On Sunday morning I was on Radio National talking about the previous weeks news. Of course the big news was the whole drugs in sport thing that had blown up – first with Essendon and then the Crime Commission press conference.
My argument was that many of the so-called banned drugs are not actually illegal, merely that competitors in various sports cannot use those drugs as they may enhance performance. So the ban of various drugs is part of a business model that professional sporting organisations use to earn profit. How the private sector chooses to organise its affairs is its own business. I cannot see why the government should protect business models. I’ve pushed this sort of argument a few times over the years but everyone I’ve spoken says something like, “You don’t understand, it’s cheating”. To assist with my understanding they usually speak louder and emphasise “cheating”. It may well be cheating but I can’t see why it should be a crime.
So I’m very pleased to see that argument being articulated in The Australian:
There are, of course, a range of performance-enhancing substances that are banned by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority and the World Anti-Doping Authority.
But that is not a legal regime. It is based on the willingness of the major commercial sporting bodies, particularly the football codes, to voluntarily impose suspensions on competitors who are found, as a result of testing, to have used the banned drugs.
There are, however, ways in which the use of performance-enhancing substances such as peptides may be contrary to law and so illegal if, for example, it is: a prohibited import under the federal Customs act; a legal import but able to be used only under medical prescription, which was not provided; used under a fraudulent medical prescription.
But all that hardly need involve a specialised crime unit. Smuggling and fraudulent medical prescriptions and the like are already crimes and are policed by the normal methods – this problem is not unique to professional sport.
The most puzzling question in all of this is how performance-enhancing substances came to be an area of massive federal regulation. ASADA is a body established by commonwealth legislation and funded by taxpayers. The AFL and NRL, like the other major football codes and the governing bodies of tennis and cricket in Australia, are private businesses with substantial revenues, particularly from sponsorship and media rights. They are presumably quite capable of regulating drug use within their sports if they wish to do so.
The answer from Canberra no doubt would be that the federal government puts a lot of money into all major sports, including $300 million towards the team that was sent to the London Olympics last year. It is possible to be a sports fan, however, and still question whether this is a proper use of the limited pool of taxpayers’ dollars.
The lengthy investigation by the Australian Crime Commission is another aspect of the role of federal government in this area. If there is significant evidence of match-fixing, itself a criminal offence, or the role of organised crime, the commission is entitled to be involved. But it is not easy to see what its concern would be with breaches of ASADA’s code of conduct.
It gets worse. It seems that the ACC has no actual evidence and no police investigations are under way.
THE Australian Crime Commission did not gather any new information about organised crime or doping in sport through telephone taps as part of its 12-month intelligence operation, which Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Ken Lay says has not provided any basis for a criminal investigation.
…
The lack of specific, suspected crimes documented within the classified version of the ACC report has prompted Mr Lay to seek more information from the federal agency. Mr Lay said Victoria Police had examined both the published and unpublished versions of the report and not found any information on which to base a criminal investigation. He has requested the ACC provide unreported intelligence gathered as part of the operation.“The advice available to us is there is little for us to investigate,” Mr Lay told Radio 3AW’s Neil Mitchell.
They have nothing – reminds me of the time the ACCC raided oil companies looking for evidence of price fixing.
So where does this actually leave us? Well Fairfax is making excuses:
Reportedly, the ACC has no current criminal investigation into any sport, merely a body of intelligence. This is hardly surprising; it is a small and modestly resourced body. But someone had to start somewhere.
Naturally, this has led to charges that the report is a political stunt, shaped to fit an election year. Within the AFL, some are feeling used. Again, this is predictable. But it does not mean that that this is a case of ”nothing to see here, move along”. What is the worse political sin: to grandstand, or to sweep all under a carpet?
I can see no reason why that somebody starting somewhere should be doing so with taxpayers money and/or the coercive power of the criminal law behind them.
If the ACC has so little work investigating actual crime that it starts persecuting sport people and protecting private business models, then maybe it should be lined up as a budget saving.
Somewhere, Cool Lester Smooth is swearing quietly at fools who don’t understand real po-lice work and want easy arrests to juke the stats.
m0nty
14 Feb 13 at 10:04 am
Heh – we got that in Victoria already. But I suppose now that all the violent crime has been stopped the cops have to do something.
Sinclair Davidson
14 Feb 13 at 10:07 am
You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers. But you start to follow the money, and you don’t know where the fuck it’s gonna take you.
m0nty
14 Feb 13 at 10:15 am
I can see a group of rather pissed off sportsmen deciding to sue this mob of incompetent tossers…
Winston SMITH
14 Feb 13 at 10:24 am
Sucked in. You may happily accept the gubberment largesse, but there are consequences.
Being owned and thus duly summonsed to be props in an utterly absurd piece of theatre is one of them.
Rabz
14 Feb 13 at 10:33 am
Sure – yet many of the so-called banned drugs in sport are not illegal for use in the general community. As to illegal drugs the AFL told Brandis and Pyne there was no problem.
Sinclair Davidson
14 Feb 13 at 10:37 am
It has to be a crime.How can you have a show trial without a crime,we even had five token perps participate and look suitably guilty.
Bruce
14 Feb 13 at 10:38 am
If it’s not a crime, they’ll just make it one to justify their intrusions. Easy fix.
Yobbo
14 Feb 13 at 10:55 am
Are ACC and ASADA just seeking to justify their existence?
How many other entities are there to be lined up as a budget saving? ABC? SBS? Arts?
stackja
14 Feb 13 at 10:56 am
Again, Sinc, you’re conflating recreational drugs with performance enhancing drugs. The AFL was talking to Brandis and Pyne about recreational drugs. The current ACC investigation is into PEDs. Pyne looks like a fool in this debate, don’t make the same mistake.
m0nty
14 Feb 13 at 11:05 am
monty, on the subject of fool-looking, the original point is that PEDs are by and large not illegal.
On the subject generally, this seems an area in which grandstanding has gotten completely out of control. Exhibit A is the USADA claim that Armstrong ran the greatest doping conspiracy in history. FFS, in the GDR they were keeping girls pre-pubescent! That’s fucking outrageous and yet we’re supposed to believe Armstrong’s successful doping campaign is the worst ever?
Now we have the ACC and the govt trying to make a big deal out of rumours. Some people really need horsewhipping.
Pedro
14 Feb 13 at 11:31 am
Yeah sport and not-sport, not same same. That’s why I can run with a leather ball at home without some whistle blowing dweeb in tight shorts chastising me for “holding the ball”.
On the cricket field picking at the stitching on the ball is cheating.
Off the cricket field you can take a chainsaw to a cricket ball and you’re cool.
It’s one of those issues that has me feeling like the only sane person in the room, or me and 2 others now.
Harold
14 Feb 13 at 12:04 pm
Lets not forget, its only the male sports codes that indulge in this sort of theing (cough.. ladies tennis …cough)
So of course the naughty boys had to be paraded and accused and look shamefaced before the schoolmarms at assembly.
thefrollickingmole
14 Feb 13 at 12:10 pm
One of the most disturbing documentaries I ever saw on the perils of drugs in sport concerned some poor, shunned, embittered and chronically ill middle aged blokes who were female Olympic athletes in the days of the GDR.
Sad, sad, sad. FFS, commoism sucks arse.
Rabz
14 Feb 13 at 12:10 pm
Sinc,
Could it be argued that use of PEDs against league rules is a crime because it constitutes fraud against sports bettors?
The punter puts money down based on some kind of assessment of team and individual talent. If that talent is being artificially enhanced in some teams, but not others, the betting market is being secretly distorted.
Piett
14 Feb 13 at 12:22 pm
There seems to be a difference between what they consider “intelligence” and “evidence”. They apparently have quite a bit of the former, but that may not be usable as evidence.
Though ASADA can use intelligence:
– http://www.news.com.au/sport/nrl/anti-doping-authority-set-to-interview-over-150-nrl-and-afl-players-staff-and-administrators-in-doping-investigation/story-fndujljl-1226577438678
Chris
14 Feb 13 at 12:30 pm
Monty just because you are shaped like a football it does not give you any great insight into the sport.
Spend the next quarter in the back pocket and if you’re lucky the coach will pull you off at half time.
Infidel Tiger
14 Feb 13 at 12:33 pm
The ALP likes to arrange a ritual stoning from time to time. This is one such. Bread and circuses keeping the mob happy and all that.
Bruce
14 Feb 13 at 12:35 pm
Doubt it. No one has ever been able to successfully sue after a racehorse returns a positive swab.
Infidel Tiger
14 Feb 13 at 12:35 pm
It doesn’t matter if the drugs are regulated or not (the TGA frequently adds new ones to its lists).
When you sign up for a sport, you agree to abide by WADA regulations.
If you don’t want to be tested, then you don’t sign up.
I, for one, hew to the fusty old-fashioned notion that a contract is a contract.
Jacques Chester
14 Feb 13 at 1:00 pm
Anything that’s not new is regulated or outright prohibited.
For example, testosterone has legitimate medicinal uses and is regulated.
A lot of the other drugs have no human medical use and so are prohibited.
GHRP an the like aren’t regulated because they’re brand new. There aren’t even large human trials yet.
The regulation of substances by the TGA is for human and medical purposes.
The WADA list is independent and works on a different basis.
Jacques Chester
14 Feb 13 at 1:05 pm
But Jacques, the central point is that the govt crime authorities don’t go round making a big deal out of contract breaches.
Chris, having started to look like fuckwits joining with the ACC, ASADA announce they plan to interview a large number of players. No concern in your mind that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve got evidence or intelligence about those players using PEDs? Seems to me it’s just as likely they’ve announced a fishing expedition.
Pedro
14 Feb 13 at 1:07 pm
Pedro;
Sure, it’s a beatup.
But I hate bad arguments. And “but it’s not illegal therefore why be so mad?” is a bad argument.
In an ideal universe I’d like a graduated system of access to the proven drugs. I have a lot of trouble with connective tissue, HGH would probably help me a lot. But since that’s an off-label use, I can’t get a prescription and I can’t apply for a therapeutic use exemption.
Consequently my risk of injury is higher. I guess that counts are performance?
Jacques Chester
14 Feb 13 at 1:16 pm
One of the callers to Bolta/Price show who had a background in the area noted it was an effetive method to get people chatting.
It was striking to note how blase he was about the concept of phone taps.
Token
14 Feb 13 at 1:16 pm
“I cannot see why the government should protect business models”
It does so frequently by prosecuting servants who commit fraudulent misappropriation. The difference here is one of degree.
I’m as skeptical and jaundiced both about this government and Big Sport, especially its abiltiy to extract transfers from gubbemin, but that doesn’t excuse player misconduct.
Pyrmonter
14 Feb 13 at 2:17 pm
It is fraud, Sinclair. Sport is a commercial business where spectators, TV viewers, gamblers and other customers are told they will see a fair contest for entertainment purposes. PED takers are defrauding the public for monetary gain, and harming their employers and business partners by bringing the sport into disrepute.
These cases are not usually prosecuted through the regular courts because no one wants to see the harsh and capricious legal system being twisted through loopholes and technicalities to achieve sporting outcomes. Wins and losses should come on sporting fields, not in court rooms. Sports have their own judicial systems for this reason. That doesn’t mean common law has no place in sport.
m0nty
14 Feb 13 at 2:20 pm
Surely not. Ridiculous. Captain J.E. Gillard shouting through the bullhorn for the perpetrators to ‘Come out with your hands up’ – 20 minutes after the report was issued – is simply evidence of how deeply the ALP loves sport.
Anyone suggesting this is all an excuse for the Government to ‘Do Something’ for workingfamilieswholovetheirfooty is a proven shill for Big Steroids and a misogynist (and probably a Catholic).
Dr Faustus
14 Feb 13 at 2:40 pm
No m0nty – I’m making a subtle point. If it’s not illegal the government should not be involved – if it is illegal the AFL told us they weren’t involved.
Sinclair Davidson
14 Feb 13 at 2:44 pm
Tough one but I doubt it. Afterall when Carlton got done for salary cap breaches nobody sued for losing money on the 99 semi-final.
No. On the rare occasions when we catch students cheating in exams we don’t call the cops.
It can be the case that cheating is highly correlated with criminal behaviour – but then target that.
Sinclair Davidson
14 Feb 13 at 2:49 pm
Is it fraud when players stage for free kicks? This has affected far more results than drugs.
Infidel Tiger
14 Feb 13 at 2:52 pm
The ACC investigation is around criminal acts, such as the illegal importation of certain PEDs. Just because it is legal to take them doesn’t mean the cops should ignore the illegal importation. The ACC are not interested in the sportspeople, they will let their clubs and sports bodies handle them. The feds are interested in the trail that leads from the PED users back to organised crime.
m0nty
14 Feb 13 at 2:56 pm
If you find there is an organised racket to supply students with exam cheat sheets, wouldn’t that be something the cops need to investigate?
m0nty
14 Feb 13 at 2:58 pm
IT, think about the off-side rule. Richie McCaw is a super criminal.
Monty, what would the crime be? As for the ACC, that sounds like a big gloss on what they’ve actually been doing. How is a song and dance required about the use of PEDs when the focus is supposedly on catching the illegal importers of PEDs?
Pedro
14 Feb 13 at 4:10 pm
The ACC is supposed to be the secret police catching the worst kind of crims. Yet they seem to think it’s OK to chase Paul Hogan for not paying the ATO what it thinks he should, and now it’s chasing footballers for doing nothing illegal.
These Keystone Kops should be disbanded before they shoot their own feet off. They couldn’t catch a cold.
DavidLeyonhjelm
14 Feb 13 at 5:10 pm
Oh rubbish – gives them a chance to hang around sports stars.
Sinclair Davidson
14 Feb 13 at 5:17 pm
I meant interested as in interested in charging them with anything, Sinclair.
m0nty
14 Feb 13 at 6:07 pm
It is illegal to import many of the peptides mentioned in the ACC report. I don’t know the exact statute.
The way they catch the alleged crims is following the supply chain upwards. They have to start from the bottom (pun not intended).
m0nty
14 Feb 13 at 6:15 pm