OLYMPICS: THE IOC PLANS TO OUTLAW MARIJUANA

SYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) - The International Olympic Committee intends
to ban marijuana and other recreational drugs in time for the Sydney 2000
Olympics, director-general Francois Carrard said Monday.

Carrard said the IOC board had agreed in principle to ban "social drugs."
"Marijuana will be banned, that's for sure," he said after the opening day
of a board meeting.

IOC vice-president Dick Pound said the IOC had taken a moral stand on the
issue of social drugs even though there was no evidence they were
performance-enhancing.

"The concept of dealing with drugs is important to us, it's a matter of
philosophy and image," Pound said.

"Olympic athletes should be held to a higher standard than society in general."

The decision to outlaw recreational drugs was fueled by the case at this
year's Winter Olympics of Canadian snowboarder Ross Rebagliati who was
allowed to keep his gold medal after testing positive for traces of
cannibas.

Rebagliati was initially stripped of his gold medal when it was revealed he
had tested positive for marijuana. But he won it back when an arbitration
panel ruled he should not have been tested in the first place.

The IOC responded by setting up a task force of its own four executive
board vice-presidents to formulate a clear policy on recreational drugs.

Carrard said the executive board had proposed to include a provision in the
Olympic Charter outlining the IOC's views on social drugs.

The specifics of the rules, such as which drugs would be banned, would be
included in the medical code which the IOC is hoping to introduce to unify
rules on drugs.

Carrard said the board had sent a draft of its proposals to the various
Olympic federations and he hoped a decision could be made at the board's
next meeting.

"We had regulations that were not clear enough. We had to draw a lesson
from Nagano," said Carrard.