Interesting steroid article in The New York Times. Quite balanced
considering the source. Perhaps the "war on drugs" is starting to show
some cracks...no pun intended.
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The New York Times
November 2, 2005 Wednesday
Late Edition - Final
Steroid Laws: Equal Justice And Punishment for All
BYLINE: By SELENA ROBERTS.
WHO is the role model for criminal behavior?
There is a 40-something health-club barfly who wakes up with mirrors over
his bed and sleeveless T-shirts in his closet. The guy owns a tackle-box
full of steroids that he purchased over the Internet in hopes of bulking
up
just enough to pick up the ladies.
There is an elite athlete who wakes up with mirrors in his home gym and a
closet full of lucrative endorsement deals. The sports star has a paid
trainer who administers steroids so he can find an edge to shatter
records
and gain wealth.
Where does a police raid take place -- health club or clubhouse?
Whose home is ransacked by the police -- the gym rat's or the sports
star's?
''It's the truck driver, the guy working at the Stop & Shop -- as
narcissistic or misguided as they might be,'' said Rick Collins of Long
Island, who specializes in steroid law. ''These are the lives destroyed
by
the steroid laws.''
Collins's clients are not sports icons, because athletes haven't been the
targets of steroid possession laws, even though their using prompted the
Anabolic Steroid Act of 1990 and 2004.
Players are the cause of steroid criminalization by the Beltway gang, but
aren't treated as criminals. Instead, politicians treat them to scoldings
and threats and timeouts in the corner.
Once again yesterday, members of Congress feeling frustrated by the
inaction
of pro leagues in strengthening antidoping policies reintroduced
Olympic-style legislation to standardize testing and toughen suspensions.
Suspensions are not based on the legal system, but on a morality code for
elite athletes who are idolized by malleable youth.
''It's political,'' Collins said. ''It's easier to go after the regular
guy
rather than expose our heroes.''
Sports icons are not granted immunity everywhere. Italy is one example.
And this scares the O-rings off the International Olympic Committee just
100
days before the Winter Games in Turin.
The same I.O.C. leaders who trumpet zero tolerance for drug cheating
spent
last week pleading in futility for Italian authorities to relax their
punitive antidoping laws, which send offenders to jail for three months
to
three years.
''It is a question of sporting ethics,'' the I.O.C. president, Jacques
Rogge, said Friday, ''rather than a question of crime and criminality.''
If true, then why did [censored] Pound, I.O.C. member and chairman of the World
Anti-Doping Agency, rip into the light prison sentence Victor Conte,
steroid
designer to the stars, received in the Balco case?
In one reference, Pound called Conte's plea deal a potential ''cop-out
on a
cosmic scale.''
Pound has spent a career mocking cheating athletes for blaming dastardly
opponents and tainted supplements for the fly in their soup. But now he
is
offering his ample breath to conspiracy theories, openly fretting about
potential setups by saboteurs who would lure police officials to a
competing
athlete's steroid stash.
Why the use of selective paranoia and desire for boutique-style justice?
It goes to self-preservation.
First, the I.O.C. doesn't want its pristine Winter Olympics tarnished by
images of pixie skaters removed from the ice in leg irons or of
snowboarders
escorted from the halfpipe in handcuffs.
Second, the I.O.C. can't fathom losing control over its antidoping
program
after pouring years into the creation of the W.A.D.A.
All that time creating a uniform drug standard. All that effort to get
every
national Olympic committee on board. And now the W.A.D.A. is irrelevant?
And
now the police want to police?
''The Italian law criminalizes sports cheating,'' Collins said. ''It hits
the intended target.''
The targets have been warned. The I.O.C. will no doubt continue to work
behind the scenes for a compromise with Italian authorities -- hoping
for a
sort of diplomatic immunity from gratuitous mug shots and dorm raids --
but
American Olympic officials have added a few more notes to their athlete
briefings.
''We are certainly aware of the situation,'' said Darryl Seibel,
spokesman
for the United States Olympic Committee. ''We have been monitoring it
closely. It has not been a cause of major concern nor a distraction.
Nevertheless, we will make sure athletes, coaches and team leaders are
fully
apprised and understand not only antidoping rules but also the law in
Italy.''
No one wants to see athletes forced to turn in their U.S.A. berets at the
police desk. No one wants to see a sports figure working out in a prison
yard.
But shouldn't a doping violator -- whether he is in the N.F.L. or whether
she is a figure skating star -- have to answer to authorities? How about
answering one question: Who is your supplier?
This is not about the steroid law itself, but about the equal
application of
it for everyone, from the anonymous store clerk hooked on vanity to the
visible sports star hooked on glory.
''It's incredibly hypocritical,'' Collins said. ''It's a bait-and-switch.
The very people the laws were enacted to apply to are now asking to be
exempt. There is something wrong with that. The antidoping officials
pushed
for tougher laws as long as the laws didn't affect the athletes.
''I can't think of one elite athlete who has been prosecuted on steroid
possession. There is clearly a disconnect.''
This disconnect is in the mirror of the steroid user. One reveals an
athlete, the other a criminal.
--
Will Brink @ http://www.brinkzone.com/
