Kobritz: WADA May Ban Caffeine as “Performance-Enhancer”

Headline next year: “WADA CHIEF SAYS MLB SHOULD BE TOUGHER ON COFFEE”.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is once again considering a ban on caffeine after an Australian Football League (AFL) player suffered a bad reaction to a sleeping tablet he took to counter the effects of a caffeine buzz.

The footballer was apparently engaging in what is considered normal, if not totally acceptable, practice for players in the AFL. Some players are reportedly taking as many as six caffeine tablets per match as a game-day stimulant and then using sleeping tablets to come down from the caffeine-induced high. It should be noted that there is no evidence that taking caffeine alone would have jeopardized the player’s health. And under Australian law, athletes can legally use both caffeine and sleeping pills.

Caffeine was on WADA’s list of banned substances at one time, but the agency delisted the popular substance in 2004 because it proved too difficult to determine if caffeine in the human body came from the incidental use of coffee and soft drinks or from supplements. According to WADA president John Fahey, the agency’s criteria for banning a substance is whether it gives a competitive edge, is potentially injurious to health and is against the spirit of sport. In Fahey’s opinion, caffeine failed all three of those tests and he told The Age newspaper he intends to ask the agency’s medical committee to consider a new ban when it meets in September.

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Given their history, it’s difficult to take WADA seriously. The self-serving, publicity-hungry organization pursues an agenda designed to justify and glorify its existence. This is the same organization that backed off an attempt to ban the use of barometric chambers – oxygen tents – in 2006, only to ban the use of bottled oxygen in 2009.