I personally don't understand or feel anything but paranoia when I smoked weed, so I stopped decades ago. Let's say that you are 100% correct. Weed is PEDS. How do you justify Chael Sonnen using peds, above the limit allowable at the time, getting a 2 year suspension after being suspended for same prior, to Diaz getting 5 years suspension, below the new legal limit that was increased mere months after?
Is your premise that weed is more dangerous and egregious offense than other endurance, strength, and mood enhancing pharmaceuticals?
Not everyone can get a benefit from smoking marijuana. It also depends on the strain.
Many people get the same effect you describe, typically it comes from an imbalance that was pre-existing. Or if you already had issues with anxiety/paranoia or went into the experience thinking you would feel anxiety/paranoia, then that feeling of anxiety will be amplified when you smoke. If you go into smoking with a mentality that it's going to be enjoyable for sure and beneficial, then it's going to feel that way, especially if you're smoking the right stuff.
The steroids that Chael was taking have less of a pronounced beneficial effect in the context of fighting, than the marijuana Nick was fighting on.
Simply being strong and a great athlete means only so much in combat sports, or in sports period.
Nick as an endurance athlete, was able to utilize a superior level of benefits across the board. Smoking pot helped him force guys to swim at his pace in the deep end of the shark tank. How?
Because Nick is using the weed as a vasodilator/vasoconstrictor, sleep aid and pain killer. It allows him to go deeper on workouts and last longer through pain, he then is able to sleep better after pushing himself further.
Marijuana is way above steroids as far as a PED goes. The benefits are more numerous and more proven in clinical studies.
The negative side effects of using a steroid are also far greater, than the negative side effects of using marijuana.
The way that Nick uses marijuana it is a much greater PED than steroids has ever been in the context of combat sports. This isn't track and field, this isn't NFL football. This is fighting.. It's not simply about how hard you can run, push or pull. The complexity of the sport of MMA is why marijuana will always be a greater PED for an advanced user.
On top of the pain killing aspects, the extra intuition, creativity, extra ability to push forward, because your body is on a vasodilator or vasoconstrictor(depending on the user/strain), the extra adrenaline and energy.
One is god given, the other is man-made.
Steroids are given way too much credit.
More NBA players smoke weed than take steroids, this is a fact and those are the greatest athletes on earth according to most sports' experts.