Tampa Bay Rays minor-league second baseman Ryan Brett was suspended on Thursday after violating Major League Baseball's drug policy. In Major League Baseball's statement, it was reported that Brett tested positive for methamphetamine and an amphetamine, resulting in a 50 game suspension without pay, effective immediately. Brett disputes the methamphetamine portion of that report, and on Friday Northwest Sports, Brett's agency, released a statement:
According to his agent, Nik Lubisich, of Northwest Sports Management Group, Brett has asserted these test results could only be the result of a single incident in which the evening before this random drug test he took an energy pill that was described to him as caffeine-like, but which apparently turned out to be a common form of Attention-Deficit Disorder (ADD) medication, Adderall. This was an unintentional and unfortunate one-time event that has significantly impacted Brett, who is widely seen as one of Tampa Bay’s top young prospects.
Adderall is a prescription stimulant which contains an amphetamine and is also known to show a positive for methamphetamines on drug tests. Brett wanted to set the record straight after MLB’s statement was picked up by media outlets as insinuating that his test results must have been from recreational "meth" use, which he vehemently denies having ever done or even seen.
While ADD medications are on the MLB banned substance list, their intentional and legal use is not uncommon in MLB as roughly 8-10% of all MLB players, including 105 players during the 2010 season, were granted a "therapeutic use exception" to take ADD medication through a doctor’s prescription, which would still trigger the same test results as Brett was suspended for.
Regardless of the cause, Tampa Bay will be without a major prospect for some time.
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