There are indications that some freedivers use Benzodiazepines to improve sports performance, which is not common in any other sports. In freediving, mental state is essential, and there is the belief that taking Benzodiazepines sets the freedivers in a particular mental mode, which could help to achieve better results. For somebody, the administration of benzodiazepines for freediving could be considered cheating, equivalent to the uptake of stimulants in other sports. On the other side, benzodiazepines have adverse side effects, could reduce sports performance, and have potentially severe impacts on CNS, with sudden death as a final consequence.
The misuse of Benzodiazepines is potentially against fair play and can be hazardous to the health of freedivers. As the governing body in freediving and thoroughly concerned with fair play in freediving, AIDA (International Association for the Development of Apnea) decided to carry out a project to determine if Benzodiazepines are present in freediving competitions. In case that benzodiazepines improve freediving performance, these substances should be proposed as doping substances, and they have to be placed into monitoring list and eventually into the prohibited substances list, too.