The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) announced on Thursday that it is formally removing marijuana from its newly modified banned substances list for athletes, building on an earlier reform.
While UFC says it is modeling its list of prohibited drugs after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)—which has controversially maintained cannabis as a banned substance—it is making amendments “based on historical findings (i.e. marijuana removed from the prohibited list).”
Professional fighters have already been largely protected from being penalized over testing positive for THC under a policy change that UFC adopted in 2021, but now it is removing cannabis as a banned drug altogether.
“UFC’s goal for the Anti-Doping Policy is to be the best, most effective, and most progressive anti-doping program in all of professional sports,” UFC Chief Business Officer Hunter Campbell said in a press release on Thursday.
“UFC is proud of the advancements we have made with our anti-doping program over the past eight years, and we will continue to maintain an independently administered drug-testing program that ensures all UFC athletes are competing under fair and equal circumstances,” he said. “With this new iteration of the program, UFC has once again raised the bar for health and safety in combat sports.”
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