Credit Uncle Sam with assist in battle vs. steroids

More Mitchell Report preview – Players linked to government's performance-enhancement probes

George Mitchell got some significant help during his investigation into the use of steroids in Major League Baseball from you, me and everyone else who pays taxes.

Yes, Uncle Sam has fingered his fair share of ballplayers in the procurement and use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Leaks stemming from government investigations have tied at least 24 active and former players to the use of steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs. It's evidence that the government has moved from the sidelines onto the frontlines in the battle against steroids.

Baseball suffered a public flogging in 2005 when commissioner Bud Selig and players such as Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro were forced to testify during a congressional hearing. Though the government was criticized for grandstanding, the hearings produced an unforgettable spectacle of lies, evasion and regret that shamed baseball into toughening its steroids policy.

And the government promptly took aim at those peddling and using the drugs.

During the more than 20 months since baseball hired Mitchell to lead the independent study, the former senator asked to speak with dozens of current major leaguers and moved forward doggedly even though only two obliged. The government has been less courteous.

Armed with search warrants, federal investigators executed a series of raids on pharmacies, wellness clinics and other steroids dealers that uncovered the kind of evidence Mitchell presumably was seeking. That evidence could be part of an impending bombshell.

The Mitchell commission will issue its long-awaited report at a news conference Thursday in New York, and it is expected to include the names of dozens of players linked to steroids and human growth hormone, both banned by baseball.

Actually, make that previously unpublished names. The government has outed plenty of users so far.

"The United States of America is now seen as the No. 1 country in the world as far as going after cheating in sports," proclaimed Scott Burns, the deputy "drug czar" of the White House's National Drug Control Policy.

The chest-beating continued this week during Burns' second national teleconference on steroids in a month when he boasted that the government has "turned up the volume all across the country with respect to this issue. The tide has turned."

In addition to surveys that show steroid use by teenagers has dropped significantly, the federal government points with pride to banner headlines such as "Marion Jones admits steroid use" and "Barry Bonds indicted."

Jones, the disgraced track queen, admitted in October that she lied to federal officials during the BALCO investigation about using steroids, and the admission prompted the International Olympic Committee to strip her of medals and force her to return $700,000 in prize money. Bonds denied knowingly using steroids in front of a grand jury in 2003, and last month he was indicted on obstruction of justice and perjury charges. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment last week.

Since Mitchell took on his assignment in March 2006, government investigations also have linked athletes from professional football, boxing and wrestling to the use of steroids. But the investigations have had the biggest impact on baseball – and, as a result, the Mitchell commission.

For example, after investigators arrested a former New York Mets clubhouse attendant on charges that stemmed from his distributing steroids and performance-enhancing drugs to an untold number of current and former major leaguers, the government offered him a plea deal that included an unusual condition: The former clubhouse attendant, Kirk Radomski, would be required to cooperate with the Mitchell commission.

Radomski accepted and turned over his information, and the Mitchell commission obtained evidence that undoubtedly will figure prominently in the report. Not only did the commission obtain the names of players who received the drugs but also it gained insight into how drugs were being distributed for more than a decade.

A proactive government response also resulted in the district attorney in Albany County, N.Y., breaking open the Signature Pharmacy scandal, which was followed by periodic news leaks identifying more than a half-dozen major leaguers who received steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs from the pharmacy in Orlando, Fla., or from clinics doing business with the pharmacy. Members of the Mitchell commission have met with the district attorney, but both sides have declined to say what information was exchanged.

Attempts to reach the Mitchell commission for comment on the government's role was unsuccessful. But representatives of the NCAA, NFL, United States Anti-Doping Agency and World Anti-Doping Agency said they welcome the help.

"As much as you hate to see these kinds of busts, it's probably the only way we're going to be able to get after the people who are selling and distributing these steroids," said Frank Uryasz, who oversees the drug-testing program for the NCAA. "… The government has become much more proactive and I think has been a good partner in the deterrence of anabolic steroids."

Unlike real wars, the U.S. government has surged into the War Against Steroids without detailing the cost, projecting victory or engaging in public debate. But even in the absence of demonstrators, questions about the government's role have surfaced.

No. 1: Why is the government paying so much attention to steroids when conventional wisdom suggests that the abuse of street drugs such as cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine carry greater social costs?

"That's a great question," said Burns, and he began the answer with statistics.

He said that of the 20 million drug users in the U.S., 7.5 million use marijuana, 6 million use prescription drugs, 3 million use cocaine, 1.5 million use heroin, 1.5 million use methamphetamine and fewer than 1 million use steroids.

"I don't know that we have spent any greater percentage" of the money available to fight drug use on steroid cases, Burns said. "In fact, I would say it's been consistent with the threat."

But statistics suggest otherwise, and the issue leads to the next question.

No. 2: How much is the government's fight against steroids costing taxpayers?

Government officials said they could not estimate how much the steroid initiatives have cost, but the efforts can be measured beyond anecdotal evidence. Between 2001 and 2006, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has more than quadrupled the number of man hours devoted to steroids cases, and the figure for the fiscal year of 2006 is on pace to approach 80,000 man hours, DEA figures show. This year the DEA has initiated 138 steroids cases, more than double the number initiated in 2001, and the largest steroids bust in U.S. history.

That record-setting bust, Operation Raw Deal, targeted Chinese companies supplying illegal steroids to online sites in the U.S. Athletes in every sport were among the thousands of end-users caught in a series of raids, according to the DEA. So far, the DEA has declined to name the athletes.

No. 3: Why has the government taken an increased interest in combating steroids?

Burns cited the 2004 State of the Union address and President Bush's reference to eradicating steroids from sports.

"I know there were those who looked at each other sideways," Burns said. "But he thought it was important enough to talk to the country about."

No. 4: Does steroids abuse warrant the attention and money it's getting from the government?

Even Charles Yesalis, a longtime critic of drug use in sport who says government intervention has had a far greater impact than drug testing, pauses before answering the question.

"We're at war right now, and like many people I'm more concerned about terrorist actions than I am about doping and sport," he said. "But I'm really in favor of these actions. I think they will only have a significant impact if the actions are sustained and we're willing to sustain them. … I think that holds dramatically more promise in the fight against doping than anything connected in the last half century with drug testing."

Though Bush spotlighted the issue, the government's hands-on involvement with steroids began long before his speech. Some government officials contend it began in earnest in 2002, when IRS agent Jeff Novitzky started sifting through the trash bins outside of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative. For years, sports relied solely on drug testing. Like it or not, the government was about to join the fight against steroids.

The evidence Novitzky collected led to a raid of BALCO and triggered the biggest steroids scandal in sports history.

On Sept. 3, 2003, the day the feds raided BALCO, the target was Victor Conte, steroid peddler to the stars. Since then, the federal government has asserted itself as the new vanguard and taken the lead role in the longstanding and largely ineffective effort to rid professional sports and the Olympics of drug cheats.

In the wake of the BALCO raid, the United States Anti-Doping Agency aggressively pursued the Olympic athletes as the scandal raged, MLB watched red-faced but quietly – or as long as it could.

While Novitzky's work led to grand jury hearings, leaks of the secret testimony led to the book Game of Shadows that detailed Bonds' use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig responded by hiring Mitchell to examine the issue.

Some questioned whether the report would downplay the problem because Mitchell was part of the Boston Red Sox ownership group. Others speculated the report would lack teeth because virtually every current player refused to talk to Selig. (Only one unidentified player and New York Yankees slugger Jason Giambi, under the threat of suspension after he all but publicly admitted taking steroids, are known to have spoken with Mitchell.) The Mitchell commission reached out to former players in hopes of detailing the history of steroids use, but it was the government that cracked open the ongoing problem.

Novitzky was one of the guest speakers at an international anti-doping conference in 2006. It was a sign of the growing alliance between the government and anti-doping community. There are other signs, too.

Don Catlin, one of the world's foremost anti-doping experts, proved instrumental during the BALCO scandal when he developed the test for the previously undetectable steroid used by athletes who had worked with the lab run by Conte.

Travis Tygart, who oversees drug testing of the U.S. Olympic team, joined the DEA as an adviser at the outset of Operation Raw Deal.

"When we first met with them back in April 2006, part of the critical success of this is to ensure that end-users in the sport were held accountable, whether through prosecution or information being handed to sports authorities to deal with appropriately," Tygart said during a news conference about Operation Raw Deal.

When the DEA announced the findings of Operation Raw Deal, they were careful to describe it as an initiative. More professional athletes could be implicated as the government gears up for the next stage of its anti-steroids crusade. But the deputy drug czar said Major League Baseball and other sports will be expected to strengthen their drug testing policies rather than rely on the government to police the problem.

"We've been fairly vocal, saying that for all major sports it's a new day," Burns said.