Wendell Sailor wearing the St. George Illawarra jersey after announcing his signing with NRL St. George Illawarra team at WIN Stadium, Wollongong, Monday, May 12, 2008. Sailor has just completed a two-year doping ban after testing positive to cocaine in 2006. AAP Image/Dean Lewins
“Oh Lucky Man”, the penultimate episode of the current season of “Underbelly”, screened in New Zealand this week. What has this to do with sport? Believe it or not, there is a topical connection.
The topic is the positive cocaine tests that were announced last weekend for Richard Gasquet, world no. 23 tennis player, and for Tom Boonen, arguably the leading road sprinter in world cycling.
The connection is that Chris “Mr Rent-a-Kill” Flannery was portrayed in said TV program as snorting cocaine just prior to carrying out some frenzied gangland executions.
It is for such “performance enhancement” that WADA and the IOC seek to ban athletes for two years for taking cocaine in-season.
To my mind this is ridiculous beyond words, and so I would like to do my little bit to take a stance against it.
For a start it is ridiculous because in all the cases of which I am aware – e.g., Gasquet, Boonen, Wendell Sailor, Matt Stevens, Martina Hingis – the cocaine use has been purely recreational and has had nothing to do with performance enhancement in sport.
Secondly it is ridiculous because even if cocaine were being used as a stimulant to achieve better performance, it’s benefit would be no greater than that of, say, performing the haka or being the recipient of one of Alan Jones’s legendary pep talks. I don’t see WADA suggesting that players should be banned for performing the haka or listening to Alan Jones (hey, now there’s a couple of nifty ideas!).
Thirdly, even if we were to reluctantly concede that there is some illicit performance-enhancing benefit in using cocaine, it is preposterous to equate such short-lived stimulation to the sustained and much greater benefit of using anabolic steroids or growth hormones or blood boosters, all of which attract exactly the same ban.
I’m guessing that WADA would argue that someone using cocaine could in principle do so before every sporting outing, and thus could attain performance enhancement every time. Well could someone please tell WADA to have a look at Ben Cousins, and they would quickly see where regular cocaine use leads – to a ruined life, as anyone with a smidgeon of common sense knows.
All this is so obvious that there can be only one conclusion: when it comes to cocaine use, WADA seeks to impose a moral code by stealth.
Well I have something to say to WADA and the IOC. I have never taken cocaine, so presumably I am in the demographic that these august bodies feel they are protecting and pleasing with their stance on cocaine. Frankly, I am appalled.
I was appalled and embarrassed by the treatment meted out to Wendell Sailor by the Australian rugby community, most of whom behaved like sniggering schoolboys with their class-fuelled glee over a rugby league convert being banned for nothing more than many of them were doing every weekend. I always wondered how these same people would have reacted had it been a “true blue” like Stirling Mortlock or Phil Waugh who tested positive.
Probably they would have reacted in the same way as English rugby did when one of their favorite sons, Lawrence Dallaglio, became tabloid fodder for use and distribution of cocaine and ecstasy: by closing ranks and protecting him.
Poor Matt Stevens – presumably because he’s a South African, the gin-n-tonic brigade think he deserves his two-year ban.
What will the ATP and its global stars do for Gasquet? The tennis fraternity was spared this issue in the case of Hingis, because the ever-clever Swiss Miss promptly announced her retirement after her cocaine positive, meaning that her two-year ban meant nothing.
But Gasquet is at the front end of his career – will his fellow tennis professionals rally around him in support if he is handed a nonsensical two-year ban?
Oddly enough it is in cycling, a sport riven by drugs and denials and cover-ups, that one finds some common sense over cocaine.
Boonen, who has been caught for the second time, is facing a ban of only 6 months, and this is purely aimed at helping him to sort out a personal problem, as opposed to being a punishment for trying to enhance sporting performance (yeah right, a guy is going to snort cocaine because it will help him to sprint faster after 6 hours in the saddle).
At least cycling’s tawdry record with drugs equips it to know what is a drug problem and what isn’t; quite clearly and quite correctly it has decided that it has much bigger fish to fry than cocaine.
Indeed, this is exactly what Graeme Steel, Chief Executive of Sport Free NZ (formerly the New Zealand Sports Drug Agency) had the courage to say publicly in 2007: that testing for recreational, non-performance-enhancing drugs is a waste of time and money, and that these precious resources would be far better spent on looking for the much smaller number of genuinely performance-enhancing drugs, namely steroids, growth hormones and blood boosters.
Interestingly, Steel was speaking not just of marijuana and cocaine, but also of things like cold remedies (remember the huge fuss over this and Samantha Riley about a decade ago?).
Evidently Steel made no headway in his battle, because we still have the utter charade over cocaine.
If sports want to ban their athletes from using cocaine, then let’s have that as a moral debate.
But please let’s desist with the charade of labelling it drugs in sport and imposing a ludicrously penal two-year ban.
One is almost tempted to unleash Chris “Mr Rent-a-Kill” Flannery on such proponents.
Scarface
Guest
Drugs are for people who cannot handle reality, and reality is for people who cannot handle drugs. I hate people who take drugs……….customs officers for example. I have diddled with a few creations of the earth in my time, and a few made in laboratories as well – you know…..the ones you find in every chemist, and have played sport on a variety of them. The only performance enhancing drug in my opinion in the class of opiates, barbiturates, narcotics, hallucinogens, and amphetamines, is SPEED. A very nasty drug that you find in nearly all cold and flu medications – and which has the effect of drinking about a million cups of coffee in the one sitting. The only enhancement cocaine would give an athlete is that he/she may believe that they are performing better than they actually are (and they might decide to showcase some designer footwear as well!), although if one was lacking sleep the effects would be similar to large amounts of caffeine. The only sporting identities that I have personally witnessed under the effects of marijuana are players from past West Indian cricket teams – Smoking Joe (Viv Richards) red-eyed from a few tokes of The Bob Marley, would play like a champion when he was in the zone. This however is part of the Rastafarian religion and smoking dope on a daily basis is considered spiritual, and also the norm – so in their case I would say that marijuana was not performance enhancing. Like most drugs- alcohol included – users are often of the belief that they are better, faster, stronger, wittier (hiccup), and more intelligent after imbibing. Laughter has been, and always will be the best medicine.
bob smith
Guest
wendall sailor is the biggest idiot for taking drugs
Dean Pantio
Guest
"Secondly it is ridiculous because even if cocaine were being used as a stimulant to achieve better performance, it’s benefit would be no greater than that of, say, performing the haka or being the recipient of one of Alan Jones’s legendary pep talks" The peer reviewed medical science tells us otherwise. Cocaine is a stimulant and enhances performance in a range of metrics. Ultimately though, if you don't like the fact that your chosen sport will test and ban for certain substances you have two choices: Don't use said substance and keep playing the sport, or give up the sport. It's really that simple.
Gibbo
Guest
although perhaps you are over-estimating the burden of cocain addiction?
Mattyg
Guest
Wouldn't cocaine be performance enhancing for anarobic sports. 100m sprints, swim sprints, weight lifting, Tae Kwon Do, those kind of things? Does WADA have a seperate list of banned drugs for different sports, or are the same drugs banned for all sports? If there is a blanket ban on the prohibited list across all sports, having cocaine as a banned substance for endurance sports would be due to its stimulant effect on the quick sprint and power sports.
Campbell
Guest
Knives, You've just had Graeme Steel the Chief Executive of Drug Free Sport NZ clearly state that cocain IS A PERFORMANCE ENHANCING DRUG. But obviously you are far more qualified to comment so we'll just believe you shall we? YOU TWAT! I have some comprehension of urban life - and sporting life - and can categorically state that coke very much acts as a stimulant - thus an enhancement to sporting performance! Your above statement "Anybody with any comprehension of urban life - however slight - will be absolutely aware that coacine is not a performance enhancing drug" comes across with incredible arrogance - do you seriously believe your statement? Open your eyes! Again I'll state - YOU TWAT!
Knives Out
Guest
Anybody with any comprehension of urban life - however slight - will be absolutely aware that coacine is not a performance enhancing drug. Further, it is completely disingenuous, and also negligent, to suggest that there is no moral motive behind the banning of cocaine otherwise cannabinoids would not also be banned - under their own grouping, of course. But hey, misrepresentation of an appropriate expert and xenophobic prose makes for great reading from where I'm sitting.
INA
Guest
Cocaine can't help you alot , maybe in the first 10-15 min. As a whole it ruins your performance in long term. As Maradona has said "Imagine how much better I would've been without my cocaine and alcohol problems."
znotty
Guest
well i have used cocaine & it didn`t make anything but a bigger wanker (if possible) i reckon it would hinder performance myself.
Greg Russell
Roar Guru
Re "How does cocaine improve performance”, see the posting above by the head of Drug Free Sport NZ (the body that policies drug use in NZ sport). See also the WADA website. Basically, cocaine is a stimulant. Being a scientist does not equip me to offer significant insight beyond this. Rather, such could be provided by those who have used cocaine and experienced its effects. As I state in my article, I have not.
znotty
Guest
Steffy i`m asking a scientist to explain how cocaine improves performance,what you do at your local night club is your business.
Steffy
Guest
"Greg,How does cocaine improve performance" The people who chew coca leaves in South America while working longs days at high altitude don't do so because they wish to talk crap to each other all day and night.
znotty
Guest
Greg,How does cocaine improve performance.
Greg Russell
Roar Guru
To Graeme (Steel): I apologize that I extrapolated the view of Drug Free Sport NZ a bit too far. As I remember you definitely said marijuana, and I'm pretty sure you also said that testing for cannabis was not a good use of resources (when I checked the WADA website yesterday, I noticed that it groups both these two together on the banned list). I cannot remember if some media also threw in cocaine with their reports (in 2007), or if I did this extrapolation myself. Whatever, I was wrong, and I apologize. I should also stress that my article is merely my own opinion. I apologize for the implication that my opinion is supported by your own. As you have clarified, it is not when it comes to cocaine, although it is when it comes to some lesser substances. I do concede in my article that cocaine can technically be performance enhancing (as you write). But I wonder what you say to my point that in all cases of cocaine use of which I am aware (see listed names plus more), the use has purely been for recreational purposes. You do write that the cocaine use has to be "prior to an event" to have " the potential to enhance performance". I realise that testing cannot distinguish whether people like Wendell Sailor and Martina Hingis used cocaine immediately prior to taking the field of play, but I think it is stretching common sense even to think that they did. (If I remember correctly, Wendell said he used cocaine on the Wednesday before a Saturday game.) I was interested in your "health" defence for the position on cocaine: "of greater concern, is arguably the most dangerous thing an athlete can take if circumstances such as dehydration and heat are added to the mix." If WADA is going to position itself in such terrain, then I wonder what you say to the point that various readers have made about "needling up", i.e., using painkillers to mask the pain of an injury so that they can take the field. I would have thought that this (widespread) practice would be far more potentially dangerous to an athlete's health than cocaine use, so why does WADA not ban it? Am I correct in assuming from your comment that if Boonen had tested positive in-competition, then he too would be facing a mandatory two-year ban? Finally, your coment is useful for those readers who refuse to accept that WADA bans cocaine for performance rather than moral reasons - thankyou.
Michael C
Guest
Jamie - cocaine IS illegal. So is speeding. Sports clubs often become as if defacto parents/guardians of players often plucked from family in late teens - so what is the responsibility of a code/club to support the players involved. btw - further to the AFL findings, a high proportion of those testing positive under their illicit drugs policy where found to have mental illness (whether undiagnosed or not). This policy is assisting greatly in developing appropriate support mechanisms for people with such issues to function in such an environment. If WADA had their way - - it's zero tolerance all the way and total exclusion. That's not always the right outcome. After all - our whole justice system is built around case by case processes. Why not WADA.
Jamie
Guest
Arent we missing the point. Cocain is illegal. Sports should ban it - but maybe not ban it under the facade of being performance enhancing.
El Capitan
Guest
Gregg, Your statement "I was appalled and embarrassed by the treatment meted out to Wendell Sailor by the Australian rugby community, most of whom behaved like sniggering schoolboys with their class-fuelled glee over a rugby league convert being banned for nothing more than many of them were doing every weekend", do you have proof that "many of them" were doing this over a weekend? Besides Sailors problem was the excuse that he gave that he didn't take drugs, but then once the B sample came back admitted that yes he did. Actually Cocaine makes you so focused on what you are doing, so it can be defined as performance enhancing, esp if your playing a game that envolves high concentration and high energy levels. Why else do clubbers take it?
OldManEmu
Guest
Good article Greg, agree with your central argument.
Graeme Steel
Guest
Greg - I am afraid you have misrepresented my position. While you correctly represent the views of Drug Free Sport NZ that the prohibited list should be substantially reduced your extrapolation of my comments to include cocaine is wrong. I have not promoted the elimination of cocaine from the prohibited list. The use of a powerful stimulant (such as cocaine) prior to an event has the potential to enhance performance and, of greater concern, is arguably the most dangerous thing an athlete can take if circumstances such as dehydration and heat are added to the mix. Cocaine is not tested for during out of competition testing as it has no long term performance benefit and use away from competition is therefore (arguably) none of the business of an anti-doping organisation.This is in keeping with our position but sporting organisations ignore cocaine use by their athletes at their peril if they wish to create a environment which allows the true benefits of sport to individuals and communities to win through. Graeme Steel Chief Executive Drug Free Sport NZ
Knives Out
Guest
That is a fair point but cocaine addiction isn't like heroine addiction. The consequences wouldn't affect a person that much. In essence one only has to be desiring the drug to be an addict.