INNOCENT DRUGS, HARSH BANS

ALAIN BAXTER, the British skier, was last week stripped of the bronze
medal he won in the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The withdrawal
of the honour came because he had tested positive for methamphetamine,
an IOC banned substance.

At first, it was reported that he had taken "speed", a
recreational drug, then it became clear that the substance had entered
his body through using an inhaler, on general sale, to help his breathing.

But the IOC operates a zero-tolerance policy on doping, irrespective
of the circumstances of the offence. Once a drug test proves positive,
an athlete is stripped of any medal and faces a two-year ban from
competition. The basis of the rule is that an athlete is responsible
for any banned substance in his or her body, however it came to be
there.

The only way an athlete can rebut this presumption is to prove a
malevolent act by a third party - such as the spiking of a drink "
or an erroneous testing result " say if there was lack of security
of the samples. As testing procedures are strict, it is hard " if
not impossible " to escape conviction.

In cases like Baxter's, where there was no deliberate intention to
cheat, this rule can and does cause hardship or injustice. But without
it, sports governing bodies would find it impossible to catch the drug
cheats. Any athlete dissatisfied with an IOC decision, or that of any
other body affiliated to the Olympic programme, can appeal to the
Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), set up by the IOC in 1983 to
settle sports-related disputes " within the family of sport"
rather than in the courts.

Baxter's case is similar to that of the Romanian gymnast Andreea
Raducan. After she won gold at the Sydney Olympics in September 2000,
the banned substance pseudoephedrine was detected in her urine. It was
traced to a cold and flu pill, prescribed by her team doctor. She lost
her medal and was banned.

She appealed to the ad hoc division of the CAS, and lost. Upholding
the principle of strict liability in doping cases, the judges said:
"The panel is aware of the impact . . . on a fine, young, elite
athlete. It finds, in balancing the interests of Miss Raducan with the
commitment of the Olympic Movement to drug-free sport, the Anti-Doping
Code must be enforced without compromise."

Extenuating circumstances that a criminal court would consider are
generally ignored by sports bodies. But the rules of the International
Association of Athletic Federations do allow for "exceptional
circumstances" to be taken into account.

Doping rules in sport need harmonising, particularly as to how the
strict liability rule is applied and on mandatory sentences. Both are
within the remit of the World Anti-Doping Agency, set up on the
initiative of the IOC three years ago. Its proposals are awaited with
interest.

The author is an international sports lawyer and visiting professor at
the International Sports Studies Centre at Neuchatel University,
Switzerland.