Letter: Smug IOC destroys career of young athlete

Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2000 | 9:38 a.m.

Then we get this smug IOC "anti-doping official" summarily declaring on TV that the cold medication in question is "a stimulant, a performance-enhancing drug."

I challenge anyone to come up with just one scientific, double-blind controlled clinical/sports medicine study indicating that the ingestion of a common cold remedy by an ailing athlete affects superior outcomes, to the quantifiable detriment of "fair competition."

Forget it; there aren't any.

Finally, our depressingly inane drug czar, Gen. Barry McCaffery, chimes in to voice his delight at the outcome of this travesty.

How predictable, from a man chosen for his job simply to provide militaristic get-tough symbolism and political cover for Mr. I-Never-Inhaled. And for his exuberant Eagle Scout willingness to avoid by at least one time zone anything so much as approaching a fact with respect to "drugs." All the while routinely sullying the Constitution he was ostensibly sworn to defend.

Zero Tolerance is the policy progeny of Zero Brain Cells.

ROBERT GLADD

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