Behind Jon Jones and the UFC’s drug problem
By Lance LeVan
It was announced that Ultimate Fighting Championship Light heavyweight champion Jon “Bones” Jones had failed a drug test on Dec. 4, 2014 for benzoylecgonine, a primary metabolite of cocaine.
Nevada State Athletic Commission Executive Director Bob Bennett confirmed this and said any punishments the commission decided would be discussed after Jones finished rehab. It also was announced that Jones had checked himself into a rehab center. When asked about this instance, UFC President Dana White had the following to say:
“I am proud of Jon Jones for making the decision to enter a drug treatment facility. I’m confident that he’ll emerge from this program like the champion he truly is.”
After reading this, I am actually extremely disturbed by how they are treating this. You are kidding me, right? Is this REALLY the message we are going to send our fans and the children that tune in to UFC events?
Now, UFC athletes are on the same level as pro basketball players and football players; the rules don’t apply to them?
This is the same crappy, nepotism-type of decision-making that has plagued the UFC for years. White and the UFC make decisions based on what is right for them and their bottom line instead of just doing what is “right.” As far as the NSAC is concerned:
“The NSAC follows the World Anti-Doping Agency code and benzoylecgonine is not banned out-of- competition. As a result, the commission was unable to penalize Jones or prevent him from fighting despite knowing of the positive test.”
Are you kidding me?
I know that I am fairly ignorant of NSAC and WADA’s rules and codes, but you cannot seriously tell me that I can spend the entire year training and coked up, and as long as I have it out of my system 12 hours before fight-time, then everything is good to go?
I used to be a law enforcement officer and I am not sure how many of you have ever fought with someone on cocaine or other powerful stimulants like Meth, but they usually don’t feel a lot of pain nor do they give up very easily. Also, they deal with extremely powerful bouts of depression when coming down off of their high.
There are documented cases of people getting shot 10-15 times while on stimulants and still walking forward. I think someone who is a professionally-trained fighter, someone who can exert extreme damage on other human beings with their bare hands, elbows, knees and feet should be held to a higher standard than just having them stop their coke-fest at least 12 hours before fight time.
And it gets even better. Now we find out that Jones’ stint in rehab lasted all of one entire day. Again, I am not an expert on drugs or drug rehabilitation and I have never been to rehab; but all of the experts that I have checked with say the same thing:
You cannot be rehabilitated after ONE day.
So, either Jones just did this for publicity reasons and was just trying to make it look good. Or he is in denial and doesn’t think that he has a problem and that rehab is a waste of his time.
