SINGAPORE: There is a framework of rules and standards to keep sports in Singapore free of doping, which includes the use of both recreational drugs and performance-enhancing drugs, said Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY) Eric Chua on Tuesday (Oct 4).

Speaking in Parliament, Mr Chua said that this aims to equip national athletes with the information, tools and values for them to exercise "sound judgement and choices" when it comes to the use of drugs.

There are two key strategies by which this is implemented - through education and prevention, as well as detection and deterrence, he added.

Mr Chua was responding to questions from MPs Dr Wan Rizal (PAP-Jalan Besar) and Darryl David (PAP-Ang Mo Kio) on measures to protect Singapore’s carded athletes from the misuse of drugs, and whether the Government or National Sports Associations (NSA) have programmes that regularly test national and elite athletes for recreational drug use and performance-enhancing drug use.

The Government established Anti-Doping Singapore (ADS) as the national anti-doping authority in Singapore in 2010.

"SportSG (Sport Singapore) works with ADS and the broader sporting fraternity to ensure that sport in Singapore is free of doping, and that our national athletes compete fairly and safely, and that they can be upheld as role models for Singapore and Singaporeans," said Mr Chua, who pointed out that ADS oversees a "robust" doping testing regime.

"ADS develops and regularly reviews a test distribution plan for athletes, with higher testing frequencies for athletes assessed to be at higher risk of doping. Several factors are considered in determining the risk level of doping, such as the athlete’s performance and type of sports," he said.

ADS’ testing regime covers both in-competition and out-of-competition tests.

The authority also relies on intelligence, such as whistleblowing sources, to identify and investigate allegations of drug abuse, including following up to conduct tests on alleged offenders, Mr Chua added.

Education is also a "key preventive measure" to discourage intentional or inadvertent doping, and this is done through various means such as the mandatory completion of modules on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s e-learning platform and ADS working with NSAs to plan, implement and monitor programmes for athletes, said Mr Chua.

"To prevent inadvertent doping, ADS provides the ‘Check Drugs’ function on its website to enable athletes and support personnel to check on the prohibited status of a particular drug or substance," he added.

"The database contains more than 9,000 medications registered in Singapore and is updated monthly. For medications not on the database, athletes can and should check with a sports physician, or with ADS directly."