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For a week now, the back pages have been slathered in sporting drug scandals across all three oval-ball codes. But unlike the sporting drug scandals of the recent ASADA investigation, the drugs in question are not performance-enhancing.
This time, the alleged drug use has not been sanctioned, administered or encouraged by the club. And this time, the penalties for the players involved could even be much more significant.
But with several careers – and even the future of one club – in limbo, it might not be a good time to ask, but here goes. Does anyone actually care? And if you do care, why?
Does anyone care about footballers taking recreational drugs? Does anyone care that a handful of Titans players allegedly possessed or supplied cocaine at a buck’s party, a private event – one that you were probably not invited to anyway?
Does anyone care that Karmichael Hunt allegedly handled cocaine somewhere in and around the end of his Gold Coast Suns AFL contract, a time when he was nowhere near a footy field, a sponsor’s tent or kids on a primary school autograph day?
And if you really do care – should the players be looking at the types of punishments they are when compared to other ‘footballer indiscretions’?
Robert Lui’s second attack on his partner – both of which took place on the night after Lui’s Wests Tigers were eliminated from the finals series – brought about a one-year ban from the NRL. He walked straight into a contract with the Cowboys.
Russell Packer spent a year in prison for stomping on a man’s head in Martin Place. He walked out of jail and onto the training paddock with the St George Illawarra Dragons.
Without knowing the identities of the people in question, if you had a choice of having a beer with someone charged with alleged low level drug possession and supply, violence against women or violence in general, it’d be safe to say Russell and Robert would be getting fewer invites than Karmichael, Greg and Dave.
Paul Gallen was found guilty of using banned peptides. His penalty was a backdated ban which effectively ruled him out of three matches. The NRL paid $80,000 towards his court costs. Gallen’s mate Greg Bird would kill for a similar sentence from the NRL in relation to his new allegations.
And to be clear on the issue of supply. It would be ludicrous to suggest that, all this time, guys like Hunt and Bird have been using their position as footballers to grow a drug empire – hiding in plain sight in a manner Walter White and Gus Fring would be proud of. It’s just not the case, at all.
Under Queensland drug laws, supply is a “wide legal term”. The term would include “giving one of your pills to a friend” without monetary benefit. If beer was a Schedule 1 or Schedule 2 drug, buying a six pack and sharing it with your mates during the game would make you a supplier – as well as guilty of possession.
While allegedly being involved in it is not a smart thing for a professional footballer to do, when compared to the other three broad categories of footballing misbehaviour – violence, particularly against women, match fixing, and alcohol-related idiocy – it would be hard to find grounds to be truly morally offended.
Players have been caught with recreational drugs for as long as players have been taking recreational drugs. And, aside from your run-of-the-mill Ben Cousins driving the wrong way down the highway with several different pills and powders on the passenger seat, this has usually been in a pretty discreet manner.
At a bar, a barbecue, in a backyard. Not really in plain sight and not really directly hurting anyone.
It would be foolish to suggest that there is a higher or even equal rate of penetration of drug use among footballers than among the general society. Spend three minutes in any nightclub toilet in any Australian capital city and you’ll realise it.
Anyone in their 20s who disagrees is either lying, or frightfully naive in thinking that each of those three men leaving a toilet cubicle together are suffering from hayfever.
The patrons know it, the bouncers know it, the police know it and the club staff know it. The club owners certainly know it – and charge $7 for a bottle of water knowing that they need to make up for the lack of beer sales somehow.
Even so-called softer drugs like marijuana – which has an Australia wide penetration of just under two thirds for adults in their 30s and is legal in many jurisdictions – is off limits for athletes.
As Arj Barker says in the following video, even Michael Phelps isn’t allowed a cheeky bong hit after winning 18 gold medals.
Musicians, actors and even politicians talk openly about drug use and are sometimes celebrated for it. So why do we care about athletes?
Current President of the United States Barack Obama admitted past cocaine use during his campaign. The admission was largely uncontroversial outside of conservative wacko circles (the same circles who were aware of but publicly denied the chronic cocaine use and possible arrest of his predecessor George W Bush).
Bill Clinton said he smoked weed but didn’t inhale and no-one believed him. Kevin Rudd said he hasn’t smoked and everyone believed him, because it would be hard to imagine Rudd knowing which end of a bong to suck on.
Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard admitted trying it. Future Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said ‘yes, yes, yes’ to chuckles from the audience when he was asked on Q and A. While current Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he also didn’t inhale.
And if you’re against athletes taking drugs because you’re against drugs, then that’s a position that is solid and can be justified. Drugs can destroy lives. Drugs are illegal. Your mum said they were bad and she was right about the making a funny face and wind changing thing, so it’s probably best to trust her.
Drugs do support death, drug cartels, corruption and oppressive regimes far away – as pointed out by former cocaine user and Blur member Alex Jones in his BBC documentary – so drug use indirectly supports that. It’s a noble and justifiable position to take, but if you don’t want to support death and oppression far away, you probably need to take a closer look at where your smartphone is made, where they have nets on the sides of the building.
Maybe you just don’t like drugs, or don’t understand why people would take them.
Perhaps I am wrong, and sportspeople shouldn’t be held to the same standards as actors, rockstars, and politicians in their younger years. Perhaps because they use their body as athletes, therefore kids look up to them (because they totally don’t look up to rockstars) and that puts them in a different category.
As a sports fan, very little matters to me about what the players get up to off the pitch, mainly because I know what similar men their age get up to off the pitch. If I am watching a winger fly to the air to take a chip kick, I care little about what he is taking off the field – provided that thing doesn’t help him fly through the field any more than a player who is not taking it.
And anyone who suggests that cocaine, weed or ecstasy enhances sporting performance, clearly has not taken cocaine, marijuana or ecstasy.
As a sports fan, the only justification I can really find for being outraged by player drug use is a selfish one. If I was a Reds fan, I would probably be annoyed that our new signing – one who was supposed to play an important role this season – has hurt our premiership chances because he got high.
If I was a Titans fan, I would be upset with the players for putting not just this season, but the club’s future in jeopardy, because they got high. And does anyone really need another reason to be upset with Greg Bird? There’s plenty already.
As Andrew Webster said in the Sydney Morning Herald, drug use by players is not representative of footballers, of hits to the head, and has probably little to do with excess time and disposable income. It’s reflective of men from 17-34 in society.
If Malcolm Turnbull and Barack “I inhaled frequently, that was the point” Obama can elicit chuckles from an audience, why do we hang our footballers out to dry for drug offences?
Maybe it’s just reflective of me, my experiences and my social circles, but if, in 2015 you are really outraged by what’s happened this week, have you really considered why?
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.