LeVaughn Flynn, Staff Reporter

WITH THE Anti-Doping in Sport Act being passed in the Senate last week, the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO) will be carrying out a detailed educational programme, said executive director Dr Patrece Charles-Freeman.

"We will be launching an extensive educational programme targeted primarily to the junior athletes in the first year," said Charles-Freeman, who noted that the educational programme was mandated by the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA). "We will be educating them on the health consequences of doping, the ethical values of sports and athletes' rights and responsibilities with regard to anti-doping."

The bill, entitled The Anti-Doping in Sport Act, 2008, was passed in the Lower House of Parliament on Tuesday and was approved in the Upper House (Senate) on Friday. The bill now has to be signed by Governor General, Sir Kenneth Hall, before it becomes law.

Implement mandate

Charles-Freeman said the anti-doping legislation allows JADCO to fully implement the National Anti-doping Programme and that the bill gives it the legal framework to carry out official testing of all athletes.

"Passing of the legislation will allow us to effectively carry out our full mandate which includes, among other things, establishing the registered testing pool of national and international level athletes; directing the National Doping Control Programme; the collection of samples; the management of test results and conducting hearings in keeping with the standards of the WADA Code," she said.

Jamaica has been criticised recently by the international media for not having its own anti-doping body in an era when the use of performance-enhancing drugs is rampant. An article on the New York Times website, published last Sunday, explored Jamaica's success in track and field while highlighting the absence of an independent body to conduct out-of-competition testing.

"Although no one was accusing Jamaican athletes of doping, many said the country should be doing more to ensure that its premier sport was clean," the article stated.

It continued: "Officials from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), track and field's governing body, said they compensated for the country's lack of testing by flying testers into Jamaica, where the IAAF conducted more out-of-competition tests than in all but four more populous nations: Russia, Kenya, United States and Greece."

JADCO was established in 2005 after Cabinet adopted the World Anti-doping Code in November 2003 and signed the Copenhagen Declaration on Anti-doping in Sport on February 10, 2004.

Charles-Freeman added that the Anti-Doping in Sport Act would apply to all athletes of all ages.

Free from taint

"Even athletes in a community league can be tested," she pointed out.

I n her address to the House on Tuesday, Sports Minister Olivia Grange said: "The bill is intended to provide a strong framework for Jamaica's anti-doping programme to ensure that our athletes are assured of an environ-ment which continues to nurture, celebrate and secure their sporting excellence, free from the taint or question of the doping-enhanced performances."