Prevent Doping in Sports

Dr Benedict Tan asked the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth whether there are any plans to introduce legislation to further prevent doping, as suggested by the World Anti-Doping Code 2015 (article 22) and the UNESCO International Convention Against Doping in Sport 2005 (article 8).

The Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (Mr Lawrence Wong): Mdm Speaker, to fulfil our obligations under the UNESCO International Convention against Doping in Sport, we established Anti-Doping Singapore (ADS) in 2010 as the national anti-doping organisation to oversee sports anti-doping policies and operations. The ADS works closely with the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) and the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) to ensure cooperation on information sharing and anti-doping related matters.

The Singapore Sports Council Act already empowers ADS to conduct the anti-doping activities required to meet our international obligations.

My Ministry, MCCY, will ensure that our anti-doping practices continue to be in line with the latest version of the World Anti-Doping Code, and the latest version is a 2015 version. Whilst there are some new testing requirements under the 2015 Code which we are working to put in place, these can be introduced under current laws, and there is no need to introduce further legislation.

Dr Benedict Tan (Nominated Member): I thank the Minister for his reply. In 2012, at the National Body Building Championships, eight body builders were tested for doping and of the eight, seven were found to have doped. That is a pretty high percentage. Yes, the body builders fell under the jurisdiction of the Anti-Doping Singapore (ADS), but since that incident, body building has been dropped from SNOC, meaning that body building no longer falls under the ADS' jurisdiction. Even though they have fallen out of ADS' jurisdiction, I feel there is an urgent need to continue to police and monitor doping within the body building fraternity.

Apart from that, recreational sports does not fall under the ADS either. There are many recreational gym users who have access to performance enhancing drugs and yet they are not under the policing efforts of the ADS. Can the Minister elaborate on how we can be more pro-active in preventing doping amongst the recreational gym users and people who exercise and not compete, and therefore fall under ADS?

Mr Lawrence Wong: Madam, I agree with the Member on the first point about body building. Even though it may not be under the purview of the SNOC, certainly we will do what we can, through the ADS to make sure that the anti-doping protocols and mechanisms are in place for the sport of body building. On the recreational users or recreational athletes - people who go to the gym and, perhaps, those who may be tempted to use performance enhancing drugs - that, as the Member has highlighted, does not fall under the purview of the ADS right now because they focus on athletes that compete at the national level or international level.

I think we will have to look at how we can raise public awareness, particularly amongst this group. I am not sure that we want to go into start policing or administering anti-doping test at all the private gyms all over Singapore. That may be a bit of an intrusive measure because, in the end, there needs to be personal responsibility in terms of people's actions and the awareness of the consequences of taking some of these types of performance enhancing drugs. So, certainly, public awareness efforts, public education can be stepped up, and the Sports Singapore, together with the ADS, will look at how it can do more of these public awareness efforts.