DRUGS POLICY ... SHOT IN ARM FOR CLUBS OR JUST DOPEY?

OBVIOUSLY, those in charge at World Anti-Doping Authority (WADA)
headquarters haven't had the privilege of being offered a ticket to
the raffle at a club sports match in the Far North.

Not the one yours truly was asked to buy, quite some time ago you understand.

Let's just say the prize for the $2 ticket wasn't a meat pack,
weighed about an ounce, and could easily be on-sold for about 200
times that amount by sitting outside a nightclub in the early hours
of a Saturday morning using half a roll of tin foil and some
imagination. It certainly made for an interesting topic of
conversation on the bus trip home, particularly considering half of
my teammates were policemen. Had a WADA official been on hand with
about 30 urine testing bottles, however, it is likely several almost
talented sportspeople would have been forced to employ lawyers, and
probably seek new employment.

Especially if it happened today, now that WADA has added marijuana to
its list of drugs that sportspeople need to avoid like the plague or
risk being pilloried, banned, stood down, fined, shamed and most
probably sacked.

What's intriguing, however, is not just why WADA bigwigs think any
sportsperson worth their salt would be capable of performing with any
level of distinction after a hard night on the happy weed, but how
they might identify likely suspects.

Maybe if, in the midst of a heated battle, the winger is spotted
having a protracted conversation with the corner flag about the
texture of pineapple lumps, it might be obvious there is a problem.

Other than that, one doubts if an extensive testing programme would
reveal much at all.

What WADA might be succeeding in doing is convincing the general
population that consumes several thousand tonnes of the stuff in a
calendar year, that life as a professional sportsperson has it drawbacks.

As it stands, professional sportspeople rarely drink, so rarely in
fact that when they do they end up so legless that they end up in
headlines, and occasionally court, for the next week.

They can't take party drugs, wind up the bass on the stereos and
dance like a headless chicken at some nondescript nightclub until
dawn, because even the "organic" versions of these pills have
chemicals that nobody can spell that are inevitably banned as well.

And heaven help them if they get the 'flu. Apart from meditating,
waving crystals over their forehead and chewing on a formula made
from the bark of a tree you only find in the rain forests of Borneo,
they can't even consider taking an aspirin for that headache.

What would be interesting is if WADA somehow convinced every sports
body in provincial New Zealand (well come to think of it every sports
body in Aotearoa) to follow the lead of the Australian National Rugby
League (NRL) and adopt a controversial drug policy where players
testing positive to cannabis will be banned for up to two years.

NRL officials said the code's governing body in Australia would
impose a 12-month suspension if drug tests revealed marijuana and
repeat offenders will be banished for two years.

This might explain Northland's somewhat sporadic ability to achieve
on the national stage but, if this policy was adopted and forced to
the letter here, at a guess we would only be celebrating any sporting
successes on a two-yearly cycle.

In between times there would be a strange, peaceful, spaced-out lull
as sportspeople served out their bans.

Come to think of it, bring on WADA. It might be just what our
province needs to shake up the sports scene.