Nick Diaz Creates His Own Bad “Pot” Luck
Published by on April 13th, 2008 in Operation Cleanup

 Print |  Email |  RSS

By Charles Jay

I know a lot of people in the mixed martial arts industry have had issues with Armando Garcia, the head of the California State Athletic Commission. Whether some of those gripes are valid or not, I’m not sure, because I don’t know enough about them.

I do know that he’s been made the villain in many circles regarding this latest drama involving Nick Diaz, but I’m here to tell you that if this is where Garcia’s detractors are looking to nail him to the wall, they’re picking the wrong fight.

To get you up to speed, Diaz’s camp has made a claim that he was denied the opportunity to fight on a Strikeforce/Elite XC show on March 28 in San Jose because of the fact that he holds a Cannabis Club card, which would permit him to purchase and use marijuana for medicinal purposes.

“This is like a cop giving you a ticket for owning a Ferrari even though he did not catch you speeding,” said Elite XC promoter Gary Shaw.

Well, as they say in that rental car commercial – not exactly.

What Diaz and his advocates fail to point out is that in the state of California there is a clearly defined procedure to follow in getting licensed for that show – or any show, for that matter – and he simply didn’t follow it. At that point the situation became rather black and white.

In response to a lot of propaganda that was spread about the incident over the internet, Garcia came with his own explanation; something that may not be understandable to the novice, but which nonetheless makes logical sense if you look at it closely.

For one thing, Diaz never completed his fighter application process. When you have the application in your hands and don’t fill out all the info, you haven’t completed it. And of course, this especially pertains an answer to the one question the commission was probably looking for, in light of past disciplinary actions against him:

“When was the last time you took any type of medication or drug? (State what type and when and be specific)”

Of course, if Diaz’s position was that he had a Cannabis Club card to use marijuana legally, that would certainly fit the definition of “medication” as it pertained to the application.

This is the version Diaz gave to internet reporters as to what a commission doctor told him: “We are aware that you tested positive before so if you are a legal user please present your Cannabis Club Card to ensure there will not be problems if you do test positive.”

That leaves me wondering why he left that question on the application blank.

Incidentally, that doesn’t sound like anything a commission doctor would say to him, nor does it sound like anything a commission would stand behind, even if that doctor did make the mistake of saying it.

Diaz’s contention is that this is his lifestyle and it is a matter of “personal choice.” I sympathize with him. I am very familiar with “personal choice” issues (just look up my Wikipedia entry). Unfortunately though, I don’t think this specific episode has anything to do with being an advocate for that political or social point of view.

The fact is, commissions aren’t – or at least they’re not supposed to be – concerned about anything else besides whether a substance artificially ENHANCES or IMPAIRS performance. For example, a fighter surely would not be allowed to compete if the commission was aware that his blood-alcohol level was abnormally high. Whether such a substance is prescribed or not is completely immaterial.

And as for the presentation of a marijuana card, I’m afraid to say this isn’t like getting a note from your mother when you’re late for school. If you have been smoking pot when you walk into the cage or the ring or the octagon, are you any less high just because you have a prescription? Of course not.

And that brings us to another point. There is no such thing as a “prescription” for medical marijuana. Federal law in fact prohibits doctors from writing that kind of prescription. What doctors are able to do is issue a “recommendation” for medical marijuana, so long as it is in a state where such a thing has been legalized for medicinal purposes. Either way, I have seen fighters fail their pre or post-fight tests and be refused a license or have it suspended because of something in their system that was the result of a prescription. Just because a physician has prescribed something (or in this case, recommended it) does not mean it is going to conform with the rules of an athletic commission. And in the case of California, the doctor’s recommendation for medical marijuana does not shield a fighter from the rules.

All of that may sound unfair, but this is the way a commission protects the fighter and more importantly, itself. After all, if someone reactions and reflexes are slowed to the point where they are in imminent danger, that is not a good thing. And I have seen more than one instance where a fighter went into the ring of his own volition, then either himself or through his family, sued the commission and the state because he was seriously injured. So the drug tests represent a situation the fighter must simply work around.

Apparently Diaz’s way to work around it was to avoid answering that medication-related question on the application, when he could have done so with an intelligent objection or protest on the application form itself.. My guess, and it’s a somewhat educated one, is that he just didn’t want to cop to doing drugs on the application, or offer the further explanation about it, and that he might not have gotten the free pass from the doctor after all. But then someone from the Elite XC office – perhaps acting at Diaz’s behest or under the direction of promoter Gary Shaw or de facto matchmaker Jeremy Lappin – starting asking a lot of “what if”" questions about it. In Garcia’s words:

“Early in the business day on Tuesday, March 25, the promoter’s employee called out office and asked a series of “hypothetical” questions regarding the use of marijuana by a fighter, medical marijuana, having or not having a marijuana card, etc.”

Did he even have a card to begin with? If he doesn’t, he’s got virtually no moral leg to stand on in ANY case.

I’m not sure what all that was supposed to mean, and I will certainly endeavor to get the viewpoint of others involved, because this is an issue that is probably bigger than this one instance, as I will describe as we proceed.

There was indeed an attempt on Diaz’s part to be drug-tested on March 25, which was turned down by Garcia, for some very good reasons. It should be explained here that athletic commissions do not have in-house labs. They outsource the tests, and have to wait for the results to come back. Athletic commissions aren’t anyone’s priority, so often this turnaround isn’t complete for a period of seven or eight days. And again, Diaz hadn’t completed other parts of the process, so the whole thing became kind of moot.

Well, the day after the Strikeforce/Elite XC show, with everyone presumably still on-site, Garcia was looking to have a meeting with Diaz, his trainer, and the promoters regarding the matter, but they didn’t show up. Garcia wasn’t even necessarily looking for documentation at that meeting. But I suspect they thought he was. And then it starts to make more sense as to why all those hypothetical questions were being asked.

To date, no evidence of the Cannabis Club card or the recommendation for such has been forwarded to the commission, although I imagine such a thing wouldn’t have been pertinent, given the circumstances and the prevailing rules.

This, to me, is where Diaz’s people kind of “crumbed the play,” so to speak, where they claimed an employee in the doctor’s office tried to “coerce” information from him that was related to marijuana use and the Cannabis card. Had Diaz’s use of marijuana been a secret? Hadn’t there been publicity in the past along those lines, that Diaz himself in fact encouraged? Hadn’t he tested positive for pot in Nevada after PRIDE 33? I mean, this is the same guy who, a year ago, told an internet reporter, “People say the marijuana is going to hurt my career. “People say that marijuana is going to hurt my career. I say to them that on the contrary, my fight career is getting in the way of my marijuana smoking” and “I’m a fighter and a martial artist. I feel martial artists and all artists in general could benefit from smoking weed and we should be able to smoke it all we want.”

Does that sound like someone who had to be coerced into ANYTHING?

There could have been a useful protest here, one which was directed at the rules and policies themselves. What I mean is, if I had smoked marijuana two weeks ago, pursuant to a doctor’s recommendation, and haven’t since then, obviously I wouldn’t be feeling the effects of it when I stepped into the cage, yet it may show up on a drug test. In that particular instance, the rules may indeed prejudice me, especially if there was some knowledge that I had the marijuana card, because then I might argue that a commission is operating on the assumption that I am smoking on a regular basis, and would be impaired at the time of the fight, an assumption that may well be groundless. That’s where I would work the “freedom” angle into the overall issue.

Then I would campaign for a better test, whatever that may be. After all, if I could construct an argument that the objective to the regulatory process as it regards drug testing is to punish a contestant for performance-enhancing substances and protect them from undue impairment, maybe the current method, which may unduly compromise a contestant, could be adjusted.

If this is Diaz’s posture, he’s done a very poor job of articulating it. This is an intellectual argument more than anything else. You have to be able to talk on the level – or above the level – of those you are trying to convince. But we really get none of this from Diaz, who takes the posture that this is nothing but a “rights” issue. Well, yes and no. He can smoke all he wants, but the reason why licenses are granted by the commission is that it is fighting is not a right, but a “privilege.” Honestly, Diaz comes off as a bit childish. And adults don’t generally pay attention to children unless it’s their own son, daughter or student.

Diaz is not licensed in the state of California. Therefore he is not suspended. He hasn’t failed any drug tests in California, and presumably, despite the Cannabis Club card that is allegedly in his possession, his past suspension in Nevada and his public revelations about marijuana use, he would still be licensed in the Golden State if he went through the application process and passed the physicals and the drug test.

But now this guy’s carrying a red flag with him. And why? Because he’s positioning himself as something of a political martyr, and hasn’t done very much to move in an intelligent, positive way in that direction. He could have made people stand up and take notice, because there is a big difference in effectiveness between putting people in authority on the defensive and enabling them to get on the offensive. Instead, to some people in the regulatory community, he’s going to look like a liar, something other jurisdictions are undoubtedly going to take into consideration if he applies elsewhere in the future.

I’ll guarantee you everyone will be watching closely.

And he’s brought it on himself.