DRUGS IN SPORT? JUST SAY NEIGH ...

No performance-enhancing substances have been used in the writing of this
column. I should tell you that right at the top for two reasons.

First, the world-class wit, wisdom and literary qualities of what follows
may make you suspicious. And, second, I am about to write in praise of a
Tory politician, which may lead you to suppose that my brain has been addled
by pharmaceuticals intended for horses.

Senator Amanda Vanstone is my parliamentary pin-up girl. She is such a
sensible person. She was sensible on euthanasia, followed through with a
sagacious contribution to the republic debate and dismissed all the media
huffing and puffing over Christopher Skase with the haughty disdain that it
deserved. Now here she is leaving a drugs conference in Perth early and not
sticking around for the infantile indignation about the export of steroids.
Good!

The not-so-sensible Victorian Police Minister, Mr Andre Haermeyer, says:
"It's a problem every bit as serious as high-profile drugs like heroin."
Senator Vanstone was wise to put as much distance between herself and that
sort of drivel as possible.

Heroin is addictive, minister. It has a special quality that makes it
particularly pernicious. That is still no reason to prohibit its use, but at
least acknowledge that there is a world of difference between an addictive
substance and one that is taken by a handful of people around the world for
one specific purpose - to win.

Who cares? And if it is true that Australia is the "steroid capital of the
world" (why are we so childishly boastful?) then it simply means that we
have an effective animal pharmaceutical industry presumably producing some
benefit as well as some harm.

In any case, animal steroids are the crude end of performance enhancement.
They produce easy-to-detect physical effects that arouse suspicion. Their
presence can be detected in urine and blood. Do you think that American and
Swiss athletes are relying on this sort of old-fashioned performance
enhancement? Steroids are for the dunderheads of sport. The sharp end of
pharmaceutical cheating is now in the field of substances that make changes
to the functioning of the body that could pass as natural.

And exactly what is Senator Vanstone supposed to do? Prohibit all steroid
exports, as Dr Garth McGilvray of the Australian Veterinary Association
suggests? How? Inspect every parcel going out of the country? And what if
the foreign customers want the steroids for legitimate veterinary use? And
what are the rights of the manufacturers and exporters in all of this?

Come on chaps. It is not that serious. If our government has any
responsibility at all in this business, it is to enforce clear labelling
with warnings: "Taking this substance for purposes other than those for
which it is intended will result in loss of facial hair for men and growth
of facial hair on women." Let the buyer beware.

It boils down to rights, risks and individual responsibility. If adults know
the risks and think that winning is so important that it is worth it, then
that is their judgment. It is not a moral one. People who get their knickers
in a twist over drugs in sport are the same people who waxed indignant at
the intrusion of personal coaches into sport and who tried to stop the tidal
wave of professionalism by turning a blind eye to shamateurism.

The situation vis-a-vis sport is a simple one. If you win you make millions.
If you come second you are forgotten. Who wouldn't take the risk of
testicular shrinkage when the stakes are so high? And what, exactly, is
cheating? Australia spends hundreds of millions a year mollycoddling
athletes and giving them the best of everything. How does that look to some
poor sod from Somalia who can't afford a second-hand pair of sandshoes from
St Vinnie's?

The hysterical headline of the week comes from Melbourne's Other Paper: 'Big
foot drug claim'. Strewth! Yetis on steroids?