Drugs and Doping in Sport: Socio-Legal Perspectives

edited by John O’Leary

London: Cavendish, 2001
Pp.288, £38.50 (pb)
ISBN 1 85941 662 4

Reviewed by:
MARK JAMES
Manchester Metropolitan University

Doping and the use of performance-enhancing drugs have long been considered to be anathema to participation in sport. The drugs in question are supposed to pose serious health problems to the users and those who use them are denounced by their sport for undermining the ideal of fair play and the very essence of sporting competition. Yet despite this, doping has remained an integral part of sporting competition from the earliest times. This book explores the phenomenon of doping and attempts to locate it in the context of legal disputes and social and legal theory.

As an edited collection of essays, the book draws on an impressive array of practising and academic lawyers and sports practitioners and administrators from both the UK and overseas. Each provides a specialist perspective on doping, identifying the problems and providing separate solutions in ways that are subtly yet significantly different. As the editor himself points out in his final chapter, this makes finding the ideal solution to the problem of doping a complex one as, ‘the complexity arises because … there is no consensus as to the nature of the problem, so it might appear there cannot be a consensus as to the solution’ (255).

That there is no consensus is hardly surprising considering the number of interest groups that are trying to influence decision and policy-making on this issue. Almost all of these groups are represented here in some form, each concentrating on the particular issues that affect it most. Thus, there are chapters analysing the rights of athletes, the problems of sample-taking, the ethics of sport, the development of sports policy and alternative dispute resolution to name but a few. All come to the same basic conclusion that the present system is not ideal and requires some change. The difference is in the degree of change required and the reasons why such changes should be implemented. On this, there is very little agreement. The views expressed here encompass everything from upholding the current position on strict liability to relaxing the rules to allow for doping in controlled circumstances.

Part of the problem here is that some of the essays are rather too descriptive, concentrating on what the current position actually is at the expense of explaining why it is that way and why the proposals for change should be either encouraged or discounted as appropriate. Others simply regurgitate the often-stated position that doping is cheating instead of backing up such statements with any recourse to logic or theory. The editor himself recognises some of these points in his final chapter. However, it may have been useful for others to have responded to such claims in more detail.

That aside, there are some interesting and enlightening discussions raised throughout this work. Chapters on the unnecessary control of recreational drugs, the pitfalls associated with the current trend for the harmonisation of doping procedures and policies, the potential development of a criminal jurisprudence, and the lessons to be learned from the US and its compulsory doping procedures in amateur sports are particularly topical. Each raises the spectre of further legal intervention, especially in the field of human rights and privacy. They also show that almost every proposed reform of this area has already been tried, to a greater or lesser extent, in some other field, whether related to sport or not. It must also be assumed that these attempts have failed as doping is still considered to be a major threat to sports around the world.

The notion of the rights of athletes is returned to on a number of occasions. This is likely to increase in importance in the future for a number of reasons. Athletes want their rights at hearings to be acknowledged and upheld and are increasingly willing to go to court to see these upheld, particularly so where natural justice and due process are concerned. They are also seeking to challenge the basis of sample-taking by claiming that it is an invasion of their privacy. Finally, it is an issue that governing bodies and international federations must take seriously if they wish to use the more invasive techniques associated with blood and DNA testing. Without a greater knowledge of these issues, the law will only get more actively involved in the future.

The one main chapter lacking here is a philosophical contribution. What are the ethics of sport? More especially what are the various contested interpretations of sports ethics? It is easy to say that the use of doping techniques is cheating and undermines fair play and should be punished; however it still continues and on a large scale. Some deeper discussion of these theories would have made an interesting contrast to some of the more dogmatic statements made by some contributors.

This could have been enhanced further by a different coordination of the chapters. The most theoretical chapter, ‘The Discourses of Doping: Law and Regulation in the War Against Drugs’, is found late on in the book as chapter 12. Almost all of the essays could be said to fall into one or other of the various discourses discussed there by Foster. If this chapter had been placed earlier on in the book, it could have set the tone for a far more critical analysis of the doping issue. Where chapters were descriptive of the current position according to the particular author, their standpoint could be better understood, analysed and either strengthened or rebutted in the light of these theoretical positions.

Overall, this book gives a good, clear snapshot of the current position of the various standpoints on the issue of doping and drug taking in sport. The various perspectives, though not necessarily socio-legal, are all important as they represent the variety of opinion to be found in discussions on this controversial topic. O’Leary himself adds to this controversy by speculating that the way forward may actually be to relax some of the rules and to change the entire basis of punishment for doping offences. The coming months will show us which of the contributors has correctly foreseen the future of the regulation of doping in sport.

Citation: James, Mark, ' Drugs and Doping in Sport: Socio-Legal Perspectives edited by John O’Leary', Entertainment and Sports Law Journal (ESLJ) Volume 1, Number 1 <http://www.warwick.ac.uk/go/eslj/issues/volume1/number1/reviews/james/>