Now even Iditarod dog racers (a.ka. mushers) will be subject to drug testing. Three-time champ Lance Mackey – a throat cancer survivor who smokes marijuana – appears to be the target of the new regs.
“It’s a dog race, not a human race,” he says about the 10-day, 1,100-mile Alaskan competition. “It isn’t the reason I’ve won three years in a row.”
Lance MackeyMackey, however, does admit that pot helps him stay awake and focused during the arduous trek.
“I think it’s a little bit ridiculous,” maintains Mackey, who lives near Fairbanks. “The Alaska lifestyle [is] you can do just about anything you want if you’re not bothering anybody. You have a little more freedom in this state and smoking pot is kind of a common thing here in Alaska.”
He believes that non-puffing rival mushers are behind the drug ban: “People are just jealous of what I’ve accomplished.”
Mackey has won the last three Idatirods and four Yukon Quest races, and will be inducted into the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame in 2010 along with his father Dick, also an Iditarod champ.
“If I don’t smoke all the way to Nome, I’ll do as good or maybe even better,” Mackey promises about the next Iditarod, which begins on Mar. 6 in Anchorage.
If you want to spend five or six hours trapped in a debate, try picking a fight with a pro-marijuana advocate who argues that a prescription should give an athlete a free pass when it’s his time to fill a cup.
Having a legitimate medical need to eat a bag of Sun Chips isn’t beyond reason; the problem is the legion of Doctor Nick-inspired quacks who wink at their “patient” while writing a prescription despite a complete lack of an affliction.
In an effort to curb fighters’ showing up with a doctor’s note, the California State Athletic Commission recently issued a statement clarifying its position on the matter. “The California State Athletic Commission’s position is that Marijuana is a banned substance pursuant to Rule 303,” it reads, “and that any positive drug test may result in discipline. … The California Supreme Court has weighed in on ‘medical marijuana’ in the employment context and has found that an employer may discipline an employee for off-duty medical marijuana use. The court found that the Compassionate Use Act did not legalize marijuana use per se, but merely provided a defense to criminal charges under particular circumstances.”
To use Nick Diaz as a completely random example: If he has a valid prescription for marijuana to treat his “attention deficit disorder,” he’s free to go about his day without fear of criminal prosecution. But whether he has a legitimate reason for using the drug or not is irrelevant to the Commission’s stance that it could potentially have an adverse or leveraging effect on his athletic performance.
(The hypotheticals: that marijuana’s soothing effect on chronic pain could help mitigate any nagging injuries suffered in training; that its calming effect could make someone less irritated or concerned by their physical fatigue; that it could make an athlete capable of tolerating more trauma in a bout; and inversely, that their reflexes or reaction time could result in serious injury during a bout.)
The debate is a nonstarter: It is not unreasonable to expect athletes to have their systems clear of anything that could inhibit their performance or provide an advantage that carries risk. Lifestyle choices are not a given right for what sanctioning bodies do — which is to sanction bodies.
In celebration of the greatest athletic achievement by a man on a psychedelic journey, No Mas and artist James Blagden proudly present the animated tale of Dock Ellis’ legendary LSD no-hitter. In the past few years weve heard all too much about performance enhancing drugs from greenies to tetrahydrogestrinone, and not enough about performance inhibiting drugs. If our evaluation of the records of athletes like Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Marion Jones, and Barry Bonds needs to be revised downwards with an asterisk, we submit that that Dock Ellis record deserves a giant exclamation point. Of the 263 no-hitters ever thrown in the Big Leagues, we can only guess how many were aided by steroids, but we can say without question that only one was ever thrown on acid.
Sadly, the great Dock Ellis died last December at 63. A year before, radio producers Donnell Alexander and Neille Ilel, had recorded an interview with Ellis in which the former Pirate right hander gave a moment by moment account of June 12, 1970, the day he no-hit the San Diego Padres. Alexander and Ilels original four minute piece appeared March 29, 2008 on NPRs Weekend America. When we stumbled across that piece this past June, Blagden and Isenberg were inspired to create a short animated film around the original audio.
Eddie Bravo (birth name Edgar Cano), is an American practitioner of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu who holds a black belt under Jean-Jacques Machado. He is most famous for his win as a brown belt against Royler Gracie by triangle choke in the 2003 Abu Dhabi Submission Wrestling championships and his unique style of no-gi Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, called 10th planet jiu-jitsu. He is also known for his mixed martial arts commentating on the Ultimate Fighting Championship, music composition, and strong marijuana advocacy. He lives in Hollywood, California, where he runs his 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu school out of Legends MMA.
Now even Iditarod dog racers (a.ka. mushers) will be subject to drug testing. Three-time champ Lance Mackey – a throat cancer survivor who smokes marijuana – appears to be the target of the new regs.
