But it concerned him how big some of the country’s young rugby players were getting and what some agents were doing around them.
Howman (67) was in Dunedin yesterday speaking at an Otago Medical Research Foundation’s Club Otago lunch.
Now living in Wellington, he was the director-general at the World Anti Doping Agency in Montreal for 13 years, before stepping down a couple of months ago.
He said Wada made real progress in that time but drugs in sport would never be stamped out.
"We are better off but the cheats are better off, as well. Regrettably, the big component in sport in my lifetime is we have gone from being amateur to being professional to being huge paid professionals," he said.
"It has gone beyond what the man in the street would expect to get paid for a job. From what the professional man in the street expects to be paid. Gone beyond what anyone would expect to be paid.
"What happens is you see people making a lot of money in sport and a short lifetime to do it. The people around him say there ‘is a way I can help you?’ and on the way I can get my meal ticket. So the entourage becomes more powerful and more controlling."
Wada had a budget of $US30million ($NZ41million) a year, but the rewards in sport were a lot more.
"You have just got to remember, the world at large is full of drugs which are out there allegedly for proper medical reasons.
"We are awash in them. That is what society demands. But some of that might mean they will be used by athletes for the wrong reason. When you have got rules in any parts of society you have got people who are paid to avoid them. Look at tax. You’ve got a whole lot of tax lawyers and tax accountants whose job is to make sure you don’t pay it. And the same in sport.
"You get up to the edge and then over it. What happens now is we have got some medical people prescribing drugs to sports people who don’t have the condition that the medicine prescribes. But that gives them a edge in their sport. And that may be the difference between winning and losing.
"It is like the offside line in rugby, people just going over the verge of it. And it is bloody hard to police."
Drugs will always be around and so the war against them in illegal ways in sport will never be won, Howman said.
"You’ll win battles. It’s a bit like asking are we ever going to get rid of all the rotten lawyers? No. Are we ever going to get rid of plagiarism in journalism. No.
"But are we going to narrow the gap? That is what we are trying to do. If we don’t try then the bad guys win out.‘‘What we have achieved is the narrowing of the gap in terms of what we know they are doing. The real issue is how much evidence we can get so that they can get sanctioned. Does it accumulate enough for it to get a case?"
He said Wada got information and then could see if it could get a case.
He knew a lot more than he could tell, he said.
Howman, who is a barrister, and a former president of Tennis New Zealand and New Zealand Rugby Union commissioner, said he questioned the way the IOC acted around the suspension of Russian athletes from the Rio games.
The IOC left it up to individual sporting federations to choose whether to ban athletes after Russia was exposed in doping offences.
"I was disappointed the way the IOC approached it. They had an opportunity and they missed it. They said Wada was broke. I can’t understand what they meant by that.
"We were broke because we passed on the right information or was it because we should have passed it on earlier when we did not have the information?"
Howman said Wada could not pass on that information any earlier or the safety of the Russian whistle-blowers would be jeopardised.
Whenever sports and drugs is discussed, the name of cyclist Lance Armstrong comes up. Howman had spoken to the American cyclist and did not view his admission of doping as a victory.
"He was the best cheat the world has known in sport. And he said everyone is doing it and I was the best at doing it.
"The disappointing thing about him was though he contacted me quite a few times, he never really opened up and said ‘These are the people who helped me’ — because he didn’t do it on his own. That has really meant he has not delivered any sufficient information which would allow Wada to act. I think he does not want to be in front of the [United States] authorities for perjury. Howman said athletics faced real issues in doping, just as cycling had 15 years ago."
IAAF president Sebastian Coe was working hard to get the sport going in the right direction.
The information which had been released in past weeks over top athletes allowed to take drugs for specific ailments was not an issue for Howman.
He said the process was very robust and independent.
Just back in New Zealand after the 13 years in Montreal — "I was asked to go for two to three years" — Howman said New Zealanders were probably naive in their attitude to drugs in sport.
"In New Zealand we think everyone else is like us — good guys — and they are not. We are [among a] few of the real countries in the world, which is pretty darn good.
"Probably because we are small. You and I know if someone is doing something down at the gym and if we don’t know we’ll find out. As a country, we like to share in success and we are a pretty fair society. But we have to watch out for those who prey on that. Those are the ones pushing it on us."
He had concerns about what he had seen while watching the national under-19 tournament n Taupo last month.
"I’ve been back like three minutes and you see these guys. They are huge. They are not getting that from eating three packets of Weet-Bix. It is from unscrupulous agents.
"Agents have to be accredited. If someone is not, then they must be moved on.
"I heard a story last night where an agent was taking 28% of the money some of these young kids were making."
