When Jon Fitch had surgery to address the torn rotator cuff of his right shoulder in early 2011, he was handed a prescription for pain medicine. As a professional fighter, Fitch was quite used to handling pain in its many permutations; it was, after all, the one guarantee of his job. But something about this treatment didn’t sit right with him. His mind immediately traveled back into time.
Years earlier, in 2007, his friend and fellow fighter Eric Wray died in what Fitch says was a prescription pill overdose. The thought troubled him greatly, but like most post-surgery patients, he gave in to the hurt and took the medicine. It was a decision he soon regretted; the medication that was supposed to dull his pain instead left him feeling dehydrated and stiff and generally horrible. He threw away what was left in the bottle and instead applied for and received a medical marijuana card in his then home state of California.
In doing so, he was no different than the hundreds of thousands who had done the same there. In publicly proclaiming his use, however, he was very different, because he is a professional athlete.
Marijuana use is common in professional sports. In 2012, former NFL star Lomas Brown claimed at least 50 percent of NFL players smoke, and a New York Times story in 1997 once estimated that 60-70 percent of NBA players did the same. While there have never been any similar polls conducted for MMA, UFC announcer Joe Rogan recently voiced his educated opinion that the majority of athletes within that promotion are marijuana users.
Despite that kind of circumstantial evidence, active athletes largely stay mum on the subject. Why? Perhaps because even though attitudes have begun to shift, the public continues to look negatively upon use. As recently as last year, a poll jointly conducted by HBO Sports and Marist College showed that 64 percent of sports fans believe marijuana should remain banned by leagues.
After years of using medical marijuana silently, however, Fitch has become the rare public advocate who makes his living as a professional athlete. For years, Fitch (26-7-1, 1 no contest) held down a spot as one of the top five welterweight mixed martial artists, once boasting a 16-fight win streak en route to a UFC title shot against George St-Pierre.
Recently, his success rate has dipped a bit, going 2-3 in his last five fights, but he's still among the best 170-pounders on the World Series of Fighting roster, facing Yushin Okami this Saturday in a matchup that will send the winner to a title bout. He's also one of the lead plaintiffs in an ongoing antitrust lawsuit against the UFC and a crusader for a professional fighters association.
But Fitch didn't decide to publicly endorse medical marijuana—to become an “activist,” as he puts it—until he revealed his use to his parents. Despite their initial concern, they have come to accept his decision.
"I think that's why it's really important for people like me to speak out in favor of it," he said. "You can be successful, you can be a good parent, you can be a good husband and person. You can do all of these good and positive things and still use cannabis. It's not heroin. It's not any of these horrible things that people can be doing."
There wasn't an exact moment in time where all of these thoughts coalesced in his mind.
During his days as a student-athlete at Purdue University, Fitch slowly came to the realization that he bore responsibility for his own education. Then slowly, over the last few years, as he married and started a family—he's the father of two—he spent less time entertaining himself and more time researching topics that interested him.
“If we don’t know something nowadays in this world of information, it’s a choice,” he said. “You choose not to be informed. You literally only have to look to your cellphone and be willing to ask questions and have a critical mind in order to teach yourself.”
Fitch had dabbled in marijuana as a recreational user since his college days, but it was when he began to read about the war on drugs launched by President Richard Nixon in the 1970s that he examined many of the long-held beliefs about the drug and learned about its alternative uses over a period dating back centuries.
In the intervening time between his friend’s death and his injury, he'd learned plenty about prescription dangers, so when traditional medicine made him queasy, embracing an alternative one was an easy step. After his shoulder healed, Fitch continued to use medical marijuana for various ailments.
"Pain relief is a big one,” he said. “When you're in a combat sport, a physical sport like this, pain relief is important. You're going to be able to train better when you're not as sore. I don't want to go into medical things that I have, because I think people's medical histories are their own personal business, but I have certain issues I still need to medicate for. But also, just therapeutically, I think it's a good therapeutic technique. I'll medicate and get a deep-tissue massage and that helps. I get a much higher level of relaxation in order to get the massage, and the knots and the pesky things that I'm having problems with are relieved much easier."
Fitch recently ramped up his public advocacy in the wake of Nick Diaz's five-year suspension at the hands of the Nevada Athletic Commission, calling the penalty "asinine" and "ridiculous," while slamming Big Pharma.
Despite growing acceptance of medical marijuana, its use is still banned by many athletic commissions, or levels must be kept below a certain threshold. To ensure his compliance, Fitch usually stops his treatment between four and eight weeks prior to his fight, even though he believes he can clear out his system in about half that time. Unfortunately, that often coincides with the most grueling part of training camp.
"The time you need it the most, you're kind of forcing yourself not to have it," he said. "It kind of sucks."
Pain management and career longevity remain complex topics.
In early 2015, it was reported that Fitch failed a test due to elevated testosterone levels. On the advice of his attorney, Fitch declined comment on the adverse result that brought him a brief suspension, instead focusing his optimism on the changing views on marijuana. Despite their excessive punishment of Diaz, for example, the Nevada commission at least raised the threshold from 50 ng/ml to 150 ng/ml, putting it in line with the World Anti-Doping Agency limit. Many commissions, however, don't have the same transparency in the process, leaving athletes to guess at their testing programs and procedures.
Wary of facing the same scrutiny that Diaz has, Fitch has never filed for a therapeutic usage exemption, but his time of staying silent on the topic is over. It took many years for this “brainwashing” to permeate society, but mores are shifting. Notable people can shape the dialogue.
“Prescription pills, they’re dangerous,” he said. “They’re just dangerous. You find the right strain for what you need with the medical cannabis, you’re going to be way better. And if you decide to stop and you need to be free of medicine, you can stop cold turkey and you’ll be fine. You’re not going to go into some kind of shakes or withdrawal symptoms. You might be crabby for one or two days, and that’s it.”
At 37 years old, Fitch has no thoughts of retirement and still harbors championship dreams. “Feather in the cap” type of stuff, he calls it. A win over Okami on Saturday will move him one step closer to realizing that elusive goal, but there are other pursuits he finds value in, other causes that he feels are worth fighting for.
“I’m getting to the point where I’m just so sick of this nonsense, better to take an activist role and proactively speak in support of legalized marijuana,” he said. “It’s asinine. There’s literally zero evidence to show it’s harmful in any way. People try to compare it to alcohol but there’s no comparison. Better to compare it to caffeine. It’s closer to caffeine, but caffeine’s actually much more dangerous. Sugar is more dangerous than marijuana.”
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