BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - OFFICIALS from 15 regional Anti-Doping Agencies, including St. Kitts and Nevis, were brought up to speed on new Anti-Doping Codes put forward by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) at a recently held two-day workshop.
The workshop, which was facilitated by the Regional Anti-Doping Agency, was held in Bridgetown, Barbados and sought to have all affiliated bodies from Bahamas to Suriname, excluding Jamaica, trained in the new codes which takes effect from January 1, 2015.
This was revealed to SKNVibes today (Dec. 16) by Leroy Greene, who is a Board Member of the Regional Anti-Doping Agency and also the Federation’s representative to that body.
Greene stated that the participants were trained on the impending codes, which, when come into effect, would have stiffer penalties for persons caught cheating by doping, even if they were first-time offenders.
Currently, a first-time offender will be suspended for two years but this publication learned that with the new codes, the athlete would face a compulsory four-year ban.
“The meeting had a twofold purpose. One, to train doping education officers who will in turn help doping officers and board members to help deliver doping programmes in each territory. So we will have new education officers in every territory delivering anti-doping messages to schools, colleges, clubs and associations The most commonly discussed topic is the changes to the World Anti-Doping Codes; there are some changes that have to take place,” Green said.
He noted that Caribbean members now have to return home and work to get the programmes developed and remove the old codes that are currently in place “to make sure that they are compliant with WADA”.
“Because of the Lance Armstrong thing, the samples can now be held for 10 years as oppose to eight. Another is that there is a new threshold for Cannabis. That’s because the scientists say that if the threshold is definitely too high they can tell you definitely that somebody smoked Marijuana during a specific period,” he stated.
Also changing, Greene said, are some basic rules that the WADA has to send to the regional bodies for implementation on the various islands.
He declared that the changes would affect the St. Kitts and Nevis Anti-Doping Agency because they now have to broaden their screening process as it relates to testing for prohibited substances.
“We now have to widen our test for prohibited substances…a very wide spectrum of prohibited substances. This will affect the testing done in these islands because lab cost will go up, because you now test more substances. And they said they are going to work with us for the next several months to make sure they are compliant with the new codes.”
This is the third time that the codes have been changed, but, according to Greene, it would not affect local athletes because the Federation already has a testing protocol in place.
He however noted that the local Anti-Doping Agency would ensure that athletes are educated on the banned supplements, adding that in the Federation they [athletes] are subjected to “two out of competition tests for banned substances” on an annual basis.
Greene stressed that everyone needs to get onboard with this new programme and explained that the Federation currently has two doping officers, one education officer and one board member.
