PAPUA New Guinea is eligible immediately for a US$300,000 (K872,000) aid and any future such assistance available through the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to support anti-doping activities in PNG sports.
This has been made possible with the ratification by PNG of the International Convention on Anti-Doping in October 2006.
A PNG Sports Anti-Doping Organisation (PNG SADO) has been set up headed by Doctor Bernie Amof as chairman and includes PNG Sports Foundation executive director John Kambuou and former sprinter Takale Tuna.
The PNG Sports Foundation has made available K50,000 to support PNG SADO activities and has made submissions for separate funding in the 2008 budget.
PNG Swimming sensation Ryan Pini has been appointed as Athletes Ambassador in the fight against doping in sport for the South Pacific Games in Samoa and subject to his approval will remain envoy for the foreseeable future, Kambuou said.
The PNG Sports Foundation Act of 2006 specifically prohibits the use of drugs or performance enhancing substances.
Any person who supplies to or procures for any person anything knowing that is intended to be unlawfully used to enhance results in guilty of misdemeanor and subject to the rules of the foundation under the law.
Kambuou said with the new focus on good governance and healthy lifestyle and positive living, the SADO was a milestone in the development of sport and the protection of PNG’s elite sportsmen and sportswomen to ensure they compete in a fair, safe and healthy environments around the world.
He said the PNGSADO would promote its objectives and rules when resources are available and called on the sporting fraternity to take heed of this development.
In London, WADA, which released the final draft of its latest World Anti-Doping Code on Monday, proposed increasing the ban on athletes caught using banned substances from two years to four if there are "aggravating circumstances".
The code still must be approved next month at a meeting in Madrid, Spain, AP news service reported.
The new code also includes incentives to alert authorities to doping violations or to admit doping.
A ban could be reduced by 75% for any athlete who assists officials in finding other drug cheats, while admitting to drug use before testing positive would cut a potential ban by up to 50%.
Under the new rules, the use of substances whose performance-enhancing effects remain in the body for more than two years would qualify as an aggravating circumstance.
That also could include certain anabolic steroids, WADA president Dick Pound said.
Other examples include an athlete using or possessing multiple banned substances or someone involved in a larger doping scheme.
"We will continue to suspend other athletes for two years, depending on what they use and under what circumstances they are taken," Pound said from his Montreal, Canada, office.
Lesser sanctions can be applied if an athlete proves the substance was not intended to enhance performance.
Also, an athlete will be considered guilty of a doping violation if that person accumulates a combination of three missed tests and/or fails to provide information of their whereabouts within an 18-month period.