THE PRESS TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 1989. Drugs inquiry not useful

Press, 27 June 1989, Page 20

THE PRESS TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 1989. Drugs inquiry not useful

Anabolic steroids build muscle bulk and strength. In the long run they can also cause or contribute to cancer, heart attacks, strokes, testicular atrophy, impotence and infertility. Their use by amateur sportsmen and sportswomen also constitutes a form of off-field cheating. Although the use of these drugs is forbidden, it seems that their use is widespread. Canada and Australia are just two countries that have conducted or are conducting very public inquiries into the use of drugs in sport. These inquiries suggest that the use of banned drugs might be more extensive that sports administrators have known or have been prepared to admit. New Zealand, an intensely sports-minded country, could hardly expect to have escaped the contagion. The Canadian inquiry produced evidence that steroids have been used by New Zealand athletes, and this has been confirmed in personal confessions by a New Zealand gold medallist at the 1974 Commonwealth Games and by another prominent New Zealand athlete. Amid these disclosures has come a call for a commission of inquiry into drugs in sport in New Zealand. This, surely, would be a misdirection of money, time and effort. The need is not to drag long-dead skeletons from the closet, but to prevent forbidden steroid use in the future.

A retrospective witch-hunt might titillate or divert with allegations and breast-beating, admissions and protestations of innocence; it might even appal with assertions — similar to those made to the inquiry being conducted by Australia’s Federal Parliamentary Committee — that youngsters of 10 have been fed on steroids by their sport coaches. Would such revelations serve any useful purpose? The Australian Government, Labour Party, and sports fraternity are divided over the damage being caused by the sometimes brutally public exposure entailed in the inquiry. The inquiry has not yet provided any guidelines

for preventing steroid use in future. In New Zealand, the Royal Society is already making a study of drug use in sport. This should provide a good indication of how similar New Zealand’s situation is to that in other >countries. Far more important, however, is the decision of the New Zealand Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association to institute a stringent drugtesting programme before the Commonwealth Games in Auckland next year. Over the next seven months, 400 athletes in sports affiliated to the association will be randomly tested for drugs.

This practical response to the problem of steroid use is far more likely to inhibit drug use by New Zealand’s athletes, and far more likely to establish their bona fides in the international arena, than any costly and longwinded endeavour to discover how black things might or might not have been in the past. The abuse of drugs in sport is a dilemma. We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to combat the wider drug menace in the community; but some coaches and athletes are prepared to turn a blind eye to drugs if it means their proteges or colleagues can achieve greater sporting glory and public acclaim. Commissions will not stop the use of banned drugs in sport; stringent checks on athletes will do a lot to help.

Any disclosure of encouragement or compliance by coaches or managers should mean that they, too, be disqualified. They are just as guilty as the athletes and, in some instances, their acceptance of drug use by too-keen youngsters is even more reprehensible. Support from drugs and speed or strength gained from drugs are banned by the rules of many sports, though not by all. Because of the rules the administrators have just as much a duty to ensure that the . contestants are umpired off the field as they are fairly refereed on it.