Unsurprisingly for a year that’s featured major events such as the Olympics and Paralympics, as well as annual fixtures such as the Tour de France, doping in sport has been big news in 2012. So where do we go from here?
The culmination of the Lance Armstrong doping affair in August – at which point the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) stripped the seven-time Tour de France winner of all titles won since August 1998 – caught many in the media and in the sporting world by surprise.
To others, of course, the USADA “revelations” were simply confirmation of ongoing suspicions.
Three major themes emerged during coverage of the Armstrong case:
1) Armstrong never failed a doping test. That is not entirely true but this is a popular meme in the retelling of the story so we will let that pass.
2) Armstrong was not alone and many other elite cyclists were also doping. While we cannot be certain, “many others” does not equate to “all others”.
3) While the strategies used by Armstrong and his colleagues to evade detection were the result of careful planning, it would probably be wrong to think of Armstrong as some form of criminal mastermind. For a wide range of reasons (including regular tip-offs of doping tests), the anti-doping agencies and sporting bodies were remarkably easy to outwit.
In light of these factors, many are questioning whether doping should continue to be treated as a crime.
The case for doping
The arguments in favour of legalisation have not changed greatly over the years and at first glance the logic appears sound.
One such argument posits that sport is inherently “unfair” when an athlete who is genetically gifted is faster than everyone else and keeps winning races.
While some would see such victories as part of the attraction of sport, others have quite a different perspective, seeing only inequality and a need to “level the playing field” through the supply of performance enhancements to “disadvantaged” athletes.
To safeguard the health of athletes, legalisation of doping would be accompanied by a “harm reduction” system, whereby athletes would be able to openly use performance enhancing drugs as prescribed and administered by a medical doctor.
Proponents of such a view typically argue that the spectacle of sporting competition would be boosted by such a development (athletes would throw, hit and run faster than ever, etc.).
The problem of “cheating” would also be removed by the simple expedient of legalisation (it can’t be cheating if it is not against the rules).
In Australia the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy argues for harm reduction as one of its three pillars, the other two being “demand reduction” and “supply reduction”.
But demand and supply reduction are rarely mentioned in the context of anti-doping work; more often harm reduction is portrayed as a standalone solution.
This is probably not surprising as the policy documents that are typically cited in support of harm reduction in sport typically do not actually mention either doping or sport.
It is not always clear what “harm” would be reduced by legalising doping in sport, although three possible candidates are:
1) ill-informed advice (e.g. doping schedules based on unreliable information)
2) contaminated supply
3) the threat of severe shame and punishment
Serious problems no doubt, but are they sufficient to justify legalisation?
The case against doping
Drug legalisation is an argument that struggles to find widespread support beyond a handful of advocates.
In Australia, a 2009 survey my colleagues and I conducted regarding public opinion about drugs in sport (with a large, nationally representative sample), found that 90% of the Australian public saw the problem of performance-enhancing drug use in sport as serious; 96% agreed that doping athletes should feel guilty about breaking the rules; and 91% believed that companies should stop sponsoring doping athletes.
Our survey of elite Australian athletes in 2009-2010 revealed a similar pattern of results.
If we can take such findings on face value, it would appear public and elite athletes are thus opposed to performance-enhancing drugs.
Talk talk
Rather than showing the war on doping has failed, the Armstrong case highlights the new direction in anti-doping: the value of “non-analytical positives”. That is, evidence of doping from sources other than biological testing.
Sports bodies have typically adopted an almost exclusively biological approach to drug detection.
It is a popular fallacy, known as the “CSI effect”, that most criminal investigations are solved through the use of scientifically verifiable evidence (such as fingerprints or DNA).
In reality, the majority of cases are solved through evidence obtained during interviews with witnesses, or from suspects via confessions.
Last year, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) released guidelines concerning the coordination of investigations between anti-doping agencies and other public agencies, most significantly, police forces. The guidelines state:
These new partnerships will allow Anti-Doping Organizations to take advantage of the investigative powers of those public authorities, including search and seizure, surveillance, and compulsion of witness testimony under penalties of perjury.
To many in the sporting world, especially those advocating legalisation of doping, this possible direction in anti-doping will undoubtedly be horrifying. Nevertheless, as an “alternative” strategy it has considerable merit.
It would be consistent with existing anti-doping efforts; it would largely be received positively by the public and athletes; and, perhaps most significantly of all, it might actually work.
Gary Cassidy
One of the fascinations for me when I watch elite sport is that I can relate to the extraordinary achievements of the athletes. For example I know from experience the difficulty in cycling up a 10% gradient hill, or running for 5 km at 15km/h (and the impossibility for myself to run 42km at 20km/h). When performance enhancing drugs are involved in sport the ability to relate is lost - I ask myself how much of this extraordinary performance is due to freakish genetics and outstanding training and diet, and how much is due to drugs, and does athlete A have better drugs than athlete B? I say no to drugs in sport, and I applaud all efforts to stamp it out.
Mike Cowley
logged in via Facebook
That's a very poor argument - you can relate more to "freakish" genetics (by definition unavailable to anyone except the athlete and their clones) or hideously expensive and scientifically intensive training and diet programmes (completely out of the reach of all but top-flight athletes) than you can to drugs that would be much more available and affordable to most amateurs?
Performance-enhancing drugs are just that - they are not some magic solution that suddenly make everything easy for the athlete. To succeed they still need to work just as hard and use crazy amounts of resources in medical and (in the case of cycling and other equipment-dependant sports) technological endeavours to improve their performance. How exactly is that relevant to the average viewer?
Gary Cassidy
@Mike Cowley
Yeah I was providing a personal perspective rather than forming an argument. As a personal perspective I stand by it - I hope that answers your first paragraph question.
I would argue that most average viewers have the need to relate to athletes on some level (unless gambling on an outcome), it may be through the athletes personality, pain and emotion during events, living in the same country/state/city, or comparing their own abilities to that of the athletes achievement. Although I don't have the evidence to back it up I am sure that a much higher percentage of regular cyclists would watch a cycling event than non-cyclists - why else would this be if not for the need to relate to the sport?
Gary Cassidy
"To safeguard the health of athletes, legalisation of doping would be accompanied by a “harm reduction” system, whereby athletes would be able to openly use performance enhancing drugs as prescribed and administered by a medical doctor."
I think there will always be be athletes who are willing to push and exceed the boundaries, and also risk their own health in pursuit of glory. So under legalised doping I believe there will be athletes who will source and use performance enhancing drugs in addition to what would be administered/prescribed by a medical doctor. So then sport would find itself in a similar situation to the current one, however the current baseline is drug free and the new baseline will be medically prescribed drugs.
Stephen Moston
Associate Professor in Psychology at University of Canberra
Hi Gary
I completely agree with your comment.
I struggle to see how anyone can seriously believe that athletes will stick to the recommended/proscribed doses if doping is legalised.
Looking ahead, if anything, sport will probably find itself in a far worse position than it is at the moment (for starters there will be much higher body count). I am also concerned about the implications for junior (development) athletes, who will go into a sporting career knowing that at some stage they will need to start using performance enhancements.
Stephen
Jason Mazanov
Senior Lecturer, School of Business, UNSW-Canberra at University of New South Wales
Nice to see some one writing in support of anti-doping. In my experience, debate has been constrained by the failure of different sides of the debate to engage with each other meaningfully.
Stephen has nicely summarised two sides of the debate that are largely oppositionally defiant. As with most of these things, the answer probably lies in the middle.
After too many years thinking about this issue, the answer I have come to is that there is a need for drug control in sport. Regulation…
Read moreStephen Moston
Associate Professor in Psychology at University of Canberra
Hi Jason,
Read moreLots of interesting points there, but I'll just reply to one for now. The description of anti-doping as 'least-worst method ' is quite thought-provoking.
Despite its many problems (I don't think anyone disputes that), the current anti-doping system has been agreed on by governments, sporting bodies, athletes etc. For this system to change any new system should be clearly better, otherwise why bother changing? This is a basic notion in assessing the likely success of any innovation: the…
Jason Mazanov
Senior Lecturer, School of Business, UNSW-Canberra at University of New South Wales
Stephen:
I agree that there have been no killer arguments, and that any new system needs to ridiculously better to overcome the investment in anti-doping. Alternatively, anti-doping could be shown that it is actually pretty bad, which means it really has been money down the toilet. In the latter case we must be prepared to abandon a bad idea.
I guess my main beef these days is that we have never been able to experiment with alternative forms of drug control in sport in any serious way…
Read moreComment removed by moderator.
Tom Hennessey
logged in via Twitter
Its also extremely important to point out the financial implications of a pro-doping sporting spectacle. Admittedly, the viewing pleasure for non-competitors will undoubtedly rise (as a avid lover of many sports, I can only imagine what it would be like for a cyclist to push themselves harder and faster than anyone ever has up Le Pyrenees), but even with a system of regulated doping won't it just extend the problem that many professional sports face in that money (most of the time) buys success? Now I conceed that I am not entirely informed on the subject but one would think that doping or the materials/medical expertise that enables doping does not come cheap. Many pro-dopers seem to argue that regulated doping will even the playing field, however I really don't see this to be the case...
Stephen Moston
Associate Professor in Psychology at University of Canberra
Hi Tom,
I suspect you are right about the potential issue (paraphrasing) that the wealthier athletes would be able to get better drugs, and so the new 'equality' would turn out to be a case of same-old, same-old story.
I have seen lots of arguments that the prospect of doped athletes setting lots of new records would draw in supporters, and I agree that may be the case. However, my guess here would be that the characteristics of that audience might be different (e.g., less kids), and that might have some serious long term repercussions.
Personal comment: I have a 13 year old who is really good at football (soccer) and seem to spend half my time taking him to training (etc). He is serious about wanting to play professionally and I am happy with that... but if I thought that the only way he would get ahead would be to take drugs (as recently happened with junior rugby in South Africa) then that support would vanish.
Stephen
Gary Cassidy
There is also the issue of new drug development. Current performance enhancing drugs have been developed for medical use and later used to illegally gain advantage in sport.
Many issues will arise if rich teams or nations establish laboratories to develop drugs for the purpose of sporting advantage - fairness, short and long term athletes health, ect.
Thanks for your follow up posts Stephen.
Evert Rauwendaal
logged in via Facebook
This article fails to provide a coherent explaination for why the consumption of
some substances or chemicals are regarded as 'doping' (and therefore prohibited) whilst the use of others, like coffee beans, protein and dihydrogen monoxide (water) are not. The discussion of this subject cannot proceed in a sensible manner until these reasons are clearly articulated. The author's 'case against doping' rests on 'popular opinion' about drug use, a metric that gives us no insight into whether there is any rational scientific basis for anti-doping rules.
The truth is, anti-doping rules are scientifically illiterate. They are arbitrary
prohibitions which violate basic pharmacological precepts and differ little from
religious proscriptions like rules against eating pork or beef.
Why should someone be punished for consuming cannabis leaves or coca paste and not coffee beans and tobacco leaves?
Stephen Moston
Associate Professor in Psychology at University of Canberra
Hi Evert
Read moreThanks for writing. I wasn't trying to offer an explanation for anti-doping rules. That is a tough proposition, for sure. Each of the anti-doping justifications has its flaws and yet the need to do something has outweighed each of these problems. Yes, that is a weak foundation for legislation and the debates about what should and shouldn't be allowed are set to run and run.
Finding contradictions or apparent hypocrisy in the rules is fair enough, but if we tear down the rules, what do…
Danielle Schwerin
logged in via email @hotmail.com
"In Australia, a 2009 survey my colleagues and I conducted regarding public opinion about drugs in sport (with a large, nationally representative sample), found that 90% of the Australian public saw the problem of performance-enhancing drug use in sport as serious; 96% agreed that doping athletes should feel guilty about breaking the rules; and 91% believed that companies should stop sponsoring doping athletes......If we can take such findings on face value, it would appear public and elite athletes…
Read moreStephen Moston
Associate Professor in Psychology at University of Canberra
Hi Danielle,
Read moreThanks for the comment.
I take your point about measuring attitudes towards the current situation, and that there might be different views towards alternative systems. It’s tricky (but not impossible) to ask questions based on hypothetical futures, but that wasn’t an issue we were thinking about when the study was done.
While this was possibly a missed opportunity, our subsequent work using a variety of different methodologies and populations has invariably brought about the same…
Mike Cowley
logged in via Facebook
Hi Stephen
Looking at the Andrew Johns case as an example, I'm not surprised that you say the opposition to recreational drugs was only "somewhat" lower. I wonder how much of that was due to confusion - I heard a lot of references to Johns as a "drug cheat", even though there was never any suggestion that the drugs he took were performance enhancing. Well, not that sort of performance anyway.
But it seems to me that this sort of public opinion could swing quite quickly - look at the change…
Read moreStephen Moston
Associate Professor in Psychology at University of Canberra
Hi Mike
You have identified one of the confusing aspects of the anti-doping world: some banned drugs are not performance enhancing!
The term 'drug cheat' gets thrown around a lot but in some cases the actual cheating (i.e., doing something to improve sporting performance) isn't present., Instead, the 'cheating' is breaking the promise not to take banned drugs.
Even WADA have started to question whether 'recreational' drugs should be banned along with performance enhancing drugs, so it is quite possible that the anti-doping rules will change in the near future and a clearer definition of doping which involves cheating seems inevitable.
Thanks for writing.
Stephen