Review
The new front in the war on doping: Amateur athletes

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Abstract

The war on drugs is usually associated with criminal policies aimed at stemming consumption of drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and cannabis, less so with enhancement drugs like those used in sport. As drug use in sport, or doping, has become more visibly widespread, policies aimed at combating the issue have become more restrictive, intrusive, and harsh. In this article we draw new comparisons between the wider war on drugs and recent developments in sports anti-doping. We identify a growing trend towards criminalisation of traffickers and users, and associate that with another growing trend: the testing of amateur athletes. This article reviews the current anti-doping system, including the recent amateur policies, then considers of the results of one such program in amateur cycling. We then shift to consider the possible implications for amateurs of criminal doping laws and the recent debates about allowing medical exemptions for therapeutic use of banned substances. We show that drug use in sport can be understood as a new front in the war on drugs, with some extreme measures and many negative unintended consequences. To remedy this, we argue that amateur athletes require a separate anti-doping policy focused on minimising harms of use.

Introduction

The phrase ‘war on drugs’ is most often used in connection with national policies targeting socially problematic drugs like heroin, cocaine, and cannabis. Regulations criminalising suppliers and users are the strategies of this war, and the problem is broadly assumed to be definable. Critical researchers challenge both that latter assumption and the methods used to police and punish producers, dealers, and consumers. Within that body of work the war on drugs paradigm, as both policy instrument and critical discourse, is not immediately applicable to sports. There are three likely reasons for this:

  • i)

    sports drugs policy (anti-doping) outcomes have not had implications for other fields of social life: policing resources, criminal law proceedings, increase in prison populations;

  • ii)

    drugs used in sports contexts are not always those demonized and problematised in wider society;

  • iii)

    anti-doping policy is popularly seen as a necessary antidote to systematic cheating and corruption, and anti-doping agencies are thus seen as making a positive social contribution.

As harsh drug non-sport policies seem to be waning in some corners of the world, in recent years doping, and the attempts to regulate it, has moved to the centre of conversation on sport. Calls for increased surveillance of athletes and harsher penalties grew in volume and frequency in the lead up to the 2016 Summer Olympics, as scandals involving state-sponsored doping in Russia (McLaren, 2016), the hacking of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s athlete database (WADA, 2016), and the re-testing of anti-doping samples from Olympic Games dating back to 2008 that led to multiple retroactive disqualifications (IOC, 2016). Efforts to address anti-doping shifted towards criminalising doping at the national level. Laws criminalising various doping-related activities already existed in several countries (Murphy, 2013), but in 2016 Kenya approved a law including penalties for use (Mygov, 2016) and the United Kingdom’s Parliament debated a proposed amendment to criminalise doping (BBC, 2016). Hacked medical records brought new scrutiny to athletes’ use of medical waivers, known in sport as therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs), in order to use a banned substance without facing penalty. Similarly to the war on drugs debate, the policy tools used have been criticised by researchers (Kayser, Mauron, & Miah, 2007; Møller, 2014), but the organisations responsible for controlling doping continue to follow the road of enhanced surveillance, testing, and punishments, regardless of the high numbers of inadvertent positives (de Hon, 2016).

Criminalising doping and questioning the TUE system are not new debates in sport. What is different in anti-doping efforts in recent years, however, is the shift away from the elite athlete focus towards amateur and recreational athletes. The same rules that were designed to stop doping among international-level athletes are being transferred to non-elite, amateur sporting communities. Two major sports organisations in the United States, USA Cycling (USAC) and New York Road Runners (NYRR), made changes to their anti-doping programs that put a new focus on testing non-elite competitors in 2016. Other sport organizations, such as the International Triathlon Union and the International Boxing Association, have had amateur testing programs for several years. Including amateurs may not seem problematic at the outset, as expecting athletes to follow rules about substance use seems reasonable. As with many punitive-based drug policies, the consequences of including amateurs in a system designed for elite athletes are much more complex. Adding in the renewed focus on criminal doping laws and critiques of the TUE system, these new amateur testing programs carry legal, social, and health risks for athletes that go beyond sport.

These policies and their implications for amateur athletes are the focus of this article. We begin with an overview of the reasons for and development of the current anti-doping system, including the recent amateur policies. From there we consider the results USAC’s testing program has had so far for athletes who tested positive. We then shift to consider the possible implications of criminal laws for amateurs, using the Kenyan law and debate in the U.K. as cases, and the recent debate around the validity of TUEs. We argue that anti-doping agencies and sports federations need a separate policy for amateur athletes focused on minimising harms of use through targeted education and a health-focused approach.

Section snippets

Approach

This article builds upon early case study work by the authors (Henning & Dimeo, 2015), which used media coverage and arbitration documents to contextualise and classify specific anti-doping cases. We aim here to extend that discussion by drawing upon discourses of drug criminalisation and legalisation in both sports and social drug use. To do so, we develop a macro-level analysis of global issues through media and policy sources. We analyze anti-doping policies developed by the World

Background: drug use in sport

Anti-doping efforts are based on a strategy of surveillance, detection, and punishment, similar to aspects of the war on drugs. Researchers have noted the links between efforts to stem illicit drugs outside of sport and the development of anti-doping policies within sport (Coomber, 2013, Dimeo, 2009, Hoberman, 2005, Møller, 2009). Doping substances were not always banned in sport, as they were accepted in professional sports during the first half of the 20th century (Christiansen, 2009).

Criminalisation

Due to its position as a ‘private law foundation’ (WADA, 2017), WADA and its affiliated NADOs do not have broad legislative or police powers and have no jurisdiction outside of sport. Anti-doping agencies must follow local laws and coordinate with police forces and other agencies for some investigative work (Hoberman, 2012). In February 2015, WADA President Craig Reedie called for more countries to pass strict doping laws (Reuters, 2015). In a statement following the Second International

Kenya and UK

Efforts to pass a criminal anti-doping law in Kenya came in the run up to the 2016 Summer Olympics, after WADA declared Kenya non-compliant with its WADC in May (WADA, 2016b). Kenya is a perennial medal contender in track events, but the country had more than 40 athletes test positive for banned substances between 2011 and 2016. The lack of a national testing system to carry out rigorous testing was also cause for WADA’s declaration of non-compliance (BBC, 2016). In effort to avoid exclusion

Conclusion: harm reduction as alternative

Despite signs of a global shift away from war on drugs policies, the sport world is doubling down on the prohibit-detect-punish approach with a new population of amateur athletes. The war on doping has been unsuccessful at eradicating doping from sports. Indeed, the scandals of 2016 alone demonstrate how far away that goal remains. Rather than heed the lessons from the war on drugs and try a different approach, anti-doping seems to be repeating many mistakes. Moves to criminalise doping when

Conflict of interests

The authors have no conflicts of interest.

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