Drug Addled
The Anarchists have been paying some attention to US Sailing’s stupidly named "Championship of Champions," a regatta that, depending on who you believe, is either a contest between the nations best or a thinly disguised effort for US Sailing to collect dues from Classes that have learned to use those dues for something more functional than to pay bills run up by the NGB’s incompetent lawyers. Either way, 20 undeniably good skippers are facing off in donated Lightnings on Illinois’ Lake Carlyle, and you can follow along right here.
But our attention was drawn to the Notice Of Race, specifically to section 16, which provides that "no competitor shall use, either on or off the water: marijuana or any other controlled substance," and that "no youth or “minor” participant or competitor shall use, either on or off the water alcoholic beverages." Both of these ‘offenses’ are punishable by immediate expulsion from the event.
Call us stupid, but isn’t there some kind of mechanism for drug testing that US Sailing is bound to follow pursuant to their designation as a NGB? And aren’t these crimes, their enforcement controlled by the police? Given US Sailing officials’ disastrous attempt to play ‘policeman’ last year in an underage drinking case, and their admonishment by the USOC this year in the Hall case to stop screwing with people’s rights, isn’t it time they learned their lesson? Or are nonsensical, overreaching, nanny-state rules like this, at what they claim is an "adult" championship, destined to end up in another multi-hundred thousand dollar lawsuit when someone smells weed burning behind the boathouse and decides to play cop?
