It’s been several days since Nick Diaz tested positive for potsmoking (not something we really needed a test to determine), and we still haven’t heard a peep from him. I wonder what he does when he’s not fighting, training, or triatheleting? Does he sit at home watching Antiques Roadshow marathons all day? Or am I just projecting what I do all day onto him?

Whatever the case, I hope Cesar Gracie is getting a nice Golden Glory percentage of Nick’s money for being the guy who has to come out and try to explain his client’s latest f*ckups to an angry world every other week:

“I was very disappointed,” Gracie said on The MMA Hour. “Everyone knows he smokes marijuana medicinally in California. He has a legal right to do it in this state.”

Gracie said he was the one who was informed of the positive test and passed along the word to Diaz, and that Diaz had thought he had stopped using marijuana for long enough before the UFC 143 fight with Carlos Condit, and had enough water pass through his system, that a test would come up negative.

“He was surprised he tested positive,” Gracie said. “He does the same ritual every fight for the last five years. He stops it in time and he cleanses his system, works out like crazy, drinks a lot of water and purges his system of it.”

Gracie said he thought Diaz’s weight cut may have contributed to the marijuana metabolites staying in his system longer than usual. Gracie said the Diaz camp has hired an attorney, Ross Goodman of Las Vegas, who will help to appeal to the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

I know what you’re thinking: how the hell is Nick Diaz going to get off the hook for this when everyone and their dog knows he loves the sticky icky and his coach just admitted his way of getting around commission rules is risk-equivalent to ejaculating onto the vagina instead of inside it? Well interestingly enough, the way the Nevada commission’s marijuana regulation is written might get him off the hook:

Cannabinoids are only prohibited “in competition”. WADA expressly permits the use of marijuana and other cannabinoids outside of competition. Nevada is no different. A random, out of competition positive test for marijuana should not engender disciplinary sanction under the NAC’s regulations.

NAC 467.850(1) provides that the administration of or use of any prohibited substance “either before or during a contest or exhibition” is prohibited.

The obvious question is this: how long before is “before”, under NAC 467.850(1)? A day? A week?

Media commentators have correctly pointed out that the presence of metabolites in a sample taken on fight night is consistent with the last “administration of or use of” the prohibited substance having been many days if not weeks earlier.

Is the use of marijuana potentially weeks in advance of a fight a violation of NAC 467.850(1)?

So Nick smoked weeks before his fight, but did he smoke days before his fight (sometimes you just need a bong hit after a stressful day at the gym) or hours before his fight (quite possible since that’s the conclusion the NSAC made when they nailed him after the Gomi fight).

Now this is all probably hocus pocus wordplay and we’ll all grumble about conspiracies, haters, etc when Nick is still suspended for a year. But it’s interesting to note this is a potential legal loophole right here. Hey, if guys like Chael Sonnen can drive a big steroid dumptruck through commission rules, why can’t potheads fit a magical mystery van through as well?