UFC has made a major shift on its anti-doping policy as MMA stars will no longer be punished if they test positive for carboxy-THC -- the psychoactive ingredient found in cannabis.
According to MMA Junkie, the MMA organisation made the announcement alongside the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) on Thursday.
And now significant changes have been made in the "handling of cannabis and its naturally occurring cannabinoid compounds."
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A positive test for carboxy-THC will not be a violation of the new policy change "unless additional evidence exists that an athlete used it intentionally for performance-enhancing purposes."
Jeff Novitzky, who is UFC's vice president of athlete health and performance, said in a statement: "While we want to continue to prevent athletes from competing under the influence of marijuana, we have learned that blood and/or urine levels of carboxy-THC have little-to-no scientific correlation to impairment.
"THC is fat soluble, meaning that once ingested, it is stored in fatty tissues and organs in the body and can be released back into the blood or urine, sometimes long after ingestion."
Novitzky has confirmed that MMA fighters will not be able to compete if they are under the influence of marijuana.
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"The bottom line is that in regards to marijuana, we care about what an athlete consumed the day of a fight, not days or weeks before a fight, which has often been the case in our historic positive THC cases," he added.
Novitzky revealed that "informal discussion with athletes" were held about the use of marijuana and the different benefits that it brings for some of them, ranging from pain control to anti-anxiety.
"Based on my informal discussion with athletes, there's a significant number of percentage of athletes that choose to use marijuana, many for legitimate reasons outside of recreational," he explained.
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"Many use it for pain control, anti-anxiety, to sleep, in lieu of more dangerous, more addictive drugs, so hopefully this being the first step to opening that up so that an athlete on Wednesday night of fight week instead of going to a Vicodin because their knee hurts and they can't sleep can use a little bit of cannabis and get to sleep and have that pain control.
"It has no effect whatsoever on a competition on Saturday night, so it's the right move, and I'm really excited about this revision and that specific policy change."
While USADA's policy change will be welcomed by some, it won't have a knock-on effect on regulations upheld by state athletic commissions.
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It means that fighters will still have to follow state athletic commissions' rules, despite UFC and USADA's announcement on marijuana.
UFC's anti-doping policy also includes a change on the removal of "phyto" cannabinoids that are often found in various CBD-based products.
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