Smith & Stewart (2015).pdf (398.1 kB)
Why the war on drugs in sport will never be won
Recent exposes of drug use in sports suggest that doping might be more problematic than doping-control test
results reveal. A zero-tolerance (ZT) model, which aims to eliminate the use, has dominated the thinking of sport’s
policy makers over the last 15 years. In light of the limitations associated with ZT-based policy, we propose an
alternative policy, one based on controlled use and harm reduction principles. We argue that substance control
policies underpinned by harm reduction (HR) principles of social utility and public value will deliver superior social
outcomes. First, a harm reduction approach better accommodates the competitive realities of sports and the
impact of elite sports’ emphasis on performance at all costs. Second, HR prioritises athlete welfare over sport and
brand reputation. Finally, while appreciating the regulatory and risk management responsibilities of sports’
governing bodies, the HR model offers greater space to the athlete’s right to privacy, and right to personal
autonomy.
History
School
- Loughborough University London
Published in
Harm Reduction JournalVolume
12Issue
53Citation
SMITH, A.C.T. and STEWART, B., 2015. Why the war on drugs in sport will never be won. Harm Reduction Journal, 12 (53), DOI 10.1186/s12954-015-0087-5Publisher
BioMed Central © Smith and StewartVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/Acceptance date
2015-11-02Publication date
2015Notes
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.eISSN
1477-7517Publisher version
Language
- en
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