Shawn Barber got dinged with cocaine use, had hooker testify at his hearing

Robert Downey, Jr. wrote:

This. Very similar situations, with very different results. She admitted to the infraction, and was handed a very harsh penalty. He, on the other hand, just made an example of how much a lie can get you off.

She, had no money. He, is a world champion.........

Also Canadian vs. US system. I'm sure Canada was happy that one of its small number of potential medal winners was eligible to compete in Rio despite a positive drug test at the Canadian trials.

rojo wrote:

2) Does it seem a little suspicious to anyone that he was worried about having someone who is drug free?

Why if you are trying to have sex with a random stranger would you care if she is drug free. Presumably, you are going to wear protection so why would you care if she was on drugs? Particularly since he said he didn't know you can get cocaine from kissing someone.

No. It is just part of the parlance of the sex industry/online hook-ups. People request "disease and drug free" meaning they just want someone "clean" - essentially they don't want sex with someone who looks like a crack addict. The irony being that they are trusting somebody who shows up for anonymous sex (for money) to be forthright about these things.

Secondarily there is some notional concern about consent - but it's primarily asking for a "clean" girl.

(A friend of mine works vice - the stories she tells are pretty awful).

no disease wrote:

Secondarily there is some notional concern about consent.

How much can someone really consent after they drink a fifth of vodka and snort cocaine? And with the guy who arranged the encounter still in the room?

hell of a drug... wrote:

no disease wrote:

Secondarily there is some notional concern about consent.

How much can someone really consent after they drink a fifth of vodka and snort cocaine? And with the guy who arranged the encounter still in the room?

Vodka was after the romp.

What is relevant is not the amount of cocaine in the system but the reason it got in there. McPherson I believed admitted to taking cocaine. Barber says it came from this casual encounter and rulings in the past have said that athletes can be found not liable if they are not responsible for the substance being in the system.

Having said that is the amount of cocaine in Shawn's system consistent with just kissing someone with it? I don't think I saw that discussed.

This part of his defense was comical:

He started having sex with someone he met 5 minutes earlier. I wouldn't call that assessing her character.

I'd also like to know how he got the 2 to testify. Did he pay them to testify? I don't think most hookers are voluntarily going to go to a doping hearing. Did he present evidence that this thing actually occurred or did the doping authorities just assume it has to be true because who wants to admit getting sex off of craigslist casual encounters section.

This whole thing also shows that once an athlete has an "A" and "B" sample positive it should be announced. I think "A" sample positives should be announced to show transparency.

polevaultpower wrote:

"W" in this story is clearly a woman with a drug problem being pimped out by her "boyfriend", and possibly a human trafficking victim. Did she get any help at any point from anyone?

I'll guess from Mr. Barber's attorney after giving a statement and only after giving a statement. What that "help" consisted of I'll leave to the imagination of each of us.

Cocaine is only banned in-competition. McPherson took it several days before. She didn't know it would stay in the system so long. She made a stupid choice, but she wasn't per se violating a doping rule at the time she did it, she was not trying to enhance her performance, and the amount in her system was not enough to be performance enhancing.

There is a bunch about it in the ruling, here. I haven't looked at it closely but apparently there was a very similar case in the past that CAS ruled on:

Yeah and his "assessment" was based primarily on what her pimp said.

That's a great question...

I think it shows that the threshold for a cocaine positive is ridiculously low. The drug is only banned in-competition. The level for a positive should be something approaching performance enhancing, not trace amounts that you can get from kissing a hooker or partying days before.

rojo wrote:

A few thoughts.

1) I think calling her a hooker is incorrect as Barber claims no money exchanged hands.

2) Does it seem a little suspicious to anyone that he was worried about having someone who is drug free?

Why if you are trying to have sex with a random stranger would you care if she is drug free. Presumably, you are going to wear protection so why would you care if she was on drugs? Particularly since he said he didn't know you can get cocaine from kissing someone.

3) Is it common knowledge that you can get cocaine from kissing someone?

Kissing, I doubt it. The acid in salvia and in the stomach would severely degrade whatever drug is in the female's body.

I would not call this common knowledge, but it is theoretically possible for a woman to be introduced to a PED by having sex with a male PED user. This is no different than the way STDs are introduced into the body. However, since WADA has thresholds, I would assume the male would have to be a heavy PED user and the female would have to sleep with him several times just before being tested. Also, it is much more possible for a male to be introduced to PED by engaging in anal sex with male PED user.

It is very reasonable to suspect Barber had been snorting cocaine; however, from everything I know, cocaine is not a PED in a practical sense. Chances are Barber is not a regular cocaine user and was not trying to use it as PED, he probably did a little coke at some point recreationally.

What does "drug-free" mean? Is vodka (especially in such amounts) not a "drug" for some reason?

Gasquet precedent:

http://www.itftennis.com/media/132761/132761.pdf

It says that cocaine metabolites can be detected for 4 months.

This is a total joke. No money was exchanged? Hahaha. He assessed her character? Hahaha He got cocaine in his system from kissing her? Hahahaha. The new defense for these types of positives is clearly to come up with the most embarrassing story so that investigators believe you. We can thank LaShawn Merritt for this kind of defense.

She was described as a mother of two. He thought a mother would be “more cautious, reserved”.

IMO this is poor logic. Any mother (of two) on the craig's scene is more probably on the other side of the mean under "cautious and reserved", even it this hook-up was a "one-time situation" (did the Resolution Centre at all consider whether she was a trustworthy witness?!). But then again, it was also "the first time that he’d done such a thing", so maybe he can chalk this up to inexperience.

I feel like none of u read the ruling.

Basically, the Canadian rules say if the doping violation was inadvertent, subject to a bunch if qualifications, then the ban doesn't stand.

The science also shows that he could test positive for the amount that he did by kissing someone with cocaine in her mouth.

So all he had to do was prove he took precautions not to Injest banned substances - which he did by saying he had no reason to believe the woman has recently been doing coke.

Strip away all the other sordid details and imagine u r at a party where u eat and drink nothing all night. U make out with a girl on the dance floor for a few minutes and then test positive. Should that result Ina four year ban?

Meets a woman on CL

Woman shows up with her husband

No money is exchanged

They have sex and she's gone in 30 mins.

This is believable?

I'm more apt to believe Barber used cocaine a week prior and, after the fact, his attorney went out and found a hooker and her pimp to provide the story.

At the hearing, the CCES stated that it did not oppose the scientific

evidence presented by the Athlete and that it accepted the likely source of the

presence of cocaine in his system was the kissing that occurred during his sexual encounter with W on the evening of July 8, 2016.

Well, there you go. Who knows if the amount was compatible with kissing, the CCES simply "did not oppose" such assertions.

Plus they probably don't want them to OD and die in their hotel room.

half-life wrote:

Gasquet precedent:

http://www.itftennis.com/media/132761/132761.pdf

It says that cocaine metabolites can be detected for 4 months.

That's for ingestion, done by testing hair samples (2.20). They also gave the hair test to the woman (she tested (+) positive).

Do the Canadians not know about this test?

In any event, no scientific evidence one way or the other about kissing was considered by CAS, as this hair test was already thought sufficient to tip the balance of probabilities on the matter.

I'm dying with laughter at the naive people who think she wasn't a hooker.

Arranging for random one-night stands with unknown women with an unknown drug history may be acceptable to others – but it is not necessarily acceptable for athletes subject to the CADP.