UCLA Doctor Visits Canadian Snowboarders

Dr. Don Catlin, chief of the UCLA laboratory that served as the official drug-testing center for the 1984 Summer Olympics, is a member of the IOC medical commission and in Nagano for the Games.

Less than a week after arriving here came the marijuana controversy after Canadian snowboarder Ross Rebagliati, who was stripped of his giant-slalom gold medal by the IOC after testing positive.

Rebagliati had his medal reinstated Thursday night. A few hours earlier, Catlin visited the mountain where snowboarders were performing their extraordinary halfpipe tricks.

“If I did that, I’d have to be gassed on something,” he said, joking.

Catlin discounted Rebagliati’s account that he tested positive because of his exposure to second-hand smoke at a party before leaving Canada.

But he added that it is possible to test at extreme levels through a contact high.