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State of Origin notwithstanding, surely if ever there was to be a public demonstration of concern for our NRL stars and prescription drugs, it’s now.
Dylan Walker is in the NSW team. Instead of snide comments about him being a Manly player with a fortunate call-up (okay, I’ve indulged in such banter), what about the fact he almost died last off-season?
Along with MDMA, prescription medication was found to be in the possession of Corey Norman when he tried to get into Sydney’s casino last weekend. Yet all we hear about is “fraternising with criminals” and Norman’s future at the club?
Need I go on?
The New Zealand Warriors are in disarray. Surely the most significant event of their season was a group of players admitting to the misuse of prescription drugs and being stood down.
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The Kiwis lost the Anzac Test 16-0. They were missing members of the same group of players.
Sometimes it seems like the entire NRL world is revolving around a packet of pills, a packet which we pretend we can’t see.
Why isn’t this back-page news every day? Let’s examine some possible reasons.
Firstly, sportswriters have become very good at covering police matters but are out of their comfort zone when it comes to medical issues that don’t involve ACLs and syndesmosis. I’ll admit this – I don’t know how to find out about prescriptions and what I legally can and can’t report.
Secondly, many, even most of us, have had substance-based vices. We do, or have, drank too much. We tried Vicodin once when it wasn’t, strictly speaking, our name on the prescription. We didn’t know what MDMA was but when you said ‘ecstasy’…
So we don’t want to come off as holier-than-thou hypocrites.
Thirdly, you can’t get blokes to talk about this, so there is no story. They seem to have their soundbites worked out – “I have learnt my lesson and I’m moving on” – and that just doesn’t make a good yarn.
Finally, it’s just a bit of a downer (no pun intended) isn’t it? There are no villains. The modern news narrative needs villains, like that Parramatta ‘Gang of Five’. No villains, no story.
Of course, it can be argued that the concussion issue was, and is, under-reported for the same reason. Modern popular media does not have the time to let you make up your mind on an issue by presenting you with raw facts, it has to lead you down the path of blame so it can place the story appropriately.
And blaming players who have been built up as heroes, well there’s no mileage in that.
They shouldn’t be blamed. You know the expression ‘a victimless crime’? This is a victim-ful crime. It only has victims. That’s a tough narrative to communicate to the masses. It doesn’t fit the modern news formula.
Let’s leave behind the tsk-tsking and accept a few things.
One, young people experiment with intoxicants. They always have, and they always will. Introduce any laws you like, that won’t change.
Two, our NRL stars not only get drug tested but have regular skin fold tests. There is enormous peer pressure, too, in football clubs to look the part. They’re not unlike teenage girls in that regard.
So professional athletes are going to gravitate to intoxicants which aren’t detected by drug tests and aren’t going to make them put on weight. As anyone who has tried to burn the candle at both ends will tell you, there are not many legal substance that fit that particular bill.
So, that’s how we got to where we are.
You squeeze the noose tighter, fail to take human nature into account, and you are just going to drive practices underground and put people in even greater danger.
Along with greater vigilance about prescription medication, we need to install a release valve into the routines of these young men. We need to let them blow off steam occasionally like everyone else their age.
Our sport tries to burn the candle at both ends itself, by having a full representative scene and an over-long club competition. The athletes are cannon fodder.
The RLPA mandating a maximum amount of time spent at training would help. It’s what happens in the NFL. Basically, every day at training, there is a mandatory quittin’ time.
Give these men their lives back, and they may not put those lives in danger with such frequency.