Nevada regulators have now formally proposed to adopt a rule change that would protect athletes from being penalized for using or possessing marijuana in compliance with state law.

While the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) voted to send the regulatory amendment to the governor last year, they were also required to go through a separate rulemaking process to codify the policy, submitting it to the legislature’s Legislative Counsel Bureau (LCB) in May.

Last week, LCB sent the reformatted draft proposal back to NSAC—which regulates unarmed combat sports such as boxing and mixed martial arts within the state—with a largely identical version of what the commission had originally submitted, with mostly technical and formatting changes.

LCB’s role is to turn a regulatory agency’s rule “into a consistent form,” a staffer told Marijuana Moment on Friday. “We review it for legal accuracy…and then we send it back to the agency.”

The commission now has two years to hold a hearing to adopt final language. After that point, it will go back to LCB for another review to ensure that any changes meet legal requirements. Then it heads to the legislature’s Legislative Commission, comprised of six members of the Senate and six members of the Assembly, who will decide whether it should be officially enacted.

While the final rule must still go through that process, NSAC has already informally adopted to policy going back to 2021, which it’s empowered to do under state statute, and has been waiving penalties for professional fighters who test positive for THC.

While the proposed regulations would still say that the commission adopts the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) list of banned substances for athletes—which continues to include marijuana following the international governing body’s scientific review in 2022—they are seeking to add language to carve out an exception for cannabis for fighters in the state.

The regulation says that “the possession, use or consumption of cannabis or cannabis products will not be deemed an anti-doping violation, notwithstanding the laws of the jurisdiction where the possession, use or consumption may have occurred.”

Previously the rule specifically said “provided such possession, use, or consumption is legal under the laws of the State of Nevada,” so this seems to create a broader safeguard.

Source: Kyle Jaeger – marijuanamoment.net