Those who drug ignorant athletes should be put into jail, experts said as they called for amendments to the criminal law to give Chinese anti-doping cause a big boost.

Jiang Zhixue, the anti-doping head in Chinese State General Administration of Sport, said present regulations were not severe enough for those who set up or coax others into using banned substances.

"We are confined to punish them technically, giving them bans or fines but nothing more," said Jiang.

China issued several anti-doping regulations including Strict Prohibition of Using Banned Substances in Sports in 1998 and Anti-Doping Regulations by the State Council in 2004.

The Anti-Doping Regulations rules where physical injuries are caused to the athletes, civil liabilities for compensation shall be assumed in accordance with the laws; where the case is serious enough to constitute a crime, criminal liabilities shall be pursued in accordance with the laws.

"The regulations have certain connection with the criminal law but the criminal law doesn't have specific terms regarding this area," he said.

In 2006, a mass doping scandal was exposed in Anshan Sport School where coaches and school staff were found using drugs on teenage athletes.

The case sent a shock wave across the country and violators were banned or fined but no one ended up behind the bars.

Jiang said there were similar cases that proved the necessity to amend the law and echoed with former Winter Olympic champion Yang Yang.

Yang, now member of World Anti-Doping Agency athletes' commission, advised the amendments in the just-concluded third session of the National People's Congress.

Delegate Yang said criminal charges are hard to make because of the difficulty in deciding physical harm done to the drugged athletes while law enforcement department can not intervene in anti-doping investigations as there are no such laws to back them up.