Pubdate: Thu, 18 Jun 98 Source: Expressen Section: Editorial Contact: http://www.expressen.se/ettan/index.html Translation: Olafur Brentmar and John Yates LAW WITHOUT MUSCLE Now the government want to criminalize doping. Just as it is illegal to harm your body with narcotics, soon it will also be illegal to pump up with anabolic steroids. The purpose, of course, is well intentioned. The Government says the ban will give a clear signal of how seriously society regards doping. And it certainly is serious, no one denies that, but it is nevertheless not reasonable to pass laws just to send messages and political signals. Laws are too serious to be used in this way. In the first place people must believe in laws and respect them. A law forbidding doping is in practice nearly impossible to enforce, especially if people are taking testosterone or growth hormones or anything else that already exists in the body. And a law that cannot be enforced is not taken seriously with the result that respect for the law is diminished. It is exactly the same with the laws against taking narcotics or buying the services of prostitutes, there is no reasonable possibility of enforcing these laws and they end up as mere moral preaching and wagging fingers. According to modern Swedish law it is not a crime to inflict damage upon ones own body. It is a long time since suicide was illegal. Even though it is considered reasonable and important to ban narcotics and doping, this does not mean that abuse should be considered criminal. Wether one damages ones body with legal or illegal substances can have no bearing on the legal situation. It is still not a crime to damage oneself. If it is criminal to damage oneself with steroids or heroin one has to wonder how it can then be permitted to eat until grotesquely fat or penetrate the body with needles or pump it full of silicon - not to mention smoking or drinking yourself to death. Criminalising abuse has absurd consequences and is judicially unsound - what should be done for example with those who intoxicate themselves with sleeping pills or inhale solvents? should those go free while pot smokers are imprisoned? Abuse should be treated, not punished. Abusers are sick people who need care, not punishment. That would be the mark of a good Swedish criminal justice system. - ---