Football, cocaine and drug shame

Yup, the criminals are getting richer. And the ones that hang around footy players, of whatever code, have a sure fire income stream.

I think Zee is mixing up the notion of performance-enhancing products and recreational drug-taking. A lot of people take drugs recreationally, including legal drugs such as tobacco, alcohol, caffeine in tea, coffee and energy drinks. This includes athletes. A lot of athletes take performance-enhancing substances, some of which are not prohibited. Some of them take legal substances for purposes that are not listed on the container, e.g. steroids. Lots of people take illegal substances. Many athletes smoke marihuana, take ecstacy, cocaine, heroin, morphine, crack, and a myriad other substances -- including substances that block detection of banned substances. To think athletes have purer motives than the average person is to mis-read human nature. In fact, athletes have positive reinforcement for better performances, more so than many non-athletes. And they are surrounded by industry professionals who have financial incentives to encourage improved performances via use of substances. Sometimes their clubs hire these people as professionals.

You're way too nostalgic about pro athletes ,are you kidding me.? The 'magic of sports & aura of athletes'..i had that same feeling,when i was 14 yrs old !! Come on you cant be that naive to not understand this (pro sports) is a business.Thats it. The players #1 concern is making money because their shelf life is limited So whatever they want to use its part & parcel of the whole business Some get caught,most dont. But to pretend sports is some idyllic playground where its all on the up & up,& the players are good,honest & "doing it for the fans",its fantasy world thinking

#toa It was clear with the media coverage back around the 2007 election campaign that the media and marketplace had a poor understanding of the issue. Back then everyone seemed to confuse WADA with illicit testing let alone running parallel protocols. The sloganistic 'soft on drugs' would get a run and that didn't help the reasoned debate. At the time about 30 odd health/drugs experts took out an open letter in Fairfax papers in support of the AFL stance (to take a health first approach and not be swayed by the Govt/media/public pressure or ignorance). The media narrative was seemingly mixed with their thirst for 'blood'. They seem to want the big story. The disgraced star. Well - they got Ben Cousins but not how they'd expected. The fact the fellow is still alive is somewhat surprising!! The thing we know is the media - sports or otherwise - don't worry about health and well being but then upon the death of even people like Amy Winehouse, Whitney Houston or others the media will accept no responsibility for the hounding and public portrayal of generally a one sided negative viewpoint. So - is the public able to divorce itself from the media narrative? Can the public arm itself with knowledge otherwise and develop an informed opinion? Perhaps. For me - the irony is that some people claim the AFL is trying to sweep it under the carpet - and yet - each year, you can set you clock by it - the AFL releases it's annual report which includes the testing results and puts the topic right back front of mind for even the sloppiest journo.

Thanks for sharing!!! I carried the same attitude of the author of this here post however since the news started my understanding has broadened to accept different viewpoints. I'm not condoning their actions however no one ever speaks of rehabilitation, IMO its irresponsible to use illicit material equally its irresponsible not to provide support. Do you think the media narrative propagates execution without reasoning rather than provide perspective? Or are the masses not ready to consume such ideas?

I think this is silly: "Coke users have often depleted co-ordination and unwarranted levels of aggression. And the side effects are absolutely horrific, especially when you mix it with a footballer’s body." Apart from what you've said being factually unsupported and completely unfounded, alcohol depletes cognitive function far more rapidly and seriously than what a personal amount of cocaine would. I'm not supporting Hunt's decisions, but this is a great example of the public's irrational reaction to this situation.

I do feel that the notion of a drug user in top end sport is often a pre supposed characterisation by people with often fairly black and white viewpoints. Generally the zero tolerance side of the argument - all drugs and users and suppliers etc are bad and should be in jail. The other side might be portrayed as wanting needle exchange injecting rooms next to the family room at Etihad stadium. The problem is that not all drug users come from un educated backgrounds. Not all drug users are the super highest paid of a code. Not all sporting drug users are using every week, or even month - as the weekly schedule of travel/play/rehab and preparation makes even having a beer hard to fit in. In the case of players in their 'off season', their 'mad Mondays' and the like - well, perhaps we shouldn't care too much. However - we do need to care a bit. After all - we don't want players NOT returning from end of season trips (as per John McCarthy from Port Adelaide). And, we also don't want players getting embroiled with the 'wrong types' who might be their drug dealers. That - after all - was one of the warnings from Feb 2013 darkest day in Australian sport. The very real threat of criminal elements who might covet the notion of match-fixing using illicit drugs as a means to get players under their spell. However - for a comment like - "not just talented individuals, heroes and superstars but also drug cheats, drug traffickers, deadbeats who use aggression and morons that don’t deserve to be in the position they are in" - ignores that talent or intelligence does not protect from mental health and life challenges that may drive players either side of the socio-demographic origins fence to 'dabble'. It's not always a rationalised choice. So - we must care even if we believe that clubs and sports administrators are generally ill-equipped to do so. As a footnote - The AFL illicit policy as an example - (it's been evolving since around 2006 compared to the ARU illicit testing which only commenced Jan 1 2014) - has endeavoured to defer to the health professionals. And - seemingly - that has in the main, helped reinforce the required anonymity that the players assoc demanded at the time before signing on voluntarily. One wonders - were such a position pushed today - would the PA have such power to make such a demand? Not sure. Might turn out to have been good to get in early.

It's just the government and police force trying to justify it's actions on the 'war on drugs'. A larger % of people are taking them everyday and the criminals are getting richer and richer. The Mexicans have just arrived in Australia and they're not scared of putting on a war.

"Those crusty old Victorians were not just brain dead snobs, they knew that once you start paying players then in the long run sport becomes just another way to try and make money with no more virtue attached to it than any other vocation" And that's why they spent over a hundred years: paying boot money and other incentives and ignoring professionalism where they knew perfectly well it was happening, making use of Nazi occupation to bash RL, ( and steal its assets) and find time to help apartheid keep going! And all the time preventing people from playing RL. Ah the virtues of the Corinthian spirit! No wonder they let them into the Olympics! Neither crusty nor brain dead but probably still working their magic in some way or other! But you're definitely correct about them being snobs! :-) ;-) By the way isn't a vocation something nurses and priests have and the rest of us dream about?

They will be in English Rugby Union as soon as the dust settles from their trials. Ditto Hunt. I am more anti performance enhancing than I am this type of thing. I bet it all ends with a slap on the wrist, the charges seem a little trumped up and they will really only need a scapegoat. I bet there have been a lot of emergency meetings around all of the Clubs this last couple of days...

I know I should feel outraged, but I just don't. Bird and Taylor both have a long history of grubtitude, while the others are hardly 'superstars' of the game. To be honest, I'm actually kind of looking forward to having these guys out of the game so their first grade spots can be given to guys who aren't going to make me feel ashamed to be a League fan.

Coke Adds Life (where there isn't any)

Kasey - keep mindful the distinction between WADA match day testing which is zero tolerance and the additional illicit programs footy codes introduced to test outside of the workplace and outside of 'competition' to try to detect players with their health and well being as the primary focus. Part of this is the duty of care from an industry that drafts in 18 year olds who haven't had to sit exams through 3 or 4 years of University. And 18 year olds that can include kids from very different back grounds - suddenly transferred to the other side of the country and away from family support networks (although, in some cases it might be a good thing to get away from no-hoper mates). The problem around the WADA based punitive policy is that - in the main - the testing doesn't work (other than as a partial deterrent). It doesn't catch people (is catching people the objective? Clearly we saw via cycling that it wasn't catching people and people were still drug cheating to even the deterrent factor was minimal). It has been seen that in many cases the illicit drug use was often only after alcohol had been abused. But alcohol is legal so that's fine. Via the AFL we've seen that a number of players who'd tested positive had mental health concerns - where the drugs were symptom rather than the disease. 100% punitive heavy handed 'zero-tolerance' jingoistic John Howard like approaches generally don't work. It didn't with prohibition of alcohol 90 years ago.

Hahaha! You had me at coke

It only makes sense that the mining industry and other areas that involve extreme high-risk operations have Zero tolerance. Do you test employees out of work hours? If so what is your rehabilitation policy if there is one? Random testing in administrate areas isn’t common. A Journalist/Accountant can submit work from home while being high as a kite however his best work is written under the influence, gee, some of the comments on this site may well have been produce the same way.

I'm the workplace Drug & Alcohol testing supervisor in my workplace (I supervised over 200 tests last FY for 1 'pending positive' after Lab tests it was a pseudoephidriene tablet for a cold. My workplace has a zero tolerance policy for drugs. If there is one bloke that can file a brief/close a deal like no other worker drone, he doesn't get special treatment like a lot of superstar footballers get.

I keep forgetting you have to say coke. Ahem* It’s a bit wishy washy for me. No one is taking coke to enhance their performance. Four years is outrageous when compared to Cronulla’s penalty. The only way I could see 4 years would be if they were on the wholesale side of the business.