How to Police Steroids

Baseball Musings, an excellent baseball blog you've probably already heard of, has an interesting take on the prescription drugs scandal that threw Gary Matthews into the fire yesterday. His idea: the huge amounts of money coarsing through the steroid market make it possible for users to stay one step ahead of the leagues and commissions they're attempting to fool.

And once again, it points out why this problem is so difficult to control. There is a huge demand out there for drugs. The amount of money drives research for ways to hide use, and ways to keep the supply pipeline open. Given the amount of drugs flowing out of this place, the lack of positive tests in MLB last year seems wrong.

I'm sorry to say this, but the leagues aren't going to fix this, no matter how long they suspend people. It's just too easy to produce new substances and too easy to find ways to hide them.

So, then, how to prosecute the offenders?

The combination of risk of getting caught with the penalty for getting caught produces a cost too low to deter use. I fear the government needs to expand its focus to not only catching the suppliers, but also prosecuting the users. A supplier, unfortunately, is easy to replace. A star athlete is not. Jail time at the height of someone's career, plus the disruptions to a season due to trials and such might impose a cost that's not worth paying, either by the team or by the athlete.

Good ideas all around, if you ask me. It's funny how sports can change our political thinking; usually, I'm against drug prosecution and in favor of court-mandated treatment, but when those drugs are steroids and are used to unfair advantage in professional sports, I'm all for user prosecution. Of course, heroin doesn't exactly offer the same competitive advantage as The Clear, but interesting how that works, huh?