Reigning Commonwealth boxing champion Jermaine ?Choo Choo? Mackey, a tough-kid-turned-super-hero, today threw his weight behind a proposed anti-doping bill designed to keep athletes performing in The Bahamas drug-free or force them to face the consequences.

?Drug use in sports is dishonest and I applaud the government?s efforts to bring it out in the open and create laws to deal with it because it is a growing problem that comes back to haunt the athlete as well as the country where they are performing,? said Mackey, the super middle weight champ who holds the 52-nation title.

Performance-enhancing drugs can ruin an athlete?s future, said the fighter, offering to throw his support into the ring to help drum up support for the bill introduced in the House of Assembly last week by Minister of State for Sports Desmond Bannister.
?Athletes sometimes think it (drugs) gives them the upper hand but it really gives the other athlete the upper hand,? said Mackey. ?After all their hard work, they get caught or even if they don?t, it hurts them, and then they are robbed of their full potential.?

Mackey ? who faces a challenge to his title this October when Charles Adumu from Ghana meets him at the Kendal Isaacs National Gymnasium in front of a crowd expected to be in the thousands ? said he is discouraged by what he believes is an increasing reliance on performance-enhancing drugs and doesn?t want that trend to mushroom in The Bahamas.
?Participation in sports builds character and healthy citizens,? said Mackey who grew up in a rough, tough Kemp Road neighbourhood and now stands as its leading role model. ?For a country the size of our The Bahamas to have produced so many outstanding athletes is amazing and many of those athletes have helped produce a wealth of outstanding citizens of extraordinary character. We have to protect that so I am fully behind the government making tough laws and enforcing them to keep the world of athletes apart from the world of drugs. And I tell all my friends and people I know in sports, I urge you athletes to stay drug free.?