JUST HOW DOPEY CAN THEY GET?

And the upshots of the Winter Olympics? One, perhaps, will be testing for
the use of such drugs as marijuana in all the winter sports.

The situation as it stands is, of course, confused, with the Canadian
snowboarder Ross Rebagliati initially being deprived of his gold medal,
only to have it restored on appeal. This was because it turned out that his
own world governing body of snowboarding had not specifically banned
marijuana. And yesterday some other unnamed athlete turned up with a
positive test, with penalty unknown.

But enough already. A wire service story mid-week noted that IOC medical
commission chief Prince Alexandre de Merode would be going hard to shut
down all possibility that winter-sport athletes could test positive for
such things and still walk away. He wanted all such social drugs to be
included on the banned list across each discipline.

"I will be putting this proposal forward regarding social drugs to a
meeting tomorrow and we will see," the prince said.

"The situation has to be black or white. These drugs can be dangerous to
the health of athletes."

A point of order here, Mr Chairman.

1. Of course such drugs can be dangerous to the health of athletes, and
everyone else besides.

2. Of course, the situation must be black and white, as the good prince says.

But ... who can argue seriously that simply because something is dangerous
to its participants, outside of the sport, that a sporting administrative
body must concern itself with it?

You want dangerous, prince? What about driving too fast on icy roads? What
about holidaying in Baghdad? More mundanely, simply drinking too much
alcohol is dangerous; as is smoking straight tobacco cigarettes; as is
having too many thick juicy steaks with lashings of butter, but no-one
argues that the IOC should test for these things.

For such things are not "sexy" dangers. You can't get quite the same high
moral head of steam up over tobacco and grog as you can over marijuana, at
least not for the masses.

The bottom line for Rebagliati and the other unnamed athlete (and our own
Scott Miller, for that matter, who also tested positive recently and
suffered a three-month ban), is that whether or not they are "guilty" is
no-one's damn business but their own, and possibly the police in whatever
country they choose to smoke it.

But a sporting administrative body getting involved in that? That would
have to be a nonsense your honour. They're, they're, they're ... skating on
thin ice!

Yes, there is a strong case for a sports body to nail those of its athletes
who use performance-enhancing drugs. Otherwise no-one's sure who's hot and
who's not - but testing for dope, dope, is a clear example where the body
is over-reaching its role. It should not presume to own the athletes,
merely administer them. Nor should it try and do the police's work for them.