took that day. And those two were from WADA accredited labs which the NAC themselves described as superior. One test from a non WADA accredited lab says he broke the rules. But hey if you dislike someone I guess you get to choose the least likely option if it gets you the results you like.

        • 45 Huddle says:

          nottheface,

          None of the tests have been shown to be invalid. Which means the most likely scenario is….

          He smoked up until fight time. This is why he had some in his system but not over the threshold. After he was tested the first time, he smoked up. Hence why the next test was much higher. By the time the third test had been given, he likely drank a lot of water to try and get it out of his system…. and was back below the threshold.

          The guy had already been busted twice before…. avoided another drug test…. and had a DUI.

          He gets ZERO benefit of the doubt at this point.

      • Nepal says:

        Nottheface, you just don’t get it. In the world according to 45, facts such as Nick passing WADA twice just don’t matter. He failed one test, yes it was a less accredited lab and yes, the integrity of the sample is suspect and yes, they didn’t bother to test the B sample but he failed one test. What is so hard to understand, 45 thinks Nick should be out, don’t let stupid facts get in your way.

        Yes he flaunts his pot use….which by the way he is legally allowed to smoke. His metabolite count is not very high so he positively wasn’t high when he fought.

        And please don’t forget the deal clincher, 30% of Republican’s want to vote Trump.

        And BTW, 80% of Jews are atheists, if you happen to need further proof of Nick’s guilt.

        • 45 Huddle says:

          He failed the middle test. Which means he likely smoked up after the first test and was probably high during the fight.

          Making the 5 year suspension make even more sense….

  10. 45 Huddle says:

    Last comment on this topic, although I admit it has been enjoyable to see the Diaz fans all mad. Why anybody wants to support Nick Diaz is beyond me.

    1) Failed drug test in 2007.

    2) Avoided drug test in 2009.

    3) Failed drug test in 2012.

    4) DUI in 2013.

    5) DUI in 2014.

    6) Failed drug test in 2015.

    Combine this with the fact that he refused to talk to the commission. He has also gone on record saying he refuses to stop smoking despite it being against the commissions policies….

    And you get a 5 year suspension. Not sure why that is hard to understand. Failure to learn from past mistakes and the attitude of the offender is often times taken into account into the punishments in America. This is no different. The reason why a lot of fighters are mad is because they are druggies as well….

    • DIAZ'S PACKED BOWL says:

      Boy you are straight out of the spanish inquisition.
      It really is a waste of time explaining anything to you because you are out to lunch.

      Did you even read what I wrote? It was for the benefit of imbeciles like you who don’t know Nick about weed.

      He didn’t have ANY ACTIVE THC IN HIS SYSTEM!!! There is no way he could have consumed weed during the 3 days prior to and shortly after the fight and be able to pass 3 of 4 tests.

      He could have stopped smoking 1 month prior to fight time and still test positive for METABOLITES. Do you know what a metabolite is? Why not try to educate your addled brain. Seriously you have less on the ball than Diaz when it comes to reading comprehension.

      You are an establishment nuthugger who ignores the very concept of due process and as long as it helps punish someone you obviously despise.

    • edub says:

      Well, at least this situation got you back on one of your more incompetent rants.

  11. david m says:

    I had forgotten how dumb 45 was. LOL. What a clown.

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