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What AFL players do in the off-season should be none of anybody’s business except their own. That might seem like a naïve, Gen-Y view, but here’s why it isn’t.
In case you missed it, last Thursday, two hours before the start of the first game of the 2016 AFL season, a tabloid journalist broke the news that 11 (which has since changed to somewhere between zero and 11) Collingwood players had tested positive to the use of illicit substances during the 2015 off-season, as part of the AFL’s out-of-season hair testing program.
Here are the facts of the matter.
Off-season hair testing was introduced as part of the AFL’s new illicit drugs policy last year, and this was the first period of downtime that the new regime was in place.
The league’s policy, brokered between the clubs, as represented by the AFL, and the AFLPA representing the players, was developed in response to in-season illicit drug issues which cropped up last season – centred on the 2015 Gold Coast Suns, but this is not something that is new to the AFL (see: Josh Thomas, Lachie Keeffe, Travis Tuck, Tom Liberatore et al).
The whole notion of off-season testing was only agreed upon on the basis that the results were kept confidential, with the results to be used by the AFL as part of selecting candidates for target testing during the actual season.
This was a new addition to the league’s policy, horse traded for the reduction in the number of positive ‘strikes’ able to be recorded in season before a suspension from three to two.
At its heart, the off-season illicit drug testing regime is designed as part of AFL clubs’ collective pastoral care programs. It is not designed to make players feel like criminals, to play ‘gotcha’, or punitively punish them for indulging in these substances. The AFL is not the police.
The leak of this sensitive information is titillating, and might get tens of thousands of people to click on a headline, and that is perfectly OK if that’s the game you want to play. What is not OK is the way this entire debate has now been contorted and mixed up. The central point has been missed entirely.
What a private citizen does with their downtime has nothing to do with you, or me, or anybody else for that matter, so long as it does not affect anyone else.
If an AFL player wants to spend the six or eight weeks of time they are free of skinfold tests, regimented diets and film sessions off their chops, then that is a decision for them and them alone. They understand the risks they take, just like anybody else that has a go.
The debate on this matter has moved far beyond this basic fact. Commentators with national platforms are saying ridiculous things: “we should start by calling these things for what they are, evil and illegal substances”; “players that test positive should be given an immediate suspension”; “this opens up the game to the influences of underworld figures”.
These are the views of those that shape how our game is covered. What utter tosh.
I have seen fans express a similar view. Players that take illicit drugs should be “named and shamed”; they wreck “the culture of my club”. Those views, while perhaps understandable, are misguided and counterproductive.
Young people take drugs. Shock! Horror! Young people with incredible pressures placed upon them and with, in most cases, money to burn like AFL footballers also take drugs. Oh no, it can’t be!
Some basic fact checking should give everyone a bit of a pause for thought.
31.7% of men 20-29 used an illicit substance in the last 12 months. 25% of a team testing positive for illicit substances is less than that.
— คrωoϞ (@arwon) March 28, 2016
So Collingwood’s 11 (or less) players on a list of 44, which was at the high end of the spectrum according to this leaked information, actually puts the club’s rate of illicit drug use at a rate 21 per cent lower than the demographic cohort at large. Don’t let that stop you from declaring this the game’s biggest problem, though.
There will always be illicit substance takers in the AFL – while we can hold up our heroes as straight-laced, sterling young men, the fact of the matter is young people are inclined to take risks, and indulge. Some like to get on the piss, many enjoy dropping a thousand bucks on a game of Latvian water polo, others like to jump out of planes, and others still prefer to do a line of coke.
Which one is more likely to set you back in your pre-season preparations?
The AFLPA, the AFL and the AFL clubs are in lock step on the issue of illicit drugs. All sides have the best interests of their constituents and employees, the players – protecting them from outright addiction, and supporting players that have developed a problem – at heart.
You can argue that parties might have different reasons for caring about the welfare of their players – as many have, cynically – but everyone’s incentives are aligned on this matter.
Again, this basic fact appears to have been ignored in the public debate.
And finally, as far as I know, the first story published that accused a player or players of taking illicit drugs in the AFL off-season was on the back of results of a testing regime. No player was arrested outside of a nightclub or caught holding up a 7-Eleven, or seen dancing in the middle of Federation Square at four in the morning on a Tuesday.
Those players who are choosing to indulge are doing so away from the glaring eyes of the public.
It is also important to strictly delineate issues with performance-enhancing drugs and illicit substances. Those puppies are an absolute no-no at any point in the year. Some are conflating the two – cocaine and HGH, they’re both drugs – which is worthy of ridicule.
This column is a plea for rationalism in this debate, as it doubtlessly progresses throughout the year. Acknowledge the basic facts of the matter, even if you disagree with them. And understand that contrary to media reports, every party that has skin in the game is in furious agreement with each other on the vexing issue of illicit drugs.
They’re bad, and in a perfect world they wouldn’t exist. But in the real world, this is not an issue that will ever go away, and the best approach is careful management.
It is time for the various actors in the AFL world to stop losing their heads over drugs.