Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Drugs & Sport.

Out of interest, why are professional athletes tested for recreational, non performance enhancing, drugs in the first place? Let alone liable to serve lengthy bans if caught. It should be a disciplinary matter for their employers (particularly if it is a performance impairing drug) and it may be a legal matter (although I'm personally inclined to legalise drugs).

Sporting bodies have a responsibility to test for performance enhancing drugs in order to maintain the integrity of their competitions, anything else is none of their business.

2 comments:

Blognor Regis said...

I suppose a) the lab will pick up what's ever in the system regardless and b) some, perhaps all in various ways, recreational drugs have a performance enhancing aspect.

Tom Boonen was found to have taken cocaine last May time and was subsequently prevented from starting the Tour de France on image grounds rather than as a sporting sanction as the drug is not on the UCI banned list. Whether or not it's on the IOC or WADA lists I don't know.

Also, I posit, being caught taking rec drugs would indicate at least an increased willingness to take PEDs, and they would tend to originate from the same milieu (cf Marco Pantani), and thus should cause testing authorities to perhaps keep a beadier eye on a caught an individual.

Incidently Boonen appears in a Belgian court next month as a result of his positive, albeit not in a sporting context, test.

Anonymous said...

Amphetimines are both recreational and performance enhancing so I guess dual purpose drugs like that would have to be tested for in any case.