NY Times: Baseball Pulls Curtain on Amphetamine Tests (RR)

Down and Out in MLB, with Amphetamine Psychosis Again…

Since Major League Baseball began testing for amphetamines in 2006, it has been difficult to determine the policy’s value as a deterrent. Players who tested positive for the first time were not identified or punished, so there was no way of knowing if 20, 30 or 100 players had been caught in a particular year.

Only the identities of those who tested positive more than once were revealed. Only those players were suspended. That group has been small — two players in the last three years — which suggests that those caught once are not tempting fate and have stopped using amphetamines.

But what about first-time positives? Is that annual number substantial? If so, that means players are using amphetamines until being caught.

Baseball is about to provide an answer. In early January, the organization’s testing administrator will release the number of first-time positive amphetamine tests for 2008, along with other data about the testing program.