CANNABIS CULTURE- Combat Athletes Find Comfort in Cannabis.
“We’re kind of backwards in the way we kind of look at things,” says Elias Theodorou, the first professional mixed martial arts fighter to be approved for medicinal cannabis use . “It’s not a problem to crush a handful of Percocet. Yet a joint or a vaporizer, you used a couple of weeks before could penalize you.”
“I was ironically being told to take opioids while USADA had a whole public campaign about the dangers of opioids.,`says Theodorou
Theodorou has a condition called bilateral neuropathy which is nerve damage to his upper extremities, and he uses cannabis, both high-CBD and high-THC mixtures for pain management. It was a long road for him to get exemption and he faced a lot of resistance along the way from the organizations like the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), which still classifies cannabis as a highly addictive substance with no medical value.
“I had some experience in regard to recreational cannabis and even medicinal cannabis before I even talked to my doctor,” says Theodorou. “But really diving into the science and the understanding of what neuropathy is, and how cannabis has been shown as an option, we took our first steps, and it was a better option than anything else that we tried previously.”
With his condition, every day is different, and some days different applications of cannabis work better, whether it’s after a hard training session and being able to vaporize afterwards or waking up sore and applying topicals directly. He also switches between sativa during the day and indica or high doses CBD at night.
“[USADA] agreed that I had my condition, agreed cannabis could be a potential option, but wanted me to exhaust every single option under the sun, and to the detriment of my ability as an athlete and my quality of life as a patient.” says Theodorou. “I was ironically being told to take opioids while USADA had a whole public campaign about the dangers of opioids.”
It could be said the link between fighting and cannabis was fate for Theodorou when after his first fight in high school, on his walk home he witnessed a cannabis grow operation being busted by authorities.
Theodorou can use cannabis up until weigh-ins, which are the day before a fight. He stresses that even given that window, the purpose is not to be impaired, saying he would not smoke cannabis before a fight just as he would not drink before a fight.
Wear and tear come with the territory of combat sports, and with hazy laws looming over medicines like cannabis, many athletes have taken healing into their own hands.
“We’re not really reinventing the wheel, but we wanted to make CBD a little more affordable and accessible to people,” says Jarlath McDonagh, co-founder of Ghost Grappling. “And people in combat sports need to take a lot of it.”
“There’s a lot of tattooers Vancouver is a big tattoo city,” says McDonagh. “So you have to kind of market yourself a little bit. Tattooing was a course in marketing, I just didn’t even know it.
McDonagh works as a tattoo artist in Vancouver and has been training in the mixed martial arts world for nearly a decade, specializing in Muay Thai and Jiujitsu. With all this strain on his wrists and fingers, McDonagh developed arthritis and feared having to retire. Then he tried Cannabidiol (CBD).
“As long as I’ve been in jujitsu, I’ve heard people talking about it,” says McDonagh. “My first mentor had arthritis in his hands too, and he spoke about using CBD. At the time, there weren’t any dispensaries, but people had been using it.”
Mike Goh, co-founder of Ghost Grappling, and McDonagh had done some experimenting with CBD on their own and made some formulas themselves before partnering up. Along with being a mixed martial artist, Goh is a chef and there is a lot of stress on his hands day-to-day.
“We started first just giving it up to friends family, and we didn’t have a business in mind,” says McDonagh. “But we just most of our friends are within combat sports, and that’s where the demand seemed to be.”
Goh and McDonagh had been operating Ghost Grappling for about a year when the COVID pandemic hit, and they went into isolation. “We couldn’t even train, so we had a lot of time to figure out just the minutiae, like branding and the website and all that kind of stuff,” says McDonagh. “And then when everyone came back to training, we hit the ground running.”
Goh and McDonagh had been operating Ghost Grappling for about a year when the COVID pandemic hit, and they went into isolation. “We couldn’t even train, so we had a lot of time to figure out just the minutiae, like branding and the website and all that kind of stuff,” says McDonagh. “And then when everyone came back to training, we hit the ground running.”
The team isn’t trying to tout anything special about their ingredients (other than taking inspiration from Grandma Goh’s at home salve recipes), the key is how in the potency. “I’ve seen in the dispensaries in Vancouver that sell 2000 milligrams for over $250. We have 2500 milligrams for $120,” says McDonagh.
Cannabis as a medicine has been explored more recently because it contains so many compounds with medicinal benefits; CBD being only one of dozens of different cannabinoids. The other major one is THC. Although McDonagh doesn’t use it, high-THC cannabis has been part of jiujitsu culture for a long time and have provided huge benefits for fighters who need it.
For Ghost Grappling, CBD is ultimately a passion project, and they will continue spreading the word at combat sports tournaments. “And there’s a lot of them out here,” says McDonagh. “We want to keep it pretty organic and maybe sponsor a tournament of our own one day.”
In December, Theodorou will push the envelope even further and become the first athlete in a professional sport to compete in the United States with an exemption for using medical cannabis. The fight will take place in Greeley, Colorado against Bellator veteran Bryan Baker. Theodorou says, “It’s going to be completely funded by cannabis, psychedelics, and gambling. Three of my favorite things.”
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