Is it approved?

By Hubert Lawrence

Sometimes the right answer is staring us in the face. Yet, in the heat of anger and indignation, our attention is misdirected when the scourge of illegal drug use touches our shores. Reactions vary. Either we want the athlete to disappear from our sight or we think of evil plots.

I can't tell you what to think, but for me, the WADA Code needs to evolve. The code has noble foundations. It seeks to ensure we can trust the results we see on the field of play. No one could argue with that.

However, as we see in many cases, well-meaning athletes can easily run afoul of the code.

Discussion of the recent rash of Jamaican drug positives has revealed that the cost of the best due diligence - a laboratory test of everything to be ingested - is prohibitive. Reading the listed contents and matching them to the WADA list of banned substance is often insufficient.

The cases in front of us today sound identical to many in the past. This recurring decimal can't be good for the sport.

Take Jamaica, for example. In 2009, five Jamaicans tested positive for a stimulant that wasn't listed as a content in the nutritional supplement that they decided to take.

In fact, almost all of the positive tests in Jamaican track and field history surround the use of supplements or over-the-counter cold remedies.

unlisted contents

Often, the defence asserts that despite due diligence, the athlete couldn't have known about the unlisted contents.

The list of banned substances outlines some of the things to be avoided. To outsmart determined cheats, the authorities also ban as yet unknown substances which act the same way as those on the list.

The obvious solution was revealed to me in an interaction with the former Jamaica hockey player, Andrea Stephenson. It's simple. Sport needs an approved list of supplements and medicines. Some body, perhaps WADA, would test and certify supplements as safe and legal. That would make it easy for the honest athlete to find what they need.

Sport federations routinely certify equipment and stadia. Table tennis, for example, certifies tables, balls, rubber, glue and racquet blades. Athletics certifies tracks, running spikes and throwing implements.

The same should apply to supplements.

Perhaps the tests could be financed through a combination of fees to the makers of the supplements and registration fees paid to WADA by affiliated sports federations. It's a cinch that these tests can be done by the labs that process the samples given by athletes both in and out of competition.

For all I know, supplement manufacturers may welcome the need for certification. Like ISO certification in manufacturing, the WADA stamp of approval could come to be a mark of quality that recommends the product to buyers among recreational sportsmen and professionals.

Those who depart from the approved list would be courting their own demise.

What we have now is a vicious circle. The best form of due diligence - the lab test - is expensive, and the banned list doesn't name everything that is banned.

The result is that good people can get in trouble even when they attempt due diligence.

Of all the Jamaican cases I know of, the large majority relate to supplements and cold remedies. There aren't any EPO or Human Growth Hormone cases, which along with steroids represent the usual aces in the drug cheat's armoury.

Most people lump all positive tests as equal signs of evil. Yet the law doesn't sentence the petty thief to hang. That makes me cautious about instant lifetime bans for first-time offenders.

Diminishing credibility

Quite apart from the personal disgrace the athlete suffers when these cases arise, the sport's credibility suffers. When fans turn away because they no longer believe the result, jazzing up the sport with gambits like the zero-tolerance false-start rule won't help.

Luckily, the answer is staring us right in the face. Hopefully, the authorities will introduce an approved list of supplements before the 2016 Olympics. That way, good people won't be left groping in the dark for answers.

Hubert Lawrence has beenmaking notes at trackside since 1980.