Steroids trafficking more prevalent than heroin — WADA exec

Friday, July 03, 2009 10:05 PM

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Steroids trafficking more prevalent than heroin - WADA exec

DANIA BOGLE, Observer staff reporter bogled@jamaicaobserver.com

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Howman... We've been working very hard with the professional leagues to see that they will strengthen the rules. (Photo: Bryan Cummings)

MORE money is made through trafficking in performance-enhancing steroids than through trafficking in the illegal substance, heroin.

That is according to director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), David Howman, who was speaking at yesterday's opening of the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO) two-day Anti-doping Symposium at Knutsford Court Hotel in Kingston.

The trained barrister told the Observer there are no official statistics, but based his comments on anecdotal evidence gathered by WADA.

"It's very difficult to have evidence on, because if it's not illegal there is nobody gathering the statistics, but it's been corroborated by researchers and we commissioned someone in Italy who formed a view that through the Internet and how it was being trafficked. the evidence is there," he told the Observer.

The use of steroids is banned in most sports though there are more flexible laws governing their use in the American sport of baseball.

"It's not legal but their (baseball) rules are not strong enough yet," Howman said. "We've been working very hard with the professional leagues, including baseball, to see that they will strengthen the rules."

"After the Mitchell Report last year they realise there is a problem and they can't say baseball is no problem," he added.

The Mitchell Report is the result of former US Senator George Mitchell's 20-month investigation into the use of anabolic steroids and human growth hormone (HGH) in Major League Baseball (MLB).

The report said during the random testing in 2003, five to seven per cent of players tested positive for steroid use and at least one player from each of the 30 MLB teams was involved in the alleged violations.

Howman also highlighted several ways in which athletes try to 'beat the system' to avoid detection of doping, such as directly injecting urine into the bladder using a syringe and needle or through using a device known as a 'Whizzinator'.

The Whizzinator comes as a kit complete with dried urine and syringe, heater packs, and a false penis which athletes use to fraudulently beat drugs tests. There is also said to be a female version.

Meanwhile, Howman said he would be heading to the Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France, in a few weeks to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the international policing body about the sharing of information on trafficking in prohibited substances.

"What police forces can do at no expense to the anti-doping movement is to conduct inquiries on information that we might give them, or that they might get from another country which might indicate that somebody is dealing in steroids or other prohibited substances and they could conduct an investigation and get evidence, and if it doesn't affect a person and their country or somebody in another country then they could pass it on," Howman explained.

"It can only have effect if the police departments of the world have laws that they can follow to get information and exchange it with other police forces," he added.

He cited the case of disgraced American sprinter, Marion Jones, noting that if the athlete had been from a country other than the United States, then through the proposed WADA/InterPol MOU, US authorities would have been able to pass the information on to that country.

The JADCO Anti-Doping Symposium concludes today. The agenda includes workshops on the doping control process and a panel discussion on drug-free sport.

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