Drugs, Yao Ming and SARS

The Philippine Basketball Association is taking the strongest possible stand against drug users in the league. There will no longer be anywhere to hide if you are a recreational or dangerous substance abuser. Commissioner Noli Eala is making that obvious statement by subjecting himself to the selfsame test given by the league in coordination with law-enforcement authorities.

What has been the flaw in the PBA’s drug testing policy in the past?

The testing procedure itself is relatively simple. Urine samples taken from players will be added to solutions that react to specific substances that are linked with or residue of banned chemicals. However, what is critical is that the player in question must be seen urinating into the sample container. This is where some players have gotten away with it in the past, the urine sample was never visually confirmed to be theirs.

In almost all major international sporting events, drug testers accompany the athlete (of the same gender) into the comfort room or area within their medical facility, and watch them literally pee into a plastic cup. The sample is then sealed and labeled on the spot, and taken for testing. That seems barbaric, but it is still the only way a true sample can be obtained. That easy, it won’t be the secretions of a ballboy, assistant coach, utility or somebody else.

As for the argument of sidestream smoke from marijuana, since athletes have very efficient metabolisms, they usually process minute amounts of any substance very quickly. And you would have to inhale smoke for a period of more than a few minutes for it to register in your bloodstream. Body size also affects the level of dilution of the substance in the blood, although this is tempered by specific allergies and other personal biological quirks of the person in question.

With regards to hard drugs, it is more often than not the product of stress, peer pressure, or low self-esteem, or the overlapping of two or all three of these that impels anyone to take drugs. If you believe you don’t need it or it can hurt you, then you won’t do it. Period.

Given that the PBA season stretches through ten months of the year, it is always likely that a player will get caught, since it takes at least a couple of weeks for a drug to be eliminated from your system. So why bother if you’re going to get busted?

There are many medications and supplements that are prohibited for use by active athletes. Oksana Baiul, the sixteen-year old European sensation who became the anti-climactic Olympic heroine, stealing the thunder from the Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding figure skating soap opera in the 1990’s, is a prime example. The day before the finals, Baiul was injured badly during pratice when another skater ran into her, slashing the back of her lower leg with a skate blade. She asked for and received permission to take prescription pain killers, and defeated Kerrigan by fractions of a point on one judge’s scorecard.

Amy van Dyken won multiple medals in Olympic swimming, despite being so badly asthmatic that there were time she complained that it "felt like breathing through mud." But she was allowed to compete with previously prohibited medicines that alleviated symptoms of her childhood disease.

Bodybuilders abroad compete in two categories. There is the open competition, and the "natural" competition. One simply does not use certain supplements or other ingestibles that the other does. Right then and there, you can see that there is an accepted difference.

Beyond treating the effects of stress by randomly testing for drugs, the PBA might also want to consider examining the social and psychological causes of drug abuse. Imagine being a very young, unusually large, physically (but not emotionally) developed young man. You are thrust into a situation where you must perform at high physical levels, take a beating regularly, and are constantly yelled at by a coach who prides himself on being a man among men, to whom pain may be sign of weakness. Then you go to a game, and have to deal with total strangers yelling and screaming for your blood, and making sure you hear them.

How do you cope? Hopefully, not with drugs.

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NBA TV, the National Basketball Association’s 24-hour television network based in New Jersey, will simulcast a special three-hour SARS fundraiser telethon on Sunday, May 11th in the US. The telethon, co-produced with Shanghai TV Great Sports Channel (STV) and Houston Rockets’ rookie center Yao Ming, will be hosted by Yao himself.

"The fight against SARS is an extremely important one and I wanted to do something to support the fight and help overcome the disease," said Yao.

"This is the least I can do to help my country get through this difficult time."

The broadcast will feature commentary and translation from Yao’s translator Colin Pine, along with translator Mei Jiangzhong. Jay Stone Shih, producer and host of China Crosstalk, a Mandarin-based, live call-in TV talk show, will also provide commentary, all from the NBA TV studios in Secaucus, NJ. Viewers in the US can phone in their pledges.

But Yao won’t be going solo. He will be supported by a veritable All-Star delegation in teammate Steve Francis, Derek Fisher, 2003 MVP Tim Duncan, Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, Dikembe Mutombo, Chris Webber, Vlade Divac, Peja Stojakovic, Phil Jackson, Bill Walton, Earl Monroe, Kevin McHale, John Havlicek, Richard Jefferson, David Robinson and NBA Commissioner David Stern. These players have apparently learned of how badly Asia has been affected by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. It will also be the first major telethon ever to be conducted in China.

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Don’t miss this week’s episode of The Basketball Show at 4 p.m. over IBC-13. You may reach us at [email protected] or [email protected].