South African athletes have only a few weeks left to familiarise themselves with the World Anti-Doping Agency’s 2004 prohibited list of substances, which has some interesting additions and deletions.
”Removed from the list are stimulants such as caffeine, phenylephrine, pseudo-ephedrine and synephrine,” said Daphne Bradbury on Monday. Bradbury is chief executive of the South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport.
She said caffeine is found in most energy drinks, in chocolates and tea, and there is a danger of testing positive at low levels.
A lightweight runner who consumes three cups of coffee runs the risk of testing positive for a banned substance.
The stimulants are mostly found in over-the-counter cough medicines, and have in the past also caused inadvertent doping when athletes took medication to help with coughs and sniffles.
Bradbury said local anaesthetics such as procaine, which can be injected to deaden a painful area, have also been removed from the list of prohibited substances.
What local athletes should take particular notice of is the addition of several substances, including the entire class of cannabinoids, such as dagga.
”Previously this was only tested in certain sports, but now will be tested in every sport,” she said, describing it as the most salient addition to the new list.
Bradbury said one of the problems of cannabinoids is that they stay in the body for such a long time, meaning that even if it is taken for recreational purposes athletes will still test positive some time afterwards.
She said there are various opinions of whether or not cannabinoids are performance-enhancing drugs, but they satisfy two out of three criteria used to determine whether or not to add a new substance to the prohibited list, and so have been included.
The three criteria used are:
- Is the substance performance-enhancing?
- Does it violate the spirit of sport?
- Is it detrimental to the health of participants?
Bradbury said glucocorticosteroids, commonly found in skin creams, nasal sprays and ear drops, have also been added to the new list.
”This substance used to be banned in certain sports, but now was banned right across the sporting codes. However, they are saying that athletes will have to have a very good reason to get therapeutic exemption for using these products,” she said.
Alcohol has also been included, with sporting codes where testing previously occurred increasing now to 16, including archery, aeronautics, automobiles, billiards, football, karate, skiing and wrestling.
”It is prohibited only in competition, and detection has to be breath analysis and/or blood testing … and it has quite wide-ranging implications in terms of testing, because it means that we will have to do urine testing and alcohol testing at competitions,” she said.
The new list of prohibited substances comes into international effect on January 1 2004.
Asked whether South African sporting codes are ready and informed about the updated list, Bradbury said they have notified sports federations and will also conduct awareness campaigns.
International federations also have a duty to inform their associate organisations.
”I think there will be a little leeway perhaps in the first couple of months in terms of penalties imposed, but not in terms of testing,” said Bradbury. — Sapa