Doping Enforcement Run Amuck (re: Pettachi suspension)

This is a letter to the editor on VeloNews.com, and I'm in full agreement with this guy.  If they agree that it was legitimately for his asthma and a simple mistake, why still suspend him?  If they want to argue it gave him a performance enhancement that day, fine, strip him of that result, but to suspend him is just silly.  It appears to be done for no other reason than to appear tough.

-Ryan

Inhaler abuse?
Editor,
re: Allesandro Petacchi's suspension
As a cyclist with asthma I really can’t understand the CAS’s ruling: Petacchi is declared to be not guilty but he’s suspended anyway … Hunh?

If I can’t breathe after (or during) a hard ride, I’m going to hit that inhaler until I can breathe again. I like breathing, I assume Petacchi does too.

It is a shame that an inhaler has the capacity to increase performance and could potentially be used for cheating but have they studied how long that increase in performance persists?
Minutes? Hours? Days? (that would really surprise me).
If Petacchi took a few too many hits off of his inhaler so he could breathe and they agree that it was "unintentional," then strip him of that one day's results or the number of results that may have been affected by the medication for the duration of time in which an elevated amount has been found to increase performance not just the arbitrary yet conflicted sympathetic ruling of one year.

This really just seems to reinforce the impression that the anti-doping forces are more interested in looking like they are doing something by punishing people rather than using the information to establish better testing and appropriate penalties.
Al Parker,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania