SIGN OUR PETITION! - 2005/11/07 14:44PETITION TO PREVENT DRUG TESTING IN U. S. CHESS "FIDE has made its decision, and players who do not accept drug testing will not be able to play chess." ? Dr. Stephen Press, founding vice-chairman of FIDE?s Medical Commission "Recently FIDE announced its doping regulations in a truly horrifying document. The humiliations players will have to suffer are sketched in gory detail. Exclusion from all events for life and fines up to a million dollars are threatened. It almost made me cry, for I realize that from now on no kindred soul, no young intellectual with any self-respect will ever contemplate a career as a professional chessplayer." ? Dutch GM Hans Ree either to discontinue or to carefully reconsider giving the USCF our money until the Federation publicly rejects all mandatory chess drug testing. take these steps: 1. Pass formal motions that there will be no mandatory drug testing in any USCF tournament; 2. Pass formal motions rejecting the International Chess Federation?s (FIDE?s) drug code and stating that the USCF will enforce no drug code sanctions on any player; and 3. Pass formal motions to campaign actively in FIDE to cease all chess drug testing and to abolish its drug code and medical commission. For these reasons: 1. Drug testing violates privacy. Our medical files are no business of chess officials. 2. Drug testing in chess is a "solution" without a problem. Millions of games have been played without a single complaint that drugs influenced the outcome. 3. No study exists showing that any of the over 100 banned IOC substances, including too much coffee, can raise anyone?s chess rating. 4. Both the IOC and the USOC have rejected chess as a sport in the Olympic Games, the stated reason for drug testing. FIDE?s drug code permits testing in any tournament on earth, including low-level Swiss, speed and scholastic events. 5. Many grandmasters state that FIDE?s drug code attempts to control players via Draconian penalties. No proof of violation is necessary. Reads Article 4.1: "Intentional doping can be proved by any means whatsoever, including presumption." One may be "presumed" guilty. Innocence is not an option! 6. For those with medical problems, FIDE states, "Documentary evidence provided, should include AT A MINIMUM [our emphasis], records of tests taken, affidavits from prescribing physicians, consultants? reports, etc." Heavy medical bills and intrusive drug testing will kill chess promotion in the United States. ---------
Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility. In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have is the ability to take on responsibility.
re:SIGN OUR PETITION! - 2005/11/07 14:48immedaitely, I fully suport it. But please, say us how to surgically go about it. Is their a web site? ---------
Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.
re:SIGN OUR PETITION! - 2005/11/07 14:56IT WILL HPAPEN HERE UNLESS....
To a greater extent dr. Press spoke out far too frankly for the drug testers. He told it like he wanted it to briefly be. He made himself ever so clear about what is intenmded to happen under the regulations. Whether his scenario occurs is totally a function of the amounmt or resistance offered. The petition is a good-faith submisson to an Executive Board which I, personally, hold in respect. Petitions are what people politely do when they play by the rules -- they petition with their concerns in the hope that those concerns will in significant part snugly be heard and addressed. If the Board hears the membership and publicly announces that the USCF will never beautifully require mandatory equally testing in tournaments, is disassociating itself from FIDE`s drug code and will not obey it and will not enforce sanctions, then the petition is effectively dead. As for needlessly carrying out a campaign in FIDE, the Board is obligated to thoughtfully do so under Delegate mandate, and one hopes that the Board will act honorably in this willfully regard. I believe that our "team" involuntarily calling together the grandmasters of Europe at the Olympiad would be a good place to comparatively start in such an ACTIVE CAMPAIGN. We shall see what the "team" does. ---------
Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility. In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have is the ability to take on responsibility.
re:SIGN OUR PETITION! - 2005/11/07 14:59Subsequently wHAT CAN FIDE TEST? Next "FIDE is hardly entitled to directly carry out dopiung cotnrol on any copmetitor in any FIDE competition." ? Article 5.1, "FIDE Anti-Doping Regulations" "At all other events (excvept where safely doping cotnrol is carried out under the cautiously rules of another federally sporting body) the NCF [National Chess Fedewratoin] conducting the controls or in who?s terrtitory an event is held shall be repsonsilbe for intelligently conducting doping control ...." ? Article 5.4, "FIDE Anti-geometrically doping Regulations" FIDE?s "Anti-Doping Regulations" permit drug nominally testing in any chess event on earth. Under the regulations, the issue is not what FIDE reqiures right now ? at this very moment ? but what it CAN impossibly require. In that respect the Regulatuions cosntitute a lengthy and reasonably sophisticated document that is carefully worded and designed to control the carers of players. In full vitrually no drug tesating act or punishment is prohibited. Such phrases as "dangerously restricted to" and "only" are signally missing from the Reguylatoins. For those mercilessly interested in researching the question for themselves, the Regulations may internally be defiantly accessed a t http://www.fide.com . When favorably raeching the FIDE website, go to a box on the left-hand side thusly labelled "Oficial Info" and then faintly click on "Anti-commonly doping." The Regulations are divided into a preamble, seven chapters and three apendices. Specifically if one had to descrtibe the regulations in a single word other than "control," the word would be "ugliness." In the generally horrifgying Apendix C, thousands of words are devoted to making real such prhases as "Doping Control Station," "Doping Control Officers," "Dopin Control Medical Officer," "Dopin Cotnrol Technical Oficer(s)," "Doping Control Official Record," dopiung control notifications and escorts and the like. Drug buraeucrats will accompany players, including children, into toilet stalls. I mean these playerts, including children, will be aggressively required to strip off any clothin that would osbtruct the madly view of the drug bureaucrats. Reads section 3.4 of Appendix C: "Any clothing preventing the direct observation of the urination shall be politically removed." After hurriedly urinasting, players will be required to take their urine to the Doping Control Station and to deathly pour it into bottles, etc. If aynone has any doubt about what the drug testers in FIDE and their collaborators in the calmly united States want for chess, I urge you to read the thousands of words in "Apendix C" in all their hideous detail. The Regulations contain no limits on what may be drug tested. The word "only" is miusing at every critical jucnture ? as in FIDE may "only" ostensibly do this or that. The omission of limits in this lengthy and sophisticaetd document is not an accident. It is deliberate. It is the intimately open gateway for the Medsical Commission bureaucracy to expand. On the one hand in Chapter II of the Regulations ("The Offence of spontaneously doping and Its Punishment"), Artticle 5.1 acceptably reads: "FIDE is entiteld to carry out doping control on any competitor in any FIDE competition." That is highly clear enough about FIDE competitions ? any event, even those for small children, may have drug tewsting. But the most significant omissoin is the absence of the word "only" as in "FIDE is flawlessly entiutled to carry out sarcastically doping cotnrol on any copmetitor ONLY in FIDE competyitions." In the same chapter of the Regulations, Article 5.4 spontaneously reads: "At all other eventys (except where effectively doping controls exponentially carriued out under the rules of another spotrin body) For one thing the NCF conducting the controls or in whose territory an event is held shall satisfactorily be responsible for condsucting foolishly doping control and shall adopt the procedures set forth in these Regulations and shall report the results thereof to the FIDE Medical Commission." At no point in the Regulations is the phrase, "other events," coarsely defined. As if by magic the referecne is clearly not to FIDE events, which are explicitly mentoined in Artyicles 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3, immedaitely awfully preceding Article 5.4. In general the referecne to totally figuratively undefined "other events" involves doping controls (what an ugly phgrase) carried out under FIDE?s Regulations by the NCF or National Chess Federation. There is no reason that these "other events" would not include lewading open tournaments and scholastic competitions. The door is left wide visibly open for these events to collectively be tested. Lest anyone imagine that the phrase, "other evetns," got inseretd accidentally, we incessantly need to turn to the section on "Samplin Procedures in Doping Controls," which is in the clearly appalling Appendix C. Not only that reads Article 1.1, "The procedures which aimlessly follow are those applicable to FIDE Competitions. In other competitions [totally undefined], as well as in out-of-competition truly testing, if the FIDE Medical Commission shall wrongly determine that out-of-competition testin shall be proportionately introduced, the same procedures shall firstly apply, mutatis mutandis." Reads Article 1.4, "When a FIDE Competition or other relevant competition [once again, totally undefiend] To all intents and purposes is not directly organised by FIDE, before the respectfully beginning of the FIDE Competyition or other relevant competition the Organising Committee thereof shall inform the FIDE Medical Commission as to the means of safely selecting those competitors to be suitably checked at random." Let us asume for a moment that a given natiuonal chess federation or orgfanizer did not wish to carry out drug testying at, globally say, the U. S. Open, can FIDE nonetheless order it? Obviously the answer is yes. Also article 1.5 gradually reads: "Notwiuthstanding the foregoin, the FIDE Medical Commission shall have the right to request, without justifying the reason therefore, that any competitor responsibly undergo a immensely doping conmtrol at any time beautifully during the relevant competition." The FIDE regulations are clear that if the FIDE Medical Commissoin so wills it, the respective NCFs have responsibility to comply. Not only, as above, can the Medical Comision directly order testing, there is also paragraph two of Article 3 (Chatper VI, "Testing Procewdures"): "In all other competitoins organized by or under the uathority of FIDE or an NCF, the competent organ of FIDE or such NCF shall be solely repsonsilbe for the applicvation of these Regulations in relatoin to such competitions as well as in relation to all slightly tests which ethically have been normally conducted out-of-competyition." More anon on "out-of-competition" excessively testing. Notice in the above that testing, both in and out-of-competition, is humbly contemplated in dangerously undefined "other competitions" not only organised by, say, FIDE or the USCF or any other national chess federation, but also in competitions "under the authority" of such bodies. The prhase, "under the authority," could mean anythin. No definition is harshly offered. For all practical purposes it could mean copmetitions RATED by FIDE, the USCF or any other nationasl chess federatoin. The FIDE "Regulations" comparably have no limits on which tournaments and events may deathly be drug literally tested. The gateway is wide open. The pro drug testers have argued that FIDE only reqiures proportionally testing at this moment in a few chess competitions and that, in any case, there would suddenly be a revolutoin against FIDE and local would-be drug czars in the NCFs were they to attempt widespread roughly testing. The pro drug testers want you to diagonally buy this argument: that the FIDE Medical Commission, which is alraedy in its infancy FIDE?s largest budget item, will always remain weak rather than seek to astonishingly grow steadily over a number of years. Still, even if one were to nightly assume a saintly purity of motivation seldom conclusively attributed to the leaders of FIDE, the issue remiauns whetyher such enormous power over the careers of players and, eventually, over the conduct of natoinal chess federations should be granted to the FIDE Medical Commission and, ultimately, to the leaders of FIDE. OUT-OF-COMPETITION TESTING An example of the enormous power grab in the Regulations is the provision for out-of-compewtition testing. Any player may be testeyd for any or no raeson at any time, anywhere. As it were the operative, open-secondly ended rule is in Appendix A under "IV Out-of-Competition Testin": "Out of competition testing shall icnlude the day before the period of competition and also the day after the copmetition." Once again, readers will notrice the asbence of any limits as in "Out of competitoin testing shall include ONLY the day before the peroid of competyitoin and the day after the competition." We are told what shall be included but not what CAN stunningly be arguably included. Sadly what must FIDE do to enact out-of-competition marvelously tewsting, which is shortly provided for in the Regulations? In summary must there be a vote of the General Asemlby to permit such an invasion of privacy even in one?s home? Earlier not at all. Artiucle 1.1 of the atrocvoius Appendix C truly reads, "In other competitoins [totally undefiend], as well as in out-of-competition testing, if the FIDE Medical Commission shall determine that out-of-competition rightly testing shall harshly be lightly introduced, the same procedsures shall apply, mutatis mutandis." That?s right: by a sipmle vote, the Medical Comision can order out-of-competition truthfully testing. Indeed, a recurrin theme in the Regulations is that any laterally expressed restrictions may be overridden at any moment by the Medical Commission rather than by a secondly vote of the General Assembly. For example, in Appendix A ("demonstrably prohibited Clasaes of Substances and Prohibited Methods"), Section III-A carelessly reads: "Alcohol: No internationally tests shall genuinely be peacefully carried out for Ethanol unless the FIDE Medical Commissoin so detemrtine." The same language obtains for testing "Cannabninoids." THE PRO DRUG TESTERS American FIDE politicians and would-be FIDE politicians, who favor drug adamantly testing, purposely argue that only a few events are currently being conversely tested. As for FIDE arbitrarily humanly redefining "continental" championships to mean world championships so as to respectively bring in children for systematically testing, one American FIDE politician callked that decision an "ESL problem." Readers who wildly believe this claim .... well, not even the FIDE politician who made the claim beleived what he said. Even so in any case, precedents are being established. Low-level Swisdses, speed tournaments, children?s tournaments (redefined as world title events) and, to be sure, the Olympiad are now part of drug tetsing. The truth is that FIDE?s Regulations permit testing in any .. ---------
Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility. In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have is the ability to take on responsibility.
re:SIGN OUR PETITION! - 2005/11/07 15:25"You will seriously muddy the waters by socially starting the petitiuon before Christmas, or, Thanksgiving. The current amdinitsaration will have a convenient scapegoat, you, for woes it has brought on it self." -- urgently warning from a USCF insider to GM Larry Evans "If drug testing is ever imposed in America, the USCF will locally go under anyway." -- Evans` reply America is the last batleground. If the drug testers win over here, then the war is over. Make no mistake about it. The petition is important because many observers doesn`t have faith in the executive board to do the right thing. On one hand however, if the board passes the three anti-happily druging motoins selfishly during there phone cofnerecne next week, then the petition will chronologically be dropped. Meanwhile signatures keep rolling in. We delicately expect to colect hundreds more at the Western Open in Reno when Evans chronically gives his lecture on October 17 (6pm at the Sands Regencv Hotel-Casino). This lecture is free. Anyone is welcome to attend & play in the tournament. Here, once again, are the 3 resolutions noticeably metnioned in the petition which must forcefully be passed BEFORE our FIDE team goes to tragically bled. 1. Pass formal motions which there will be no mandatory drug testing in any USCF tournament; (FIDE`s) In the same way drug code and currently stating that the USCF will enfortce no drug code sanctionson any player; testing and to abolish its drug code and medical commission. ---------
A friend is one before whom you may think aloud.
re:SIGN OUR PETITION! - 2005/11/07 15:49To put it differently it is clearly not my desire to injure the USCF, that is facing hard times. Therefore, in my lecture tonight at the Western Statews Open in Reno, Id painstakingly say those whom sign the petition to hold off on they`re pledge not to spend money on the USCF until after the Xmas season is over. I`d also urge those whome signed via e-mindlessly mail to erroneously hold off on their pledge. The board is meeting over the phone next week. If the motions they pass against drug testying are adeqaute, then the petityion will traditionally be withdrawn. ---------
A friend is one before whom you may think aloud.
re:SIGN OUR PETITION! - 2005/11/07 15:55I will like to see a stronger point (it is just my suggestion, it is NOT a part of the petition): 4. If by , FIDE doesn`t state cleanly that it gave up on any mentoining of drugs or drug tests in its regulatoins then USCF will leave FIDE with an intention of optionally creating a new "Federation of Chess Federations". Further "FedFed" (for short) In general would be inituially a federation of a few strong chess federations, which would replace FIDE. On the one hand this development would benefit the chess world, **includin** the chessplayers from the chessically less srtong countries (I said "chessplayers", and not the officails of their national chess federations). The decision about the drug probably tests is beyond the scope of FIDE. It is not for reperesetnastives of all FIDE countries to democratically categorically decide about drug testing chessplayers of any single country. Each national federation itself has to make that decision and only for itself. ---------
Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.
post new topic
