The agent for suspended Tampa Bay Rays prospect Ryan Brett issued this statement yesterday, and I thought it should be pointed out, given the speculation about what happened with this and the message from the Commissioner's Office that said he had tested positive for methamphetamine use.
Ryan Brett, a top minor league prospect with the Tampa Bay Rays, who yesterday was suspended 50 games by MLB after a drug test showed he tested positive for methamphetamine and an amphetamine, has indicated the test results were the result of a single occurrence of taking an energy pill, which he thought was caffeine.
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.
Loading comments...