MANY Jamaicans have taken issue with former executive director of the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCo), Ms Renee Anne Shirley, for going not just public, but international, with her complaints about the status of the nation’s anti-doping programme.

Indeed, such is the strength of feeling that even the Opposition spokeswoman on sports, Ms Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange, has publicly disagreed with Ms Shirley’s approach.

Truth, though, is that it is now water under the bridge. Right or wrong, Ms Shirley has cast the cat among the pigeons.

Not surprisingly, JADCo has issued a statement in its own defence. We note with interest JADCo’s assertion that “in July 2012, representatives of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) visited Jamaica and expressed satisfaction with the development of JADCo and its operations under the guidance of the new commissioners. JADCo will continue to collaborate with WADA to improve its systems, and is assured that Jamaican athletes face no threat of being barred from participation in the next Olympic Games or other international events”.

However, the organisation has also conceded organisational and staffing inadequacies.

Obviously, resource constraints in a bare-bones economy with numerous competing demands will have negatively affected the political will to properly and speedily equip JADCo.

That situation, we suspect, will quickly change with the return of Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller from her official visit to China. Jamaica’s sporting sector, and in particular its highly successful track programme, is obviously far too important for any government to continue twiddling its thumbs, given the bombshell dropped by Ms Shirley. Let’s bear in mind, that Mrs Simpson Miller has overall ministerial responsibility for sport.

Perhaps the most important aspect is this matter of education and sensitisation for all those involved in sport about banned substances. To be fair, Mrs Simpson Miller herself addressed that issue during her presentation to Parliament last month following a rash of adverse drug tests.

The frightening story earlier this month of a team doctor prescribing a banned substance to a national footballer, apparently because he wasn’t aware the medication was on WADA’s banned list, underlined that need for education at all levels.

Then there was yesterday’s back page story in the Observer suggesting that unsuspecting schoolboy footballers may be taking over-the-counter pharmaceuticals containing testosterone-related ingredients banned by WADA.

By whatever means necessary, the Government will have to deal with these matters. Not only in relation to seeking to educate our young sportsmen and women and sporting stakeholders, but perhaps also in terms of regulating the distribution of pharmaceuticals which may contain banned substances.

We suspect that when all is said and done, only time will tell if Ms Shirley will have done her country a great favour.