WHY DOES THIS NOT SURPRISE ME?

It shouldn't surprise any of us that the Dutch don't care what athletes do to themselves. We have a problem like that here in the U.S. particularly with NBA players using drugs (aside from performance enhancing drugs.) These athletes are criticized daily here on how they are supposed to hold themselves to a higher standard because of their fans and especially the young fans who look up to these individuals. How would you like to root for an athlete that is stoned out of his mind?

Can you hear Payton Manning say, "It's halftime! Where are my munchies???"

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- Recreational drugs such as marijuana and alcohol, and some others that don't help athletes perform better (like every other drug? Heroin, mushrooms, LSD, opiates, pills, cocaine, crack, meth...should I go on?), should be removed from the World Anti-Doping Agency's list of banned substances, the Dutch health secretary said yesterday.


Clemence Ross was speaking at a closed conference in Amsterdam that is part of an ongoing review of WADA's World Anti-Doping Code. In remarks published by her office, Ross praised the code for "ensuring that (doping) is combated and punished in the same way everywhere in the world," but "it's always useful to remain critical about what can be improved." "WADA should focus all its powers on the core task, and spend its money and efforts that way," Ross said. "Combating soft drugs should be a task for the government." She said it didn't make sense to punish athletes for drugs on the banned list that don't necessarily boost an athlete's performance. (Who is this woman and what credentials does she hold to make that statement? What does she know about the effects of drugs and how they react to people...is she a doctor? A scientist? An addiction counselor? I doubt any of the above, that is why I don't understand why her opinion means JACK.)


WADA's review began in 2006 and will culminate in an update to the code at a major meeting in Madrid in November. Ross spokesman Jan Brouwer de Koning said that since the meeting is not open to public observers, it's impossible to say how much support the Dutch viewpoint has.


About 85 representatives of governments and various organizations were attending the two-day meeting ending today, he said. He said it was at least partly coincidence that Ross represents a country renowned for its relaxed approach to marijuana.