All of this led us to the most recent heart of the Rios matter: a positive post-Pacquiao fight drug test for the substance known as DMAA.
Rios’ story about how he tested positive for the substance needs some prologue. The story broke on the morning of December 13, 2013.
Rios tested positive for a substance that had been banned by the FDA and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) within the last year for being dangerous to one’s health as well as for being a powerful stimulant beneficial to an athlete in competition.
http://www.maxboxing.com/news/max-boxing-news/rios-tests-positive-for-dmaa-suspended-five-months-by-cpbo
In the first interview he gave, Rios mentions that what he tested positive for could have been an energy drink.
http://www.worldboxingnews.net/news/2013/12/13/brandon-rios-speaks-exclusively-to-wbn-on-failed-vada-testing-reports.html
“The banned substance wasn’t even…it was an energy drink. That’s what we tested [positive] for. People say, ‘Oh, Brandon was this; Brandon was on the juice. Brandon was having trouble making weight.’ No, I was making [weight] perfectly. It was an energy drink that we got tested for. I didn’t know it was anything banned. It was just an energy drink. I bought the energy drink at the Vitamin D store and that’s what it was.”
The drink in question, according to Rios, “was Jack3d, I think.”
I explained to Rios that DMAA was banned and the products which contained it, Jack3d and OxyElite Pro, have been off the shelves well before this fight.
On April 12, 2012, the FDA issued a warning stating that DMAA “did not qualify as a legal dietary supplement ingredient and that it could raise blood pressure, potentially causing heart attacks and other health problems.”
By July of 2013, the FDA had destroyed more than $10 million dollars worth of products that contained DMAA.
“Not on the shelves? Well, you can buy it at the Vitamin D store,” said Rios. At press time, I have not yet been able to locate that store.
A reconfigured version of Jack3d is available on the market. It does not contain DMAA.
Rios explained that his team had its supply of the drink containing DMAA and brought it over to China.
“We had it here in Oxnard already. We had it here in Oxnard and we took it to China but we didn’t really use that much in China. We used it in Oxnard,” said Rios.
“Bam Bam” explained that the energy drink containing the banned substance was used as energy boost on days in which he was tired from strenuous training.
“There are days when you train your ass off,” explained Rios, “and even with ‘Memo,’ I’d train my ass off. There’s days where I’m like ‘F*ck, I’m tired.’ ‘Memo’ would give me something to wake me up and [Ariza] did the same thing here. He woke me up. That was it. It wasn’t that I was taking it because I had problems or anything. It was just that I was exhausted from all the training, from [early] in the morning training to the afternoon training. To the middle training to the f*cking running in the morning. Hard running and sh*t like that. But it was just to wake me up, wake my body up. That was it. I wasn’t taking it because I was having problems with anything. Or I thought it was going to be…or it was going to help me out or anything. It’s an energy drink. How can an energy drink help you out in a fight?”
Good question.
DMAA is a central nervous system stimulant so powerful and effective, it’s banned for active competition. It affects reaction time, alertness and reflexes. There’s a reason track athletes, particularly sprinters, risk getting caught taking it: it helps them get off the block quicker. “How can’t an energy drink with a powerful central nervous system substance help you in a fight?” is a better question.
Rios takes issue with the quantity of the substance found in his system.
“When they said [I tested positive], they said they found traces of it,” Rios said. “They didn’t find the whole thing. They found traces of it. So that’s like me saying if I sniff a line of cocaine on the table and I finish it off but there’s still traces of it on the table. They didn’t find the whole cocaine. They found traces of it on the table. They didn’t find the whole evidence of it. They didn’t find the whole thing. They said they found traces of this supplement in this urine test or whatever.”
Cocaine is illegal. DMAA is a banned substance prohibited for use in competition at the highest levels of sport. It is also so dangerous, the FDA took it off the shelves to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.
“Trace” is a scientific word. Typically, trace analysis of an athlete’s blood and metabolites found therein is measured to parts per million. Anything up to and beyond parts per billion or trillion is considered “ultra-trace,” an even lower concentration. Either way, million, billion or trillion - guess what? You have a banned substance in your body while competing. And it’s qualitative. It’s either in your system or it’s not and there is no legal allowance for DMAA in competition.
It should be noted that by and large, stimulants are not tested for during training camp AKA “out of competition.”
http://www.maxboxing.com/news/max-boxing-news/rios-on-pacquiao-dmaa-ariza-heredia-and-more-part-one