Petition to criminalise drug cheats

Pointless. Drug agencies are just not funded well enought to survive this. There will be pretty much no drug testers left.

 

I get what it means but they the agencies would have to lawyer up and wouldnt be able to afford it.

 

As far as I am concerned all drugs should be legalised, there should be no penalty for being a user, just an opportunity and advice for help if it is wanted.

Performance enhancing drugs are there to get an advantage and available to all, it is up to the individual if they wish to take them.

The moral dynamic can be answered by the banning of the activity. If a contact sport becomes so dangerous due to drug use, then ban the sport, but do not punish the user.

 

What rubbish.

 

I can understand disagreeing, but why is it rubbish?

 

You should listen to teh podcast i recommended. They address why this isn't a good idea.

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/the-science-of-sport-podcast-ped-chat.633537/

 

It is certainly an interesting debate, and at the moment I have not got my way.

The problem boxing has got and always has had is the lack of a overseeing body in the professional sport. It in many ways is the most capitalistic sport we know, but is organised structurally in a very anarchic way.

The drugs issue is seemingly out of control in the sport. The only answer I have got that would not involve the total legalisation of all drugs, is to literally agree a drug policy in a fight by fight case. The fighters teams deciding on what is and what is not OK, as far as legal performance enhancing drugs go.

I accept this is for many far from ideal, as it is basically the status quo and fans rightly think that many fighters are pressured to agree with fights were they know their opponent has or has had an advantage in this aspect, that they have not.

 

Do you want boxing to survive.......

No in all seriousness, ban em for life or legalise PED's. This half assed **** is pathetic, if boxers wanna stick needles in their arses just to win a fight and risk an early death then let the daft fcukers crack on......

 

Lifetime ban is the way to go. Dillian has already served a 2 year ban for doping and obviously that hasn't stopped him going about his business in the same manner.

 

We need drugs to be non criminalised.

 

Most human beings would not support a sport where peds are legal and it's the objective of each combatant to beat each other up. I know I certainly wouldn't. If they legalised peds in boxing id walk away from the sport . And I'm sure many others would

 

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/366/36608.htm

UKAD stance on criminalising doping:

"I am sure you can imagine that when you look at the resources and the priorities, particularly, of law enforcement right now, asking them to pursue an individual because they have taken steroids, for example, is not high up on their agenda. We have a hard enough job partnering with law enforcement now to try to get into where we think there might be underground laboratories, to try to take them down and for law enforcement to seize their assets. It is hard enough trying to get them to engage in that regard let alone to pursue a criminal action against an athlete or their entourage"

It's a difficult area, particularly when dealing with activity across jurisdictions. Criminalisation in itself can never be a magic bullet; it needs to be backed with tight legislation, ample resource, and co-ordination with other bodies both inside and outside the UK.

In an ideal world, law enforcement would be at the forefront of anti-doping. The same people smugly proclaiming that they "have never failed a drugs test" would squeal like pigs as soon as the subpoenas/summons and indictments come flying in. Some top level athletes are so used to lying that they continue doing so during investigations and commit perjury (eg Marion Jones). When it gets that far, criminal investigations are extremely effective, and sports doping is bush league stuff compared to organised crime syndicates.

The problem is there has to be sufficient resource and sufficient incentive to pursue it all the way. In the UK we have neither. People are generally happy to believe that the unprecedented success across all sports has been achieved naturally, and there are a lot of powerful bodies with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. On the criminal scale there are bigger fish to fry, with more money at stake and more lives in danger. In boxing, as morbid as it sounds, it would probably take something like a serious injury or fatality caused by a fighter testing positive for something meaningful to happen.

 

I don't normally comment on these things but the writing in the petition is awful.