DESPITE scottishathletics announcing commendable steps this week on anti-doping, it is disappointing that these do not go further.

The governing body has resolved that in future any athlete suspended for two years or more for drug abuse will be ineligible to hold a Scottish record, and would forfeit any already held.

However, this fails to address several Scottish records, most notably but by no means exclusively, the 400m time of David Jenkins (44.92). Jenkins served less than 11 months of a seven-year sentence for trafficking some $100m worth of anabolic steroids. He confessed to using performance-enhancing drugs himself, but the former Edinburgh Academy schoolboy – just 19 when he won the European title in Helsinki – insists he did not start using until 1975. If one can believe him.

His 400m record, when winning the 1975 US title, remained the UK best for a decade. If expunged, the Scottish mark would revert to Brian Whittle, with 45.22.

National indoor record-holder since 1988, Whittle said yesterday: "I loved my sport and my time in it, but I was cheated of a lot, possibly even an Olympic relay medal. I've been retired 20 years, but these things eat away at you. The doping spectre still haunts me. You can't get it out of your head.

"If they decided to strip Jenkins of the record – which is probably the right thing to do – it would still rankle with me that I did not prove it could be done clean. One of my biggest regrets is not beating it, because it's tainted. Whether or not he was using steroids when he set it, a drugs cheat should not be on that record roster."

Whittle twice won European outdoor relay gold [once wearing one shoe] and twice won European indoor individual silver when the state-sponsored East German doping regime was at its peak. He is now director of two digital media companies, and a prospective Conservative MSP candidate in the forthcoming elections.

Jamie Bowie, who has topped the Scottish one-lap rankings for the past five years [fourth all-time at 46.06], believes the governing body should address historical records, and not just future ones. "Whether the doping penalty is a two-year or four-year ban, I believe they should wipe out all previous records and performances as part of the punishment."

An athletics development officer in East Lothian, attempting to encourage people into the sport, he finds ambivalent attitudes "frustrating". He competes in the Scottish indoor championships at the Emirates today, where testing is a possibility.

It is more than 25 years since we first raised how inappropriate it was to have Jenkins's record out there, taunting and tempting future generations. The Scottish governing body of the day feared potential legal implications.

Ian Beattie, scottishathletics' chairman, acknowledges these still persist: "We need to show some leadership. There's agreement on the principle and I want to push this. We don't have the answers yet, but want to find a way. The key is getting a framework, an absolutely robust process, that everyone accepts. That's difficult, particularly if there has been no positive doping test."

That would apply in the case of the current Scottish 4x100m record, set by the gold-medal Scottish squad at the 1978 Commonwealth Games. Jenkins and Drew McMaster both subsequently admitted to doping, but never failed a test. In rejecting removal of the relay record, officials claimed they would have been drug-tested at the time. However Cameron Sharp, another of that quartet, said no tests were conducted after the race which was won in a then UK record.

In a climate of writing out all cheats' performances, all-comers' bests like the 100m marks once held by Ben Johnson and Linford Christie might have been struck out, along with Canada's 4x100m Commonwealth gold medal performance in 1986. Jason Livingston held the Scottish indoor all-comers' record at 60m, and Christie, second fastest one hundredth behind him at 6.52, would have been ineligible for promotion. It is impossible now to say who was denied their place in history.

All-comers' bests by sprinter Merlene Ottey and hurdler Lyudmila Nazorilenko would be candidates for deletion. So would Scottish under-20 marks at 200 and 400m by Jenkins and under-17 and under-20 shot putt bests by Jamie Stevenson. Since returning after a two-year ban, Stevenson has never been within a metre of what he achieved seven years ago as a 19-year-old when he denied Giffnock's Daniel Carlin the senior title.

Rewriting record books, reallocating medals, and deleting career records of cheats seems desirable to me. It would send the appropriate message, but the process is a minefield. Those with long memories will recall that the British governing body went bankrupt fighting a doping case when they proved to be in the wrong over Diane Modhal.