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The boss of New Zealand Cricket Players' Association has ridiculed a move by the Sports Disputes Tribunal (SDTNZ) to increase the penalties for sports people who test positive for cannabis.
Heath Mills questioned why sports drug agencies such as World Anti-Doping Association (Wada) and SDTNZ had changed from trying to eradicate performance-enhancing drugs and drugs cheats in sports to "becoming more concerned about what people are doing socially".
The tribunal wrote to national sports organisations a fortnight ago outlining a review of its approach to violations involving cannabis.
The catalyst was the two-game suspension handed to Tall Blacks guard Mark Dickel after he tested positive for cannabis. Basketball's governing body Fiba incre-ased the sanction for a further three games at the world championships in Japan.
The tribunal has decided to take a more hard-line approach: "...notwithstanding the strong views of authoritative persons that cannabis should not be on the Prohibited List, while it remains on the list and there is a proliferation of breaches, the stance should reflect and discourage such use."
The tribunal has indicated a suspension of one month of ordinary competition that could be extended or reduced depending on the amount of competition in that period. For example, if a basketballer missed 20 games the penalty would be deemed too harsh. Missing two games would be too lenient.
Mills said the approach was crazy and individual sports should mete out the appropriate punishments.
"I'm really disappointed with the stand they're taking with marijuana," Mills said. "They're instigating much tougher penalties when, quite frankly, I think it's an absolute nonsense that marijuana is on the list at all.
"How it can possibly be regarded as performance-enhancing is beyond me. Drug Free Sport New Zealand and a whole lot of other drug agencies have long campaigned to get it off the list and it causes them a whole lot of unnecessary work."
Drug Free executive director Graeme Steel is on record as saying he doesn't think athletes should be tested for cannabis, but he also recognises the right of SDTNZ to enforce penalties within the requirements of Wada.
"When did anti-doping in sport become more than trying to catch drug cheats in sport?" Mills said. "I'd be keen to know when that changed and they became more concerned about what people are doing socially."
Mills acknowledged that cricketers testing positive for cannabis or, most infamously on the 1993-94 tour to South Africa, being caught smoking it, was not a good look.
"We certainly and absolutely do not condone the use of marijuana. We have strong misconduct clauses that deal with it," Mills said. "A player caught using marijuana would be strongly dealt with under our contract, and sanctioned and possibly banned for a period of time.
"But that is an issue for a sport to deal with, not Wada or the Sports Disputes Tribunal. It is not a performance enhancement drug."
Mills said it had been proven that a person could test positive after ingesting cannabis in a "passive" manner. "I fail to comprehend how it is fair that an athlete that gets marijuana in their system passively gets banned, loses their right to work and gets sanctioned with an anti-doping violation so they are classified as a drugs cheat.
"To me that's nonsense. I would have liked to see our tribunal stand up to that rather than toe the Wada line."
