Dana White Drug Testing: UFC President Worried More Drug Testing Would Lead to Too Many Suspensions

Dana White, who is the Ultimate Fighting Championship president, said that if he was to implement a random drug testing policy year-round to contracted fighters, more than 80 percent would be suspended.

"Forget about PEDs," White said. "If we get into this system that we're talking about where we would randomly test these guys, do you know how many guys would probably test positive for marijuana? It would be probably off the charts.

"If you randomly test them and then [the results] came out, you'd get the exact same suspension [for using marijuana] as you do for using PEDs," he said according to Yahoo Sports.

Fighters are generally tested for performance enhancing drugs if they are in championship fights and main event fights, reported Yahoo Sports.

"Do you think if they were really testing all the guys in baseball, do you really think there would be a [expletive] baseball game every day of the week?" NESN.com reported White saying to reporters at MGM Grand. "There wouldn't be, man. They would be pulling guys up from the minors every day. It would be crazy. There will always be a thing in sports where, someone's trying to get an edge on the other guy. You know? As an owner or a commissioner or whatever you want to call it, you do the very best you can do."

Yahoo News reported that Keith Kizer who is the executive director of the Nevada Athletic Commission has been testing more fighters in recent months which has led to five drug-related offenses in both martian arts and boxing in just November and December alone.

Currently, there is no formal penalty for fighters that fail drug tests but in Nevada they have been suspending those who fail tests for six months on a first marijuana offense and nine months for steroids.

White does not believe that the penalty for marijuana should be the same as PEDs. "I do not think the penalty should be the same for taking marijuana as it is for [using] performance-enhancing drugs," he said according to Yahoo Sports.