Nick Diaz fans were given hope yesterday that the star fighter could perhaps avoid suspension for testing positive for marijuana metabolites following his unanimous decision loss to Carlos Condit UFC 143 last month in their interim Welterweight championship bout.
That hope stemmed from the release of a report revealing the defense strategy the Diaz camp plans to use when the Stockton, Calif.,-based fighter appears before the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) next month to address the failed test, which “came as a surprise” for the medical marijuana card-carrying member.
Well, that hope was pretty short lived, as today the NSAC responded to Goodman’s assertions and then some, releasing the following statement (the bold print is my emphasis):
Not only did Nick Diaz violate the law by testing positive for marijuana metabolites, but he also lied to the Commission on his Pre-Fight Questionnaire when he swore that he had not used any prescribed medications in two weeks before the fight.
The pre-fight questionnaire can be found here (both the NSAC statement and questionnaire are courtesy of Yahoo sports). You’ll notice that it has several queries that relate to the physical health of the competitor, including whether or not the he has suffered any broken bones or other injuries in the past six months and if he has used prescribed- or over-the-counter medications in the past two weeks.
And this is where the problem seemingly lies for Diaz.
Diaz indicated that he had not used any such medication on the questionnaire. Meanwhile, Goodman and his defense team included a pair of affidavits in their report, one from Nick and one from John Hiatt, an organic chemist with a Ph.D from Yale who moonlights for Quest diagnostics, one of the leading diagnostic testing facilities in the world.
His affidavit states that he has a medical condition (ADHD), he has been prescribed medical marijuana to treat this medical condition and that he ceased using this medication eight days before his fight.
Hiatt’s affidavit essentially states that the level of metabolites found in Nick’s system was consistent with someone who had ceased using marijuana eight days prior to the test. (These affidavits are included in the full report that Goodman released yesterday).
So not only does the NSAC consider marijuana metabolites to indeed be against the law, it has also jumped on the fact that Diaz hid his use of marijuana from it on the pre-fight questionnaire.
Now, I’m not a lawyer, but it seems that you aren’t going to look very good when you come out guns blazing, only to find that one of your claims is in direct contradiction with something your client has already told the other side.
Stay tuned … this is far from from over.
Story Courtesy of MMA Mania and Luke Nelson
