Anti-doping Italy should stick to its guns

A meeting between International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is planned as soon as Dec. 7 to discuss the IOC's proposal of a moratorium on Italy's law imposing prison sentences for drug offenders at the 2006 Winter Olympics. The Games will be in Turin (Torino), Italy, this Feb.10-26.

The IOC, in conjunction with the World Anti-Doping Agency, is pressuring Italian lawmakers, of all things, to reduce the penalty for athletes who are caught using banned substances during the Olympics. Olympic officials believe that Italian lawmakers should reduce penalties to parallel the IOC, which would ban athletes from the Games and suspend them from future competition.

Italian lawmakers have insisted their laws will not change. While the young (established in 1999) WADA has been extraordinarily effective at reducing drug use in the Olympics, maintaining these laws could certainly reduce, if not actually stop, drug use at the 2006 Olympics. No athlete wants to spend any time in an Italian prison.

The 2002 Salt Lake Games were a model of effectiveness — local authorities and IOC officials cooperated and busted Olympians before and during the Games, including gold medalists, and sent them home or stopped them from coming. Now we can assure an even more drug-free Olympics in Italy.

Italian deputy premier and foreign minister Gianfranco Fini said he is against suspending or downgrading the laws. "I believe that one of the principles of sports is fairness," he said. "An athlete who uses banned substances comes under this principle, and therefore I would not support measures to render our legislation weaker for people who use (banned) substances."

The IOC fears that the law will cause public scandal. Before WADA, that was also the old argument against a serious Olympic anti-drug effort — thankfully no longer the unstated policy. Cleaning up sport is a better image. Likewise, in reality, this law will prevent public scandal. Athletes who dope likely won't come.

Is this a bad development? How would a drug-free Olympics be a bad thing?