Ultimate Fighting Championship has teamed up with Canadian marijuana company Aurora Cannabis and has offered its athletes to serve as test subjects in a CBD study.
The study aims to find out if the cannabis compound CBD can treat the aches and pains that UFC fighters experience. South Park took a jab at corporate marijuana in a clip released over the weekend—seemingly riffing off a slick ad that MedMen published earlier this year—while promoting a fictional cannabis brand called “Tegridy Farms.”
Aurora and the UFC plan to conduct clinical trials on the use of CBD on elite athletes and then employ the results to develop a line of hemp-derived CBD topical treatments targeting these kind of athletes.
Both UFC officials and Aurora have said that hope the studies will show the effectiveness of CBD and specific formulations of the compound in areas such as wound care, recovery, injury, pain and inflammation.
The studies will be conducted to the highest scientific, safety and ethical standards, said Jason Dyck, Ph.D., the chair of Aurora’s Global Scientific Oversight Committee.
The results will go through an independent ethics review and a peer review process and be submitted for review and publication in a leading scientific journals, Dyck also said.
An Aurora spokesperson said that the selection of the journals will be dependent upon the area of research.
So fa aAbout 30 UFC athletes have expressed interest in volunteering for the study, a UFC spokesperson told CNN Business.
“Collaborating with Aurora is the best way to educate ourselves and our fighters about the impact of CBD on MMA athletes and our sport,” Dr. Duncan French, UFC’s vice president of performance, remarked. “We want to apply science and see where it leads us. Ideally, these studies will give us the clarity we need to determine the effectiveness of hemp-derived CBD on athlete health and injury recovery.”