SCOTLAND rugby player Scott MacLeod can count himself lucky he is not an athlete. Given the 12-month ban handed to Christine Ohuruogu – who all parties declared was not on drugs, but simply disorganised and/or absent-minded for missing three drugs tests – MacLeod has been treated with kid gloves.
Forgetting to fill in a form is not normally taken as an excuse to explain away the presence of a drug in the body, and MacLeod would undoubtedly have received more than the rap over the knuckles had he been an athlete.
However, athletics and cycl
ing – who also would have taken a more Draconian view of the situation – are in dire straits on the PR front and have a greater need to be whiter than white.
No-one is suggesting that MacLeod has made anything other than a genuine mistake. But he is lucky that he switched from Salbutamol to Terbutaline without filling in a new exemption form and not the other way around.
While Salbutamol is regarded as more sinister because it can also act as performance enhancing, Terbutaline is regarded as relatively ineffective for boosting performance. So had he tested for Salbutamol and not mentioned it on his Therapeutic Use Exemption form (TUE), he would undoubtedly have been facing a year out of rugby.
For this reason, the report of the independent judicial committee set up by the SRU did not mention the amount of the drug in MacLeod's system since there is no upper limit for Terbutaline beyond which there is evidence of illicit use and hence performance enhancement.
Contrast the Llanelli forward's case, then, with another case of recent years, that of Munster hooker Frankie Sheahan who tested positive for massive amounts of Salbutamol and was banned for two years in 2003. Unlike Terbutaline, there is an upper limit of 1000ng/Ml for Salbutamol and Sheahan was reported to be 20 times over that limit.
There is also a difference between which country you are in as to whether you can take Salbutamol or not. In France, as a competitive sportsman, it is not permitted at all. The drug is banned outright by the French Cycling Federation and the Ministry of Sport. When five-time Tour winner, Spain's Miguel Indurain, tested positive for the drug in 1994, he was exonerated by the International Olympic Committee and the International Cycling Union, putting them at odds with the French.
The Commonwealth Games Federation also takes a more lenient view of Salbutamol. When the Games were held in Manchester in 2002 and the winner of the 100m, Kim Collins, tested positive, he was allowed to keep the medal.
The use of asthma preparations in elite sport is a thorny issue. On one side stand the anti-drug campaigners, like Germany's Dr Werner Franke, who ridicules the situation where so many sportsmen are on asthmatic preparations.
While only eight to 10 per cent of the general population suffers from asthma, the UCI has had 80 per cent of its elite riders classified as asthmatic. In the Tour de France, 40 per cent of the peloton have exemptions for asthmatic drugs. "The only surprising thing," says Franke, "is that the world is so stupid to believe it."
In MacLeod's case, it appears that too many doctors were involved in prescribing drugs for any player to reasonably keep track. Firstly his family doctor had prescribed Terbutaline, but he had also switched to Salbutamol, depending on who was prescribing.
Then at Border Reivers, Dr Fiona Megahy had prescribed Terbutaline when Salbutamol was not available. Dr James Robson of the SRU has prescribed both Terbutaline and Pulmicort, as he did to a number of Scotland players, while in Llanelli, MacLeod's current club, he was prescribed Salbutamol.
Although the doctors and MacLeod appear to have kept up to date in the early days with the appropriate documentation, in this latest incident that was not the case. MacLeod said on Monday that he believed the TUE was merely a general dispensation, but if different forms had been filled in in the past, why not now?
There is a deal of sympathy amongst testing professionals on this point. Since UK Sport relieved itself of the services of Michele Verroken, she has built up a business as a drug testing consultant. She is currently giving courses to athletes and doctors in the intricacies of keeping track of the paperwork. "The TUE should be made more simple so as to take the pressure off the athlete," she says. "In this (MacLeod's] case, it seems the appropriate decision has been made."
