Pubdate: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) Copyright: 2000 The Sydney Morning Herald Contact: GPO Box 3771, Sydney NSW 2001 Fax: +61-(0)2-9282 3492 Website: http://www.smh.com.au/ Forum: http://forums.fairfax.com.au/ Author: Mark Forbes GAMES EPIDEMIC OF DRUGS 'HAS FREE REIN' The Australian Olympic Committee is demanding a national task force to combat a booming illegal trade in performance-enhancing drugs, alleging government and police inaction just months away from the Sydney Games. The call has been backed by the chairman of the National Expert Advisory Committee on Illicit Drugs, Dr Robert Ali. Studies had totally underestimated the size of the trade, which would be exacerbated by the Olympics, he said. A confidential report of the committee, recently distributed to State and Federal justice, police and health ministers, says: "There has been a 25-fold increase in Customs interceptions of illegally imported performance- and image-enhancing drugs (PIEDS) in the past four years." The report warns of increasing involvement of organised crime in the trade. Most users of PIEDS were not sportspeople, the report says, but fitness enthusiasts, including body builders, labourers, bouncers and models. One dealer who spoke to the Heraldsaid he knew of human growth hormone being sold to five Olympic weightlifting, athletics and swimming competitors. Investigations have also revealed that a Kings Cross identity, named as a major heroin dealer, is a key player in the trade. The AOC secretary-general, Mr Craig McLatchey, said that with the Sydney Games less than five months away, State governments had done nothing, while the Federal Government was doing too little too late, despite its touted tough-on-drugs-in-sport strategy. An investigation by the Heraldhas failed to identify a single police officer or law enforcement agency across the country targeting the performance-enhancing drugs industry. Laws are inconsistent and there is little co-ordination of research, intelligence and law enforcement. The expert advisory committee report says that in many cases organised crime obtains legally produced PIEDS through robberies. Australian production of steroids is "greatly in excess of medical and veterinary need", it says, and suggests limits on steroid production and a code of conduct for manufacturers. Mr McLatchey said tighter Customs laws had been introduced, and significant resources devoted to education and testing programs, but the legal and police response was totally inadequate. "Obviously there isn't at the moment, particularly at the State government level, political will. The Federal Government needs to act now to create a national task force to detect, prevent and catch criminals who traffic in hard sports drugs. Until that's done, all the legislation in the world will be useless." However, the Federal Attorney-General, Mr Williams, rejected the call. "I wouldn't have thought there was a need for a further body. Law enforcement nowadays operates very much on co-operation between bodies." The Government did not agree with calls to have performance-enhancing drugs offences treated like narcotics, but had introduced much tougher import restrictions, he said. But Dr Ali said: "There is a need for an integrated response that identifies the size and nature of the problem and targets responses. The sense I have is there is a far greater use of these substances in the community than we previously recognised." Despite the imminent Olympics, there is little co-ordination of agencies involved in the issue, and almost no law enforcement activity. A Federal Police spokesman said: "PIEDS don't really fall within our area; it's a Customs or a State policing matter." A report last month by the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence warned that existing laws were inadequate and that the Olympics would stimulate the import, sale and probably manufacture of sports drugs. The illicit trade would continue "particularly in the absence of adequate legislation and given the potentially large profits available to dealers". "A uniform legislative approach across states and territories would unite law enforcement agencies by clarifying responsibilities and imposing realistic penalties with a deterrent value matching that applying to other illicit drugs." - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea