Kiwis banned for Doping

[rowan]

Meanwhile:

Four New Zealand players have been suspended by the country's rugby authorities for doping offences.

Zoe Berry, who played one Test for the Black Ferns against England in 2012, and Glen Robertson, a former Junior World Championship winner and ex-member of the New Zealand sevens squad, were given four-year bans.

They are joined by two other club-level players in receiving suspensions, with Rhys Pedersen and Ben Qauqau-Dodds getting 21-month and two-year bans respectively.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/ar ... d=11972446

[rowan]

Sean Futzputruck's view:

Legendary All Blacks hooker Sean Fitzpatrick believes rugby will never be able to stamp out doping and wants harsher punishments for offenders.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/all ... pp-android

[scuzzaman]

Sean Futzputruck's view:

Legendary All Blacks hooker Sean Fitzpatrick believes rugby will never be able to stamp out doping and wants harsher punishments for offenders.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/all ... pp-android

Nobody ever said he was Norman Einstein ...

[rowan]

Never liked Futzy much but had to respect him as a player. Rock solid for about a decade or something. Poor Norm Hewitt wondered if he was ever going to get on the pitch as his understudy, because in thoe days they didn't make tactical subs and Futzy just never got injured, despite being in the thick of things and having his ears munched upon on at least one occasion. But he was a rascal and a cry-baby, who constantly found ways to infringe the rules yet screamed blue murder when the opposition did the same. He was also a beneficiary of an era which saw some teams operating at professional level against others who were still fully or partly amateur. Son of a former All Black, he was plucked from obscurity for the 1987 All Blacks World Cup squad (don't think he'd even represented Auckland in a competitive match at the time), and was elevated to the starting hooker's role when incumbent Andy Dalton withdrew supposedly with an injury. The rest is history. I literally came face-to-face with Futzy at the 1999 RWC, where he was involved in match commentating. Given a seat in a spare hospitality box due to a ticketing mix-up at the 3rd place match, I almost collided with him as I exited the mensroom up there!

[scuzzaman]

I just wonder what's the point of demanding harsher penalties while at the same time declaring they won't make any difference?

It's not like the penalties aren't harsh already.

What's the end game? Public executions for steroid cheats?

[rowan]

Indeed.

[cashead]

I just wonder what's the point of demanding harsher penalties while at the same time declaring they won't make any difference?

It's not like the penalties aren't harsh already.

What's the end game? Public executions for steroid cheats?

The key thing is to disincentivise doping. Up the risk for cheats, and the potential for them to fuck things up. The manufacturers will always be a step or two ahead, it's just the nature of this sort of thing, but by routinely making examples out of cheats, it'll hopefully give them pause - "putting this shit in my body will fuck me up in the long term, and if I get caught, then what's the point?"

Personally, I'm not entirely sure just extending the initial ban goes far enough (4 years is a start, but I think there should be a sliding scale dependent on A) whether it was performance enhancing or recreational and B) how long the average career is in that particular sport). There should be other measures for dopers, or athletes involved in organisations with an extensive history of doping (like the Russian Olympics teams), such as having a third party observer, and even filming the testing process, which then gets randomly reviewed.

2nd violation should be a straight-up life ban from all levels of the sport.

[J Dory]

I just wonder what's the point of demanding harsher penalties while at the same time declaring they won't make any difference?

It's not like the penalties aren't harsh already.

What's the end game? Public executions for steroid cheats?

The key thing is to disincentivise doping. Up the risk for cheats, and the potential for them to fuck things up. The manufacturers will always be a step or two ahead, it's just the nature of this sort of thing, but by routinely making examples out of cheats, it'll hopefully give them pause - "putting this shit in my body will fuck me up in the long term, and if I get caught, then what's the point?"

Personally, I'm not entirely sure just extending the initial ban goes far enough (4 years is a start, but I think there should be a sliding scale dependent on A) whether it was performance enhancing or recreational and B) how long the average career is in that particular sport). There should be other measures for dopers, or athletes involved in organisations with an extensive history of doping (like the Russian Olympics teams), such as having a third party observer, and even filming the testing process, which then gets randomly reviewed.

2nd violation should be a straight-up life ban from all levels of the sport.

Recreational drugs shouldn't be included in testing at all IMO. What will the punishment be for taking recreational drugs legally, e.g. smoking pot in Canada once it's legal?

[scuzzaman]

I just wonder what's the point of demanding harsher penalties while at the same time declaring they won't make any difference?

It's not like the penalties aren't harsh already.

What's the end game? Public executions for steroid cheats?

The key thing is to disincentivise doping. Up the risk for cheats, and the potential for them to fuck things up. The manufacturers will always be a step or two ahead, it's just the nature of this sort of thing, but by routinely making examples out of cheats, it'll hopefully give them pause - "putting this shit in my body will fuck me up in the long term, and if I get caught, then what's the point?"

Personally, I'm not entirely sure just extending the initial ban goes far enough (4 years is a start, but I think there should be a sliding scale dependent on A) whether it was performance enhancing or recreational and B) how long the average career is in that particular sport). There should be other measures for dopers, or athletes involved in organisations with an extensive history of doping (like the Russian Olympics teams), such as having a third party observer, and even filming the testing process, which then gets randomly reviewed.

2nd violation should be a straight-up life ban from all levels of the sport.

I understand the logic, I just don't agree with the assumptions.

No drugs cheat ever thinks they're going to get caught, almost by definition. So the penalties for getting caught are largely irrelevant.

Secondly, harsher penalties in other contexts have proven to have unintended (and severely negative) consequences, and I suspect that something similar might occur in this context if the penalties were as harsh as you advocate.

Finally, I still don't see the point of the original statement: "We'll never stamp it out but we should try harder to stamp it out" (paraphrasing) just seems stupidly contradictory and futilely vengeful. To me.

[scuzzaman]

I just wonder what's the point of demanding harsher penalties while at the same time declaring they won't make any difference?

It's not like the penalties aren't harsh already.

What's the end game? Public executions for steroid cheats?

The key thing is to disincentivise doping. Up the risk for cheats, and the potential for them to fuck things up. The manufacturers will always be a step or two ahead, it's just the nature of this sort of thing, but by routinely making examples out of cheats, it'll hopefully give them pause - "putting this shit in my body will fuck me up in the long term, and if I get caught, then what's the point?"

Personally, I'm not entirely sure just extending the initial ban goes far enough (4 years is a start, but I think there should be a sliding scale dependent on A) whether it was performance enhancing or recreational and B) how long the average career is in that particular sport). There should be other measures for dopers, or athletes involved in organisations with an extensive history of doping (like the Russian Olympics teams), such as having a third party observer, and even filming the testing process, which then gets randomly reviewed.

2nd violation should be a straight-up life ban from all levels of the sport.

Recreational drugs shouldn't be included in testing at all IMO. What will the punishment be for taking recreational drugs legally, e.g. smoking pot in Canada once it's legal?

Agreed.

But I don't think any drugs should be illegal, so ...

[cashead]

I just wonder what's the point of demanding harsher penalties while at the same time declaring they won't make any difference?

It's not like the penalties aren't harsh already.

What's the end game? Public executions for steroid cheats?

The key thing is to disincentivise doping. Up the risk for cheats, and the potential for them to fuck things up. The manufacturers will always be a step or two ahead, it's just the nature of this sort of thing, but by routinely making examples out of cheats, it'll hopefully give them pause - "putting this shit in my body will fuck me up in the long term, and if I get caught, then what's the point?"

Personally, I'm not entirely sure just extending the initial ban goes far enough (4 years is a start, but I think there should be a sliding scale dependent on A) whether it was performance enhancing or recreational and B) how long the average career is in that particular sport). There should be other measures for dopers, or athletes involved in organisations with an extensive history of doping (like the Russian Olympics teams), such as having a third party observer, and even filming the testing process, which then gets randomly reviewed.

2nd violation should be a straight-up life ban from all levels of the sport.

I understand the logic, I just don't agree with the assumptions.

No drugs cheat ever thinks they're going to get caught, almost by definition. So the penalties for getting caught are largely irrelevant.

Secondly, harsher penalties in other contexts have proven to have unintended (and severely negative) consequences, and I suspect that something similar might occur in this context if the penalties were as harsh as you advocate.

Finally, I still don't see the point of the original statement: "We'll never stamp it out but we should try harder to stamp it out" (paraphrasing) just seems stupidly contradictory and futilely vengeful. To me.

Fuck all that. The Blizzard-clause should apply to any and all competition - "You cheat by using performance enhancers, you're banned for life. Don't like it? Should've thought about it before you cheated. Now, fuck off."

[cashead]

Agreed.

But I don't think any drugs should be illegal, so ...

While I support the Portuguese model of drugs legislation, the fact that using supports some horrific and nasty cunts should not be overlooked either.

[scuzzaman]

Agreed.

But I don't think any drugs should be illegal, so ...

While I support the Portuguese model of drugs legislation, the fact that using supports some horrific and nasty cunts should not be overlooked either.

That's a very good point.

The high price of recreational drugs is almost totally a function of their illegality, and the high price provides incentives to dilute them with rubbish while the illegality prevents the people being poisoned from taking any legal recourse.

It's not like nobody ever tried prohibition before and we didn't know the results of it before the war on (some) drugs started. It's just that the drug warriors don't care.

Read Johann Hari's "Chasing the Scream" for an updated perspective on recreational drug use and abuse, based on science, medicine, and simple human compassion rather than lies, damned lies, and the will to power.

However, somewhat beside the point of sports doping cheats, so ...

[scuzzaman]

...

Fuck all that. The Blizzard-clause should apply to any and all competition - "You cheat by using performance enhancers, you're banned for life. Don't like it? Should've thought about it before you cheated. Now, fuck off."

Still only addresses part of the equation.

How many drugs cheats never get caught? Nobody knows.

Carl Lewis still has his 9 Olympic gold medals, to go with his enormously distended jawline that he didn't have as a teen, his enormous sprinter's musculature (that he didn't have as a teen), and his incredible athletic abilities (that he didn't have as a teen) ... and the "respect" and admiration of many (that one suspects he doesn't deserve at all, and which he didn't have as a teen). Ben Johnson, whose career overlapped Carl's, ended up with very little, even without the harsh regime you advocate.

As long as the rewards - financial and celebrous - are so great, people will be tempted. As long as the methods of detecting such abuses are flawed (which they always will be), people will cheat, and SOME will get caught and SOME will not.

I'm not defending them, I'm just reiterating my earlier point that admitting to ourselves that we cannot eliminate it, and simultaneously demanding much harsher penalties for the few we do catch, might not be the ideal one imagines when considering a lifetime ban and the effects that might have on professional sport.

Even murderers are not punished for life.