Marijuana back on menu

Mixed martial arts: The UFC will no longer punish fighters for using marijuana in most cases, making a major change to its antidoping policy.

The world’s largest mixed martial arts promotion confirmed yesterday that it will no longer worry about positive tests for carboxyTHC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, unless it believes a fighter used it intentionally to enhance performance.

All other cannabinoids derived naturally from marijuana were no longer prohibited substances, Jeff Novitzky, the UFC’s senior vicepresident of athlete health and performance, said.

‘‘The bottom line is that in regard to marijuana, we care about what an athlete consumed the day of a fight, not days or weeks before a fight, which has often been the case in our historic positive THC cases,’’ Novitzky said. —