Byrd suspended 162 games

[ptatc]

There's no hard and fast line of "this is a performance enhancing drug and this is not". Caffeine is a performance enhancing drug and this post is possible in part because of it. The actual decision is something of a hodgepodge - vitamins and caffeine are ok, speed isn't. Things that metabolize into hormones such as testosterone in the body have been well agreed to be PEDs, things that enable the body to carry more oxygen are considered PEDs, painkillers sometimes are.

 

Basically the setup winds up being some version of "what does it do in the body" and "does the government consider it legal". This of course always leaves open the gap for someone to figure out a new supplement or chemical that leads to enhanced performance that the law and tests haven't caught up with yet. I think the modern tests are probably extremely reliable in catching recent use of just about any version of anabolic steroids, depending on what the definition of "recent" is. Figuring out what other things do is much more challenging.

Caffiene is only considered a PED in certain doses. Most professional sports follow the WDA guidelines on PEDS. In the past they have just not used all testing measures available ie. blood testing. Many of the international organization, now use a baseline level test. This is where they test the blood levels and test for changes in that level. In this case they don't need to test for specific substances only changes. The weakness in the current system is that, designer companies like Balco create things that the trsting companies don't know to look for.

[ptatc]

I am certain there are some honest mistakes. But those can't be excused. No one takes a supplement by accident. If you are subject to drug screening and testing, you better be 100% certain of everything you put in your body. No other policy works.

Yes. Only take ones the league approved. Otherwise they are rolling the dice.