As someone like Lance Mackey supports use of illegal drugs (not just for medical purposes), this is an even greater reason to not utilize the cruel Iditarod for teaching in any school system. We are sending our nation’s children the message that not only is animal abuse okay in the name of sport, but drug use as well!
The Iditarod plans to test mushers for drugs and alcohol in March, a change many mushers have no problem with — but one that three-time champion Lance Mackey scoffs at.
“I think it’s a little bit ridiculous,” Mackey said Wednesday night from his home near Fairbanks after a training run. “It is a dog race, not a human race. It (using a drug) doesn’t affect the outcome of the race.”
Mackey, a throat cancer survivor who has a medical marijuana card, admits to using marijuana on the trail and thinks his success has made some of his competitors jealous.
“It isn’t the reason I’ve won three years in a row,” said Mackey, though he concedes marijuana helps him stay awake and focused during the 1,100-mile race that takes winners nearly 10 days to complete.
Now Mackey will have to change his ways or risk disqualification. Drug testing will be a part of next year’s race, said Stan Hooley, executive director of the Iditarod Trail Committee, although officials hav en’t yet decided who will get tested or when or where.
“It might be random. It might be a group of mushers at a specific checkpoint,” he said.
Aaron Burmeister, a member of the Iditarod’s board of directors, said the Iditarod Official Finishers’ Club has requested for years that mushers be drug tested.
“It’s time,” said Burmeister, a 12-time finisher from Nenana.
The Iditarod has had a drug and alcohol policy since 1984, Hooley said. But he called it “fairly informal” and said to his knowledge mushers have never been tested. The Iditarod finally will enforce the rule for the 2010 race, he said.
Mackey says the issue of mushers smoking on the trail is irrelevant because it hasn’t affected anyone’s race.
Furthermore, he said, what he does in his time is his business.
“The Alaska lifestyle, you can do just about anything you want if you’re not bothering anybody,” he said. “You have a little more freedom in this state and smoking pot is kind of a common thing here in Alaska.”
Mackey doesn’t blame the Iditarod board for creating the new policy at the behest of the Finishers’ Club. Instead, he contends he is being targeted by other mushers jealous of his three straight Iditarod titles and the four Quest titles he won from 2005-08.
To see how mushers are reacting, check out the comments section for the Anchorage Daily News article. You might be surprised at what you read.
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