The DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) made headlines today when it was announced that at the culmination of an 18-month probe, which involved nine other countries and busted 56 drug labs that netted $11 1/2 million dollars of steroids and a database of thousands of customers, some of which may be athletes headed to the Olympics. Or I should say were.
The feds that ran Operation Raw Deal have said not-so-fast...they are just now processing evidence and have told everyone to sit tight for awhile.
The DEA is focusing on China. Before this became a huge PR gaffe for them, they shut down one lab. But I bet there are many more where that came from.
There was a publication from the IOC that I saw that should be required reading in every junior high, high school and college locker room. It was in regards to steriods and had very graphic photo evidence as to what could happen over a period of time. It wasn't pretty.
I once asked Dick Pound, the outgoing President of WADA (and a nice guy, to boot)what his solution was. He told me "forget the high schools, and colleges---we need to reach kids in elementary school who are just starting out playing organised sports." Wow, that was a real eye opener for me. The gist of the conversation was by the time you got to high school and/or college, it was pretty much a lost cause. He told me (at the time) that MLB and it's players's association was giving him major grief over trying to get investigations targeted towards baseball. The player's union is very protective of those guys and still to this day continues to stall any meaningful investigation. It is estimated that 10 percent of guys on any major league team are using. But WHY take the risk?
Back in 2001, I was having a casual conversation during a break at the 112th IOC Session in Moscow. I said to a friend that the one thing I missed being away from home is my baseball---at the time, internet access was difficult and major daily newspapers from the US took 1-3 days to arrive. The conversation drifted a bit until he dropped this bombshell: "well, you know about Barry Bonds..."
I said, well, I do know he plays for the Giants. It progressed further and he said, "you know he's using." I thought at the time-there is no way, that someone would put a big-money contract on the line, all for the risk of a few points in their average. Was I ever surprised, three years later, when the first allegations surfaced. I didn't ask my contact how he found out.
My late husband asked me about how I felt missing out on the Bonds story. I said that I didn't know that much about the "ins and outs" of baseball, but if the story was true, it was going to make someone's career. And two guys who worked for the SF Chronicle did just that. And the issues raised by the Bonds story are still reverberating to this day.
There is a PSA by Partnership for a Drug-Free America airing here in the US that shows the statue of Discobolos (the Discus Thrower) and it is slowly cracking. Arms then fall off, then the head goes. The announcer says "there is something else steroids do to a guy's body." I've often wondered if such commercials are really effective, since by the time you get to the age where you can compete internationally or professionally, if you are using, it probably has been for a few years and there is some evidence that shows these steroids can be just as addictive as some of the street-level drugs out there.
I hope the DEA doesn't wimp out and releases the names (if there are any athletes listed) from the database. More important, prosecute the users, lock up the dealers, in other words, get tough with those that insist on this form of cheating.
Because it's coming to your neighborhood and your kids if we don't.
