Drug Testing by Track Group Is Questioned : Enforcement: Documents show The Athletics Congress misuses procedures and ignores its bylaws.

The Athletics Congress, the governing body for U.S. track and field, is both flawed and inconsistent in its drug enforcement policies, according to confidential documents obtained last week by The Times.

Despite its publicly stated hard-line approach to drug use, the organization gives the impression of being confused and unsure in this area, even when it comes to its own policies.

Among the things the documents show is that TAC officials have:

--Selectively enforced drug positives.

--Circumvented their own protocol and by-laws when convenient.

--Pressured members of the drug appeals committee to overturn one case that could have resulted in a suit.

--Invalidated some positive drug tests because of sloppy procedures by physicians and administrators who regularly handle these tests.

--In some cases, simply forgot about reported drug positives.

This information comes on the heels of the May 2 resignation of four members of various TAC committees that are responsible for overseeing the drug testing. Among those is Edwin Moses, a three-time Olympian and longtime critic of drug use in track. Also resigning were Harvey Glance, formerly a world-class sprinter, Doriane Lambelet, a Washington, D.C., lawyer, and Linda Sheskey, a former national-class distance runner.

The documents also show that many of the positive drug tests now reveal stimulants rather than steroids. Dr. Robert Voy, formerly the chief medical officer for the U.S. Olympic Committee, believes stimulant abuse is rampant among athletes such as sprinters and jumpers. Voy resigned last summer because he said he was frustrated by the USOC’s attitude toward use of stimulants.

In February, two positive tests for the stimulant ephedrine were declared void in a letter by Ollan C. Cassell, TAC executive director, to Harvey W. Schiller, executive director of the U.S. Olympic Committee. That decision contradiction Cassell’s organization’s rules. Citing USOC, International Amateur Athletic Federation and International Olympic Committee rules, Cassell said in a written ruling that the tests indicated inadvertent use because of the low levels that were found.

But TAC rules stipulated that any trace of ephedrine was a positive test, a recent policy change that is stricter than international rules. That rule is reverting to one in accordance with the IOC’s that allows for inadvertent use, said Alvin Chriss, special assistant to Cassell.

The group had removed the inadvertent-use clause from its rules when the February verdict was rendered.

When confronted with this discrepancy by members of TAC’s Year-Round Drug Testing Committee, Cassell said he overlooked his organization’s rules, said a committee member. Later, however, Cassell’s assistant who helped develop the policy change attempted to justify TAC’s decision to invalidate the tests in a formal correspondence to committee members.

Chriss said Monday that rules were not purposely violated. He said Cassell might have made a mistake “in processing a routine case.”

“Nothing was done wrong,” he said.

The organization’s handling of stimulant use also has come into question. Despite international rules against stimulant use, TAC, in some cases, has ignored them.

“One-time use may be inadvertent, or innocent, but when I see (stimulants) used by veteran athletes who have been through countless urine testing and should know better, I wonder if they really are treating a cold,” Voy said.

“It opened a giant loophole that the athletes in the last few years have discovered.”

Said Moses: “That’s why we added the rule not allowing inadvertent use.”

Although Larry Myricks, Greg Foster and Antonio McKay were suspended this year for taking such drugs, many others who have tested positive continue to compete.

During last January and February, the heart of the indoor track and field season, 12 athletes were found to have taken one of the stimulants pseudoephedrine, ephedrine or phenylpropanolamine, according to a USOC report for the first quarter.

Two of the athletes were excused for what Cassell called inadvertent use in a confidential Feb. 14 correspondence to Schiller. Inadvertent use allows for athletes who take low doses of cold medications for sickness.

“We don’t want another Rick DeMont,” said Peter Cava, TAC spokesman, who said a TAC zero-tolerance rule never existed.

DeMont was a U.S. swimmer who was disqualified from the 1972 Olympics after testing positive for an over-the-counter medication he took for an asthma condition.

Although the USOC administers some tests for TAC and other national governing bodies, its constitution does not allow it to give out sanctions. Therefore, the USOC accepts the verdict decided by its governing body.

“I have said all along there needs to be an independent body conducting the testing,” said Voy, a sports medicine specialist in Las Vegas.

Illustrating the problem is the case of an athlete who tested positive for pseudoephedrine at January’s Sunkist indoor meet in Los Angeles. It was one of three positive tests for stimulants from the meet.

The athlete was not informed of the tests until his suspension notice came in a March 26 letter signed by Cassell. An athlete testing positive must first be notified of an “A” sample positive and then have the opportunity to be present for the “B” sample test.

The athlete, who asked to not be identified, questioned the loss of due process and his suspension was rescinded.

“Clearly they didn’t follow the rules in (that) case,” said Bob Duplantis, a New Orleans attorney whose son Greg is a pole vaulter. “They didn’t utilize the proper protocol so they didn’t have a case. I’m not sure where the confusion came from. My perception is they were unclear to their own policy.”

Only when Duplantis intervened for the athlete did TAC officials acknowledge the mistake.

“We had to knock two (cases) out like that,” Moses said.

Chriss said at first the case was not considered a legally positive test because the levels were too low. International rules, which are being modified, had a cut-off of 10 micrograms per milliliter to be considered a positive.

But he said the Custodial Board, of which Moses was chairman, insisted that the case be pursued because Moses thought TAC’s rules stated any trace would be a positive test.

“We were concerned about the program a year ago,” Moses said. “It is a combination of being sloppy and what seems to be some intentional malfeasance. This is no mistake, declaring the inadvertents. There have been a plethora of cases in which there have been too many mistakes.”

Moses said mistakes were best illustrated by an athlete who tested positive at last year’s U.S. Olympic Festival. The athlete had previously been banned for two years for a positive. The rules say a second positive will result in a lifetime ban.

But the case never was brought before TAC.

“When we asked what happened to him, they (TAC’s administrators) said, ‘Oh, we forgot about it.’ TAC forgot to put this on the agenda . . . they simply forgot about it.”

Chriss and Cava characterize the complaints as overblown. Chriss said Moses is feuding with Cassell and does not understand how the TAC operates.

“You have a situation where Edwin wants his view upheld regardless of who says he is wrong,” Chriss said.

Chriss said Cassell has never manipulated drug tests or subverted TAC’s drug polices.

“They (TAC) are trying to discredit not only our work but our professionalism,” Moses said. “They weren’t equipped to get the job done and that’s what caused us so many problems.”

Documents show that at TAC’s 1987 national championships in San Jose, three athletes tested positive for phenylpropanolamine, the male hormone testosterone and the steroid Nandrolone, respectively.

George D. Miller, then executive director of the USOC, wrote a memo in July of 1987 to Cassell informing him of the positive tests.

Miller also wrote that seven other samples had a high testosterone ratio “consistent with a variation of a normal or past use of testosterone.”

At least one of those positive test results--that of John Powell, the national champion in the discus that year--was overturned because of faulty testing procedures.

Dr. Donald Catlin, director of the IOC-accredited laboratory at UCLA, wrote to Baaron Pittenger, then acting secretary general of the USOC, in November of 1987, outlining the situation.

Although the result was not challenged, technical errors in handling the test were. The letter said Dr. Harmon Brown, now chairman of TAC’s sports medicine and sports science committee, committed errors invalidating the result.

The letter said Brown, a long-time medical officer of amateur sport, administered three tests for Voy because of the demand on supplies. Brown mailed the samples to UCLA without chain-of-custody forms, a procedural violation.

“He (Brown) should be the one person who knows how to do that correctly,” Moses said.

The memos do not question Voy’s or Catlin’s handling of any drug tests.

Said Voy: “This is like our legal system. They just try to find loopholes. That doesn’t make the tests any less positive. It is just a technicality that raises doubt.”

Before it was concluded technical errors had been made, Powell was given a hearing during his appeal of the case in August of 1987.

Powell received an August 10, 1987 letter from Frank E. Greenberg, then executive vice president of TAC, discussing the case. Greenberg said in the letter that he would have a TAC official call Powell “to discuss the make-up of the Panel, since you indicated that you would like to have some input in the selection process.”

Panel selection for drug appeals are not supposed to be decided by athletes, said Rich Nichols, vice chairman of TAC’s Athletes Advisory Committee.

Nichols, a San Francisco attorney, supposedly received a copy of the letter according to the “copy to” at the bottom. But he said he did not know of its existence until last week.

Nichols, who served as chairman of some drug hearing panels, said TAC rules do not provide for an athlete to have input in selecting panel members.

“I had always heard that a certain individual would try to sway panelists,” Nichols said. “It didn’t happen to me until last year.”

Nichols was referring to a case other than Powell’s.

He handled a hearing regarding a female marathon runner who tested positive for ephedrine at the Dec. 6, 1988, California International Marathon in Sacramento.

Nichols said he was pressured into making a quick decision last March. His panel gave a suspended sentence. He said he received calls from Cassell and Greenberg, who now is TAC’s president, providing information for the judgment.

He said the calls were improper.

Now, a year later, a new panel has been asked to review the case, Nichols said. He also said he does not know why.

“It was a process totally circumventing the rules in place,” he said. “It’s just an additional bitter pill from those who have been trying to maintain their integrity. It casts doubt into the sincerity of drug testing by TAC.”

Lynn Cannon, a TAC official who has served on three hearing panels, said Monday she never experienced administrative interference.

Nichols, however, said he wonders why some TAC officials have been less than forthright. It is a question that lingers, he said.

“It has been going on for years and years,” Nichols said. “It’s time for it to stop.”

BANNED SUBSTANCES

Following a list of USOC-banned stimulants and over-the-counter substances in which they are contained: Stimulant: Pseudoephedrine Over-the-counter product: Actifed, Ambenyl, Amemine, Afrinol, Chlorafed, Chlortrimeton-DC, Co-Tylenol, Deconamine, Dimacol, Disphoral, Drixoral, Emprazil, Fedhist, Histalet, Isoclor, Lo-Tussin, Nasalspan, Novafed, Nucofed, Plu-Histine, Polaramine, Expectorant, Pseudo-Bid, PseudoHist, Rhymosyn, Rondec, Ryna, Sudaged, Triprolidine, Tussend Stimulant: Phenylephrine Over-the-counter product: Coricidin, Dristan, NTZ, Neo-Synephrine, Sinex Stimulant: Phenylpropanolamine Over-the-counter product: ARM, Allerest, Alka-Seltzer Plus, Contac, Dexatrim, Dietac, 4-Way Formula 44, Naldecon, Novahistine, Arnex, Sine-Aid, Sine-Off, Sinutab, Triaminic, Triaminicin, Sucrets Cold Decongestant and related products Stimulant: Propylhexedrine Over-the-counter product: Benzedrex Inhaler Stimulant: Ephedrine Over-the-counter product: Bronkaid, Collyrium with Ephedrine, Pazo Suppository, Wyanoid Suppository, Vitronol, Nose Drops, Nyquil Nightime Cold Medicine, Herbal Teas Stimulant: Ma Huang Over-the-counter product: (Herbal Ephedrine), Bishop’s Tea, Brigham Tea, Chi Powder, Energy Ris, Ephedra, Excel, Joint Fir, Mexican Tea, Miner’s Tea, Mormon Tea, Popotillo, Squaw Tea, Super Charge, Teamster’s Tea, and medicine containing Ma Huang. SOURCE: U.S. Olympic Committee