“Big” John McCarthy, one of the most recognizable referees in MMA, recently talked about cannabis and whether or not it should count as a performance-enhancing drug is combat sports.
“Well, let’s make one thing clear. I have never ingested cannabis,” McCarthy told Vegas Cannabis Magazine. Growing up, my father was against it and I have had asthma my whole life so I wasn’t big on inhaling anything into my lungs. So, I don’t have any type of personal experience to say yes or no. But my personal opinion on marijuana as a Performance Enhancing Drug for fighting is absolutely not! I think the problem with marijuana when it comes to fighting is it can reduce your abilities, slow you down, diminish your reflexes, which in essence makes it more dangerous for the fighter ingesting the marijuana.”
McCarthy believes cannabis will actually have a negative effect on a fighter’s performance instead of working as a performance enhancer. McCarthy also talked about the benefits of smoking marijuana for medical purposes. His wife smokes medical marijuana to help aid her against lupus.
“She started using cannabis to help her lupus in 2016, so it has not been a long time, but we can really see how it makes a difference with her headaches and her fatigue. I want to be very clear, my wife doesn’t use cannabis in a recreational form. She has a serious disease and uses cannabis as a medicine to assist her in living as normal a life as possible. That is the thing that is crazy about this. When you tell people that you use marijuana to treat your illness, right away they get this look like ‘Oh you just like to get high!’ That is the last thing people like my wife are doing. All they are doing is trying to live a normal life and thank God there is something out there that actually helps them do that.”
