SAN FRANCISCO -- USA Track & Field proposed tougher drug rules Wednesday that could include lifetime bans for first steroid offenses and fines up to $100,000 for athletes, acknowledging it has not done enough to curb drug use.

The plan was unveiled as Dwain Chambers, Europe's fastest man, became the first athlete to admit testing positive for a newly discovered designer steroid, and USATF chief executive officer Craig Masback announced that four of its athletes also tested positive for the drug.

	“	The situation in which we find ourselves is not a track and field problem or a baseball problem, but an American problem. ”
		— Craig Masback, CEO of USATF

The previously undetectable steroid is at the center of a potentially colossal scandal involving chemists, athletes and coaches. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency says several athletes used the drug and that it's believed to have come from a laboratory that supplies some of the nation's top sports stars with nutritional supplements.

Masback said the USATF's proposal is "twinned with an admission on our part that we have not done everything we could have done in the past."

Just days ago, the U.S. Olympic Committee gave the national track governing body a month to deal with doping and athlete conduct issues -- or face possible decertification.

The USATF hopes to adopt the new anti-doping policy at its annual meeting Dec. 4-8 in Greensboro, N.C., after determining if it can legally implement the increased penalties under the Amateur Sports Act. Current USATF rules call for a two-year ban for a first steroid offense.

Masback said the proposed changes would not be retroactive, which means athletes who tested positive this summer for tetrahydrogestrinone, or THG, would not face a possible lifetime ban.

The plan also proposes fines of up to $10,000 for stimulant use and up to $100,000 for drugs such as steroids or amphetamines. Coaches could face bans and fines of up to $100,000 if their athletes flunk drug tests.

The USOC called the plan "an excellent first step" and said it had appointed a four-person panel to work with the USATF.

"This is a problem that must be addressed, and it must be addressed now," Jim Scherr, the USOC's acting CEO, said in a statement. "The integrity and credibility of track and field in America is at stake."

Masback sent a letter Wednesday to the leaders of major U.S. sports leagues, asking them to join him in Washington in the next two weeks for a meeting about the problem of drugs in sports.

"The situation in which we find ourselves is not a track and field problem or a baseball problem, but an American problem," Masback said in a conference call from USATF headquarters in Indianapolis.

The International Association of Athletics Federations, track's world governing body, welcomed the USATF proposal and said there is nothing in IAAF rules to block the U.S. body from imposing lifetime bans.

The four U.S. athletes who tested positive for THG this summer at the U.S. track and field championships at Stanford, Calif., could be barred from the 2004 Olympics. Despite that, hurdler Allen Johnson said the U.S. team will not suffer.

"We have enough clean athletes to perform as well as we ever have. We have enough clean athletes to win gold medals," Johnson, a four-time world champion, said during the USATF conference call. "I think the image now is going to be that the cheaters are not there."

The IAAF plans to retest about 400 urine samples from the World Championships in August and says any positive findings would lead to retroactive punishments.

On Wednesday, swimming's world governing body, FINA, said it would consider retesting drug samples from its world championships this summer.

The NFL has said the league might retest its samples for THG. Major League Baseball has said it will be unable to retest samples taken this year for THG, but plans to discuss whether to add it to the list of banned substances.

Chambers, the British 100-meter champion, said he tested positive for THG in an out-of-competition test in August. If found guilty of doping, Chambers would face a two-year ban. Britain could also lose the 400-meter relay silver medal from the world meet in August because Chambers ran the final leg.

Chambers denied trying to cheat and blamed his positive test on nutritional supplements provided by Burlingame, Calif.-based Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO. He said through an attorney that he had been assured by BALCO founder Victor Conte that all the supplements he was given were within international rules.

One of Chambers' training partners is Kelli White, whose two sprinting medals from this summer's world meet are at risk because of her positive test for the stimulant modafinil. She says she took modafinil for the sleep disorder narcolepsy.

USADA detected THG after testing a substance in a syringe provided by an unidentified coach who said it came from Conte. Conte has denied being the source.

Meanwhile, dozens of top Olympic and professional athletes -- from baseball's Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi to boxer Shane Mosley -- have been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury probing BALCO. Being subpoenaed does not imply wrongdoing.

BALCO was raided by the Internal Revenue Service and local drug agents in September. Conte's attorney has confirmed his client is the target of the grand jury probe. The scope of the investigation is unclear, and federal officials have refused to comment.

Gene Orza, the associate general counsel for Major League Baseball's Players' Association, said that if the government decides the new designer steroid THG is a "regulate-able drug," the union would not fight its being added to MLB drug testing next year.