| George John 2005-02-04, 12:41 pm |
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curtains wrote:
quote:
> Just in case anyone wonders, I'm very very anti-drug testing, and
> would support and endorse any public statement that denounces the
> practice.
Greg,
This is the starting point for me, too. I'm 100% opposed to any drug
testing at the amateur level. Where the discussion becomes more
complicated for me is how best to handle professional chess. I would
like that to be 100% free of testing, too.
That said, the USCF will need to be careful to avoid adopting any
hard-line, anti-drug testing policy that might seriously hurt our
professional players. We need to talk with our professional players,
whose livelihoods may be on the line, first. If they fully support the
USCF coming out 100% against drug testing, then I all for it, except
for one other concern.
The USCF is the FIDE chapter in the United States. If the USCF adopts
a sufficiently hard-line position against drug testing, that might
cause the USCF to lose its standing with FIDE.
We would need to fully understand what losing our FIDE standing might
mean to the USCF. It may be possible that we would want to take a 100%
hard-line, anti-drug testing stance even if it were to cost us our
standing with FIDE. It's possible that some day we might want to leave
FIDE for other reasons, too. My point is that's something that must be
sufficiently researched and discussed first, with a clear understanding
what the ramifications would be to the USCF and chess in the United
States, before we were to sign off on such a policy.
Best regards,
George John
[SNIP]
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