What do you think should be the punishment for PED disgraces in the Sport?

The funny thing is Larry Oldbumwino was actually inspired to turn to the Dark Side by the fighters he looked up to: Roid 'Juicer' Jones and Two Times Toney. He also comes from a sprinting background too, a sport that is as synonymous with PED abuse as dogs are with barking. And the reason his ban was reduced was because he grassed up another British boxer for PED abuse.

'Larry Olubamiwo stands 6ft 4in, weighs north of 18 stone and owns a right hand that can induce instant anaesthesia. He was also, until last week, banned from boxing for four years.

Olubamiwo's nickname is 'War Machine'. But conventional warfare, the ancient duel of skill and fists and will, was not enough: he deployed chemical weapons too – including EPO, human-growth hormone, steroids and plenty more besides. After he was banned, having admitted using 13 illegal substances, the UK Anti-Doping chief executive, Andy Parkinson, called him "an extreme example of someone who has engaged in an intentional and uncompromising doping programme".

But a few days ago, without stink or fuss or fury, Olubamiwo was given his licence back after serving just one year of his suspension. On 29 June he will return at his old battle ground, the York Hall in Bethnal Green, swinging bloodily and crudely and probably recording his 11th victory in 14 fights.

You may wonder how this can happen. Certainly, some in boxing do. Not everyone knows that the World Anti-Doping Agency's code allows for up to a 75% reduction in a ban for those whose evidence helps convict others. Olubamiwo certainly did.

Last year he befriended another small-hall fighter, Craig Windsor, on Facebook and they discussed steroids. Olubamiwo then passed on the details to UK Anti-Doping. And when Windsor later pleaded guilty, and was banned for three years and nine months, Olubamiwo's sentence was slashed.

As a strategy it was not so much float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, as sing like a canary. But it worked.

It may be the largest reduction in a confessed doper's sentence in British sporting history. Certainly, when I spoke to Graham Arthur, the director of legal at UK Anti-Doping, he could not come up with a bigger one. But the decision to allow Olubamiwo to box again throws up many difficult and often grubby issues. There is little here that is black or white.

Few, for instance, disagreed with the decision to give six-month sanctions to George Hincapie, Levi Leipheimer and the other cyclists who testified against Lance Armstrong to Usada. Without their evidence, Armstrong's reputation would be stained but not destroyed.

The problem in Olubamiwo's case is that he has not offered up a Mr Big, but a 5ft 8in super-middleweight with a 9-2 win/loss record. From afar it looks as if the sport is merely swapping one confirmed drug user for another.

And boxing is not cycling. Taking performance-enhancing drugs does not just alter the balance of competition; it increases the danger to your opponent's health. As one leading boxing trainer puts it: "We know that steroids can make you stronger, faster and more aggressive. We also know Larry is a convicted user. Yet in two weeks' time he'll be back in the ring.

"You can understand why ordinary fighters, who are all paying fees to the board and training the right way, have no confidence in the British Boxing Board of Control's decision to let him fight again."

Hypothetically this merry-go-round could continue. If Windsor was to also shop a boxer tomorrow he too could have his ban reduced by 75% and be fighting again in early 2014 – although Arthur insists that the rules are "pretty carefully calibrated" to make sure the provision is not applied cheaply. Shopping someone for puffing cannabis, for instance, would not cut it.

There is another worry in the Olubamiwo case: that he has juicier information which he is keeping close to his 50-inch chest. Last year, he claimed that "a large minority" of boxers in the UK were taking drugs. "I'm saying this because I have seen people, boxers, buying stuff from the same guy that I've bought stuff from," he said. "I have spoken to boxers who are telling me they've done this; they've done that. If I was to mention names, it would blow people's socks off."

There is no evidence to back up Olubamiwo's claims. But if he knows of a dealer out there, Arthur insists the "rules oblige him to come clean" otherwise his licence will be revoked. "He is under licence," says Arthur. "The slate isn't wiped dry."

Olubamiwo is a polymath of sorts: he ran 10.7 seconds for the 100m in his youth, served five of a 10-year stretch for armed robbery and has a degree in pharmaceutical chemistry – which he has certainly put to good use.

But in an interview last year, he also put forward a valid point, admitting: "I'm not disputing that I have broken a rule and I should be punished" before pointing the discrepancies in rules between countries and governing bodies.

The list of big-name fighters who have tested positive yet barely receive sanction is lengthy. It shames the sport. Boxing is howling out for a universal governing authority, the equivalent of an IAAF or Fifa, enforcing a universal drugs policy. As it is, an offence carrying a four-year ban in the UK might get a slap on the wrist in the United States.

Perhaps, though, we also need to confront an ugly truth: effective anti-doping work sometimes relies on intelligence from people that we'd like to see permanently barred from sport – no matter how unpalatable it is that they are pardoned when they should be punished.'