Florida’s racing greyhounds are more or less clear to do as much cocaine as they want, after a court ruled that the state’s drug testing procedures were unlawful.
Late last week, Administrative Law Judge Lawrence P. Stevenson issued a ruling upholding a challenge brought by two dog trainers whose licenses were suspended by the state’s Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering for allegedly supplying dogs with banned stimulants.
The two trainers, Charles McClellan and Natasha Nemeth, were suspended after dogs under their care at an Orange Park racetrack tested positive for cocaine 24 times in a two-year period. They challenged their suspension based on their argument that state regulators had never formally authorized the drug testing rules.
In 2015, a different judge ruled that the state’s 2010 procedures manual’s references to drug testing hadn’t been formally adopted. Regulators copped to the error but claimed that they were no longer circulating the manual to their staff.
However, Judge Stevenson noted that the state’s current protocols and procedures for testing greyhounds’ urine were “substantially similar, if not identical, to those set forth in the 2010 manual.” Furthermore, Stevenson noted that regulators “frankly stipulated” that its staff were still following the manual’s procedures despite the 2015 ruling.
As a result of these admissions, Stevenson said any regulatory action taken on the basis of that section in the 2010 manual was “invalid” and thus the suspensions of the two trainers was improper.
Animal rights advocates were quick to decry Stevenson’s ruling, saying it effectively created an environment in which regulators had no authority to screen dogs for any banned substances. So until regulators come up with a proper fix, you might expect to see some unusually fast animals at the track. And if your form contains any mutts named after Breaking Bad or Scarface characters, bet the freaking farm.
Last month, a Florida legislator floated a draft bill that would have allowed racing dogs to test positive for any number of banned substances, provided the amounts in their system weren’t “in excess of environmental contaminate levels.” The bill was predicted to go nowhere, but after last week’s ruling, who knows?
