DRUGS IN SPORT BEG THE FINE LINE

THERE are many who would agree with Federal Minister for Sport Jackie Kelly
that throwing athletes into jail is probably not the most appropriate
response to the scourge of drugs in sport. But there are others who would
see her comments as yet another example of the hair-splitting to which
society resorts as it distinguishes between various types of misbehaviour.

Ms Kelly is perfectly correct in saying jail is an inappropriate punishment
for drug cheats in sport. She might have added that it is an equally
inappropriate punishment for the vast majority of crimes committed daily,
and for which offenders are daily sentenced.

Of course, Ms Kelly is right in distinguishing drug-taking in sport from
other kinds of unacceptable behaviour to the extent that many
performance-enhancing drugs are not actually illegal. Some are standard
therapeutic drugs 'banned' only in the sense that their consumption by
competing sportsmen and women is not allowed.

The taking of such performance-enhancing drugs by sportspeople is best
handled in the same way as any breach of a sport's code of conduct whether
it be a head-high tackle, abuse of an umpire or tampering with a cricket
ball by the organisation controlling the sport.

The trick is to see that the penalties handed down by these bodies are
sufficiently harsh as to present a real deterrent to would-be cheats. Often,
they are not.

Where performance-enhancing drugs are illegal drugs, of course, there is no
room for hair-splitting. What separates an athlete who takes an illegal drug
from a cocaine-sniffing socialite or a sad junkie? Not a lot. Calling
something a ' track-suit crime' in order to distinguish it from '
white-collar crime' , as Ms Kelly does, is to play down, whether consciously
or otherwise, the seriousness of one class of offence. Many people have come
to regard white-collar crime as somehow less serious than real crime, and
its victims as somehow less seriously affected than real victims of crime.

The distinction sometimes extends even into the courts. Last week a man
convicted of netting $2 million in Australia's biggest insider-trading
offence was sentenced to a minimum of 18 months in jail. Last year, a man
was jailed for almost as long 12 months for receiving a few tens of
thousands of dollars in social-security overpayments while he was employed
part-time.

One can only wonder what will happen to community attitudes towards sports
drug cheats if the term ' track-suit crime' enters the lexicon.

The temptation to cheat must be immense for athletes who have spent years
working towards a particular goal and who know that a thousandth of a second
could make the difference between glory (and the wealth sponsorship can
bring) and anonymity.

Ms Kelly recognises this, saying that ' there are a lot of pressures brought
to bear on athletes' . But can we conclude that the pressures on athletes
are any greater than the pressures brought to bear on a struggling pensioner
tempted to understate her earnings so she might be able to afford a few of
life's luxuries?

Are the pressures on athletes really any greater than the pressures on a
heroin addict faced with finding the money to support a habit?

Temptations to skim the cream or diddle the tax-man confront everybody. Some
succumb. Most do not.

Sportspeople are no more or less prone to temptation than the rest of us.
They shouldn't be treated with any greater or lesser understanding when they
prove to be merely human; that they are not superhuman.