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Questions of the day – Drug-related MMA suspensions
By Zach Arnold | March 18, 2009
Put yourself in the shoes of Keith Kizer. You, in this hypothetical scenario, run the Nevada State Athletic Commission. You have three fighters fail drug tests – one for pain killers, one for marijuana, and one for anabolic steroids.
- Do you fine each fighter the same amount of money for failing the drug test? If you propose different fines for each offense, what is your benchmark and judging criteria?
Example: Ken Shamrock was fined $2,500 by the California State AthletiC Commission for failing a drug test, while Karo Parisyan was fined over $30,000 for failing a Nevada State Athletic Commission drug test for pain killers.
- Do you suspend each fighter for the same period of time or do you have different suspension timelines for each case based on the drug the fighter is accused of taking?
- Should the legality or illegality of a substance taken by a fighter that resulted in the failed drug test have any sort of mitigating factor in terms of the punishment issued to the fighter?
Extra round of questions: Give me an estimation of what percentage of MMA fighters use the following substances – a) marijuana, b) pain killers, c) steroids/growth hormone. Give me a % estimate for each drug. (E.G. 50% use marijuana, 60% use pain killers, 60% use steroids/growth hormone.) I want to see what the feeling is amongst dedicated MMA fans in regards to drug usage in the sport right now.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 41 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
From NSAC POV: a violation of any of the three drug classes would result in a minimum fine
2) if the drugs are in the painkiller or steroid class a set % of the purse would be the fine
-the reasoning for the painkillers is that depending on when they were taken they could endanger the fighter taking them (e.g. not tapping to submission hold) or give that fighter an advantage (same reasoning for steroids)
2. Suspension (also acts as a fine): or an alternative, until the test clean on 2-3 tests spaced a month apart.
3. Yes, for medical mitigation.
4. I have no idea on the percentages. I think they would be higher overseas where no testing is done.
I also am a little concerned about the commissions being judge and jury- is the testing unbiased and independent in addition to being accurate. If revenues for the state commission are down do they encourage the labs to “look harder” at the test results.
And then if an appeal is presented it goes before the same commission – looks like it could be a potential conflict of interest.
1. I’d say that marijuana would have a tiny fine, because it is not a performance enhancer by any stretch of the imagination. I would go by a percentage of the fighter’s winnings. Pot = 3-5% of purse. Pain killers = 10-20% of the purse, depending on the strength of the medication. Pain killers could be an enhancer or a hindrance, dependent upon level. Steroids = 25-50% of purse, with that being dependent upon mitigating circumstances according to an investigation. That is the big one, IMO.
2. Pot = no suspension, just the fine. Pain killers = suspension until 2 clean tests given at least 2 weeks apart, no less than one month. Steroids = suspension until 3 tests clean with at least 1 month between each test, no less than 4 months.
3. Only according to medical circumstances.
4. I think the totals considering active use would be somewhere around ~20% for pot, ~33% for painkillers and perhaps ~25% for steroids. These are all wild guesses. Pot is a common street drug, but because of the injuries fighters sustain in training and fighting, I would say that pain killers are the most commonly used as they are generally the quickest out of the system, and therefore easiest to hide. I dont think they are commonly used right before fights, but in the training.
1. The fine should be related primarily to a) whether the drug is performance enhancing in the context of MMA, and b) what the fighters purse was. This will scale up the fine by the the potential impact on the opponents health, and the perceived reward for cheating. The sliding scaled for a) needs to be determined by a medical expert.
I would also make it a condition of a promotor’s licence that no undecelared bonuses could be paid to fighters, and no undeclared bonuses could be paid in advance of drug test results being known.
2. Flat minimum 1 year suspension for all prohibited substances with potential for an increase for aggrivating factors (e.g. multiple drugs all likely to give a performance advantage).
3. No. As per 1 & 2 performance enhancement as determined is the variable factor.
4. In the UFC – 35%/80%/55%. The 80% reflects fighters using painkillers legally (or at least on prescription) in between fights. The 55% is my optimistic guess but I’d fear in the UFC it could be higher with more money flowing to support HGH use.
I dont get all this crying and complaining.
Its very simple to avoid fines and suspended licenses. DONT TAKE BANNED SUBSTANCES!!!
I especially am annoyed by Parisyan because in reality he is totally unapologetic and from day 1 has been concerned with how he is going to lose money. He shouldnt have taken a cocktail of prescription opiates if he didnt want to lose money and he shouldnt have lied about it. He just goes around saying “THEY cant do this to me.” The only ONE to blame is Karo himself.
I don’t get it. Why doesn’t USA follow the rest of the world. It’s like a third world country in this matter.
WADA has been working with these issues for almost 10 years. They have standard suspensions and penalties.
1st positive test = 2 years suspension.
2nd positive test = lifetime ban.
The discussions on the mma blogs and forums are rediculus, just as some of the explanations by the fighters that test positive.
If an athlete take a suppliment and it contains traces of a banned supplement, it is still the athletes fault for taking the banned supplement. He can’t blame anyone else.
I can’t believe that there aren’t random testing and standard penalties in USA in all sports on all levels. It work like this in other countries and it’s not a big deal.
http://queensberry-rules.com/2009/03/did-frank-warren-get-the-ref-to-stop-the-fight-to-help-amir-khan-avoid-any-additional-risk-with-marc.html
There should be no testing for marijuana. Because THC appears on drug tests up to a full month after usage, marijuana testing is inherently discriminatory. All it does is moralistically punish someone for a recreational habit/lifestyle. Its legality is irrelevant.
Marijuana is not a performance enhancing drug, and I can’t imagine a fighter fighting while high. Many fighters smoke weed to relax after training, I would not be surprised if the percentage of use among fighters is higher than the average population.
Painkillers do not make you superhuman or impervious to pain. They will not, for example, allow you to survive an armbar without tapping. Painkillers numb chronic pain but they do not stop your body from reacting to sharp pain or injury. A more serious danger is that they slow reaction time, which does endanger a fighter.
Testing for painkillers is accurate because they do not linger in your system like marijuana. There should be testing for painkillers, and punishment should entail a small fine and being subject to further random testing. However, as with marijuana, it is rare for a fighter to use the drugs during a fight (as opposed to after a fight). Because they are not performance enhancing, painkiller use should NEVER result in overturning the results of a fight. That is just absurd.
As for usage, there is no question that painkiller use (whether prescribed or illegally obtained) among athletes in general, but especially fighters, is much higher than the normal population, due to the pains and injuries sustained during fighting and training.
The only serious drug-related offense in sport is steroids, or other TRUE performance enhancers. Taking steroids is the only case where drug use constitutes “cheating”. It certainly endangers the user’s own health over the long run, and subjects the opponent to extra danger. Steroids are not used to numb the pain of injuries, or as a lifestyle/recreational habit, or to relax. Their only purpose is to cheat.
Steroid use by athletes is despicable and should be harshly punished, with heavy fines, long suspensions and progressive discipline (harsher sanctions for repeat offenses). Steroid use is the ONLY drug use that could conceivably put a fight’s validity into question, and should be the only case where an athletic commission considers changing a fight’s result to a No Contest.
Judging by the actions of athletic commissions, it appears they are more interested in moralistic crusading than in actually protecting fighter health and keeping the sport fair and clean. I believe they are simply uneducated about marijuana, painkillers and steroids – as are most members of our society who would foolishly lump together all of the above as “drugs”, to be treated uniformly. And that’s a shame.
Alcohol is legal, but you can’t be drunk while fighting. Whether or not weed is legal, if it’s in your system, you shoudn’t be fighting. And I’m am for the legalization of it.
I am for allowng the use of all drugs because I feel banning thm harms those who follow the rules. Also there is ample evidence that steroids and hgh aren’t harmful if taken properly.
That said you have to have equal punishments for all performance enhancers. There is a prevailing opinion here that pot shouldn’t be punished. If you don’t punish for it them you decriminalize it. After what happened to Karo people won’t screw around in Nevada anymore.
Percentages pot and other recreational drugs 60
Pills 80
Hgh 75
Looking at this issue throughout the entire sport… Here is the problem.
1. Each Athletic Commission is only concerned with protecting death and controversary from happening in their states. It’s easy for us fans to get mad at them for not wanting to get more involved, but really they have ZERO motivation to do so.
2. Each organization (UFC, Strikeforce, Affliction, Etc…) has the primary focus of making money. There is no incentive for them to increase their drug testing.
3. Additionally, each organization falls back towards the athletic commissions so they don’t have to burden the brunt of the blame (Dana White does this ALL the time).
Now, it sounds like I’m not answering the question posed here…. I’m just taking a long way towards getting to my point.
This discussion of how much money should be withheld… Or how long the suspensions should be… Would really be a non-issue IF organizations like the UFC implemented a very simplistic drug policy:
1. Drug test for every active fighter on a monthly basis.
2. Drug test for every fighter right after their fights.
While some positive test results would come from this, most fighters wouldn’t dare take the chance, because there is no way to cycle on or off. Basically, this would eliminate a LOT of the positives. And then if a fighter does get busted, there needs to be a concrete system in place, kind of like WADA is described above. I’m not familiar with that organization, but having a simplistic set of rules and fines on failed drug tests needs to be implemented.
Anyways, the point is that Zuffa and all the other American MMA companies need to take more responsibilities themselves. They won’t do it, but they need to. This is not an Athletic Commissions problem. An Athletic Commission is designed to protect the state. It isn’t designed to use tax payers money to regulate sports.
Fighter A(Pain Killers)- fine 15% of whatever they made. Suspension is 4 months for first time 10 months for second.
Fighter B(Marijuana)-No fine, no suspension, no testing.
Fighter C(Steriods)-Fine is 33% of whatever they made. Suspension is 8 months for first time 15 months for second.
I’d prefer a flat, universal punishment for any and all banned substances. I’d make the fine about 1/3 of the purse, and a mandatory one year suspension. You can appeal of course, assuming you think you have a valid defense.
While I’m sympathetic to pot smokers and personally don’t believe it’s any worse than alcohol, the NSAC should only act as an enforcer that does everything by-the-book. An athletic commission should not be involved with determining whether or not an illegal substance should be tolerated and given a free pass; it should only determine whether there was an illegal substance and then punish accordingly.
If you have a problem with it, then you should bring it up in the US legislative system and battle it out there.
On the question of legality:
The legality of a substance is completely irrelevant to an athletic commission. The only question is whether the substance is performance enhancing, and therefore constitutes cheating, and whether it endangers fighter safety in the fight.
If a fighter took a substance that is illegal, but not performance enhancing, that is no different than a fighter jay-walking or shoplifting, as far as the commission is concerned. The act was illegal but has no bearing on the fight.
\”45 Huddle Says:
Alcohol is legal, but you can’t be drunk while fighting. Whether or not weed is legal, if it’s in your system, you shoudn’t be fighting. And I’m am for the legalization of it.\”
Yeah, I completely agree. Fighter A\’s use of marijuana three weeks prior to a fight would put fighter B at an incredible disadvantage. [/sarcasm]
Yeah, because a guy like Nick Diaz wasn’t glossy eyed and looking completely high when he went into the ring.
With weed going out of the system within a reasonable time period… There is no reason a fighter can’t obstain for a month before a fight. Heck, if they had monthly drug testing, I wouldn’t even care if they didn’t penalize people for positive weed tests unless it was within a month of the fight.
That would never happen, because it is still illegal… But in a perfect world….
Painkillers do not make you superhuman or impervious to pain. They will not, for example, allow you to survive an armbar without tapping.
You know, klown, I can think of an extremely well known example of someone numbing themselves stupid on somas and opiates before a fight and having it help prevent them from tapping out.
The ACs are in the business of protecting the health of the fighters, not just preventing illegal performance enhancing drugs. Those illegal substances are banned by US law primarily on the principle that they pose a risk to the health of their citizens. We can argue whether or not they’re right about that in specific cases, but as I pointed out earlier, that’s a moot point when we talk about an enforcing agency like the ACs.
It follows logically that, a government organization like an athletic commission should place all substances determined illegal onto their banned list for athletes competing under them. An athlete taking heroine or speed or cocaine has an equal or greater amount of health risks as an athlete taking steroids or pain killers.
Alan, fill me in, I’m not honestly not aware of it.
Don Frye vs. Ken Shamrock. Frye admitted years later to having drugged himself before stepping in the ring, and that it was what kept him from needing to tap out to the heel hook Ken had locked in and torqued for about 5 minutes. The downside was that Frye also admits that his foot is now screwed up and that he has abused drugs to continue operating.
Ice Muncher,
We agree on the commissions’ duty to make fights fair by eliminating cheating and unfair advantages. Here, only steroids play a role. Marijuana and painkillers will, if anything, put a fighter at a disadvantage by slowing reaction time.
More complicated is the commissions’ duty to protect a fighter’s own safety (from himself, as it were). Here, I believe their duty is limited to protecting a fighter DURING a fight. For example, you can jeopardize your own health by binge drinking, but if it’s on your own time, it’s none of the commission’s business. But if you come to a fight drunk, that can’t stand.
Now back to legality. Why should the legality of a substance have any bearing on the issue for an athletic commission? Enforcement of the law is the duty of law enforcement. Jackson cannot be sanctioned by an AC for reckless driving, nor Monson for domestic abuse.
Even legal substances should be banned if they affect a fighter’s safety (DURING a fight) as in 45’s example of a fighter showing up drunk to fight. Conversely, an illegal drug that does not affect a fighter’s safety DURING a fight should not even be tested for.
Testing for a drug that is not performance enhancing, and does not endanger a fighter DURING a fight, is tantamount to policing a fighter’s personal life as a private citizen. If we want ACs to punish fighters for smoking weed or popping pills in their private lives, why don’t we have them also go after fighters for shoplifting and jaywalking? It’s absurd.
Thanks Alan. I’ll look into it. If anyone has any good links that tell the story, please post.
In my opinion, it’s unthinkable to be so opiated that you’ll let your ankle snap without tapping. Even a half-dead junkie would respond to pain like that.
Now, if you were to take such a high dose that it would quell that pain, the side effects would be tremendous and would stop you from fighting. Your eyes would be closed, you would barely be able to move your body, and your mind would retreat to another dimension. There’s just no way you’d be able to fight like that.
It just doesn’t make any sense.
Don Frye allowed his arm to be broken by Hidehiko Yoshida just because he refused to tap.
Not sure it was because of painkillers but it proves that some people will allow bones to be broken.
Frye talked about it in an interview with Carson.
What I’ve heard from others is that the big time painkillers that some Pride fighters took came in suppository form. Frye may have taken one of those.
Where do some of you guys get the notion that you can’t fight on pain pills and that pain pills dope you up so much you can’t function? Obviously you guys have never taken vicodin, loratab, or percoset. You can certainly fight on them and you can overcome pain be it existing pain ie a bad leg or shoulder or you can use them to prepare for oncoming pain ie the MMA fight you’re about to start.
NFL players play on pills and injections every week. It not only enhances their performance in many case it makes playing possible in the first place.
Man that is a good question.
I may be wrong but one mitigating factor for Ken might be that he tested positive before he actually fought and so did not expose another fighter to any danger from his “increased state.”
I would treat pot as much less of a fine because it is not performance enhancing.
As for the use among fighters. I have read that BJJ culture and pot (and surfing, go figure) go hand in hand so I suspect that there is a lot of weed being smoked. I also know that a good percentage of Americans under 30 smoked or have smoked it. It can be hard on the lungs though and I don’t think it is as big in the white/farm boy crowd that makes up a good portion of the fighters. It’s hard to imagine Matt H. smoking a fat one now but I bet he has a least when he was younger.
So I would guess that at least 90% of fighters have smoked pot, but I would guess that no more than 50% do so commonly.
As for pain kilers, 100% have taken them at some point with about 75% having abused them at least a little. By abuse I mean using a vicodin to get through a hard training session or getting ready for a fight when maybe your body is telling you no.
As for real addiction or fighteing high I bet around 25% or less.
Steroids or other performance enhancers I bet about 90% have used them, and around 60% use them at least once a year and 25% or more are on them all the time.
Alan,
I remember Frye on a Sherdog interview saying how he was on a lot of painkillers before and after that fight…not just for that fight. He became addicted to them I believe. He did admit though that because of the drugs he was able to endure more pain…..and when added to his already insane natural level of manliness, he didn’t tap, and won the fight. He didn’t tap against Yoshida either, which was right around the time of the Shamrock fight.
Sorry sam and fluyid, I didn’t bother to read down to see if there was a response yet.
New question of the day:
How dumb is Affliction?
They are thinking about trying to counterprogram UFC 100.
Counterprogramming the UFC would only possibly work if they had a TV partner in advance. This, of course, is Affliction we are talking about, and their TV partner *might* be HDNet.
I know this is off-topic, but I couldn’t help but laugh at this Yahoo Sports headline: “Is Strikeforce cheating seasoned fighters to feature Kim Couture?”
Somehow, I don’t remember the headlines that asked, “Is the UFC cheating seasoned fighters to feature Junie Browning?” or “Is the UFC cheating seasoned fighters to feature C.B. Dollaway?” (at UFC 92.
Forget Junie, what about Ken Shamrock or (pre-actually winning) Brock Lesnar? If Strikeforce is around long enough to be a legitimate second major promoter, I assume you’ll see less of those complaints.
I don’t like women’s fights on any of these primarily men’s cards. It takes away from the superior men.
I know that might sound sexist, but I can assure you, I am far from it. I’ve got no problems with a woman bringing home the bacon or a guy being a stay at home father.
But when it comes to fighting…. I want to see the best, and women are secondary by far.
Ivan, do you compare All American wrestler with 7-1 record to Kim Couture?
And at least Junie is fighting a legitimate fighter (Cole Miller) not a person, who does not know what to do in the cage (Kvokov).
In response to 45 Huddle’s post, I don’t even know why they let those inferior women fight at all! (sarcasm obviously intended)
Wolverine— I’m comparing C.B. Dollaway to the “seasoned fighters” (as the Yahoo Sports headline writers put it) who were on the prelims (you know, like 7-1-in-the-UFC Yushin Okami) so that his fight could be on the main card.
And was the drunkard from TUF 8 fighting a legitimate fighter when he got the one and only non-finalist main card slot on the TUF 8 finale going against Dave Kaplan?
And even with the Browning vs. Cole Miller fight, are either of those fighters in the same league as Brock Larson or Ricardo Almeida? Or are they on the main card because Browning made a complete ass out of himself on TUF 8?
50/90/75
still Browning and Dollaway actually fight, they are skilled athletes. You can’t say that about Couture vs. Kvokov, I can’t even tell what it was, because it wasn’t a fight.
At least Larson and Almeida have their fight on the undercard, you can’t say the same thing about Kaitlin Young and Kelly Kobold.
Wolverine— I agree with you that Kvokov’s performance in that fight was embarrassing, although from a matchmaking standpoint, they did both have an MMA record of 0-1 going into that fight. As for Browning, based on the Kaplan fight (meaning not based on much), he may actually be a C-level fighter instead of the D-level fighter that he appeared to be on TUF 8.
However, none of that would change the fact that it was Browning being a Trash TV drunkard in the first place (not anything to do with his fighting skill) that caused him to not be kicked off of TUF 8, and to get the sole non-finalist main card slot on the TUF 8 finale, and to get a main card slot over fighters like Brock Larson and Ricardo Almeida on the UFC Fight Night event coming up on, ironically enough, April Fool’s Day.
The point was that Kim Couture is getting pushed because of something that has nothing to do with ability (ie, being Randy Couture’s wife), but that you’re not going to see the same kind of criticism on that site of the UFC doing the exact same thing with fighters like Browning.
1. They failed the same test, so they should all be fined the same percentage of their purse. I’m for not even revealing publicly how they failed it, just that they did, because we get into stupid discussions of whether vaseloid is worse than boldenana juice.
2. The suspension should be based on how many times the individual has failed previously, and should be long enough to cause economic harm. Minimum suspension should be six months for the first offense, longer if the fighter doesn’t fight often. This is why Gracie was so blase about his suspension, he doesn’t fight often, so he didn’t care at all.
3. All these substances are illegal AFAIK so long as they are being administered without prescriptions. Marijuana is a weird special case with conflicting state and federal laws, so we probably should leave that one out of the discussion. At least it’s looking like that one will probably be harmonized in the states favors over the next four to eight years.
Bonus Round:
M: 10-15 percent (same as general population)
P: At some point during training probably 80%, day of the fight? Maybe 30.
S: 7% (same as baseball pre-testing, I’d assume it’s actually pretty flat in all sports)
HGH: Unknowable, but the expense should put it out of range of many fighters, so I’d expect the percentage to be lower than steroids.
First of all the article you found on yahoo is actually an article from cagewriter which was a comment on the article by fightlinker with a question mark.
I’m not sure, but I believe cagewriter had some pieces critisizing Junie and I’m sure Iole had a whole article slamming TUF 8.
Again, Junie may be a c-level fighter but it is much more than we got from Couture vs. Kvokov. You wrote that the matchmaking had been good, maybe, but junie vs. kaplan and miller vs. junie is also good matchmaking, but this is not the point. Couture gets her place on the main card whereas Young and Kobold don’t even get a contract. UFC handling Junie antics should be critisized but Strikeforce case is imo on the whole
new level.
“45 Huddle Says:
Yeah, because a guy like Nick Diaz wasn’t glossy eyed and looking completely high when he went into the ring.
With weed going out of the system within a reasonable time period… There is no reason a fighter can’t obstain for a month before a fight. Heck, if they had monthly drug testing, I wouldn’t even care if they didn’t penalize people for positive weed tests unless it was within a month of the fight.
That would never happen, because it is still illegal… But in a perfect world….”
sigh…so naive, such a child.
You know, if I went by MMA fans who post comments here, I’d think the entire world was smoking up every afternoon. Even the scare tactic statistics show that’s not true.