Abstract

Drug misuse in sport escalated greatly from 1960 onwards. As this escalation occurred, attempts were made to curtail this misuse. Deaths in sports, through the misuse of drugs, stimulated the demands for action. In 1967, a new Medical Commission was set up by the International Olympic Committee, and one of its duties was to attempt to curtail drug misuse in sport and to give leadership to the International Federations to deal with the problem. An important aspect was not only to develop controls, but to develop a coherent philosophy. Were the controls to be made primarily because of the moral arguments against drug misuse, or were they to be based on a pragmatic approach of primarily protecting the competitor - either against himself or those who sought to misuse drugs on him? A policy had to be developed to prevent the use of those drugs in sport which constitute dangers, but at the same time to do so with the minimum of interference with the correct therapeutic use of drugs. Also, it was important to be able to obtain objective unequivocal evidence of drug misuse rather than to rely upon denunciations. It was decided to ban classes of drugs, since the use of the latter would only only further aggravate the problem, since materials not marketed as drugs would be used. Suitable analytical tests had to be developed and the first areas dealt with satisfactorily from a control point of view, were the stimulants and the narcotics. Equally important as the analysis were the general aspects of doping control. Selection of the athletes, control of samples, quality control of laboratories, the use of control samples etc. Verf.-Referat (gekuerzt)