None of which is to make gentle of those grave allegations, after all. There may be merely no level in having a testing regime in any respect, if the entire thing is contrived to function on the premise {that a} “wink is pretty much as good as a nudge to a blind bat”, and what the general public don’t know gained’t damage ’em!
The perfect and most salient level that has been made supporting Wilkie is that the testing regime is finally there to guard the well being of the gamers and if it’s not working then their well being is endangered, and so forth …
However, um, right here’s the factor.
If an alien was despatched to earth proper now and given the curious activity of defending these unusual earthlings who like to leap round and run into one another whereas the gang roars, who thinks that the alien’s start line could be understanding methods to get rid of the white powder that a few of them snort up their noses?
Are you critical?
You may’t be.
To reprise a theme, once you take a look at demonstrable injury finished by medication to footballers and footballing people, does cocaine even start to match to the injury finished by that different well-known drug referred to as alcohol?
Oh, cease it.
Sure, I do know one’s unlawful, and the opposite’s not! We’ve been via that twice, keep in mind? However that’s no reply. You’re an alien! You’re this purely from the viewpoint of the psychological and psychological well being of the gamers.
So I’ll ask once more. Each time you see an off-field atrocity registered towards a footballer’s identify – be it home violence, sexual assault, violent assault, dog-molesting, automobile accidents, verbal abuse, marital and familial breakdown, and so forth and so forth, on and on into the ever etcetera – I put it to you that alcohol is sort of at all times an element.
And cocaine-fuelled atrocities? Properly, I suppose there was that point that … yeah, nah, that was grog. However grasp on, what in regards to the time that … oh, bugger, that was alcohol, too. Ah, however who can neglect when … no, you’re proper, that was alcohol, too.
I’m not being a smart-arse. Identify one time, only one time, that taking a surfeit of cocaine has been confirmed to be on the base of stunning behaviour, and even critical ill-health?
Attempt it like this: should you have been operating the Skilled Footballers’ Atrocities Generator within the industrial zone out Mascot approach, and also you had the selection of throwing cocaine or alcohol into the gasoline tank to get it as much as most energy, which one would you dinkum throw in, alcohol or cocaine?
You recognize the reply, and so do I.
Because of this the alien is so confused. Whereas one drug is selling infinite hand-wringing, the opposite drug will not be solely not being suppressed, it’s being promoted, and is a significant income for the soccer codes. When gamers win, they get soaked in it, sprayed throughout with it because the cameras roll. Once they lose, it’s thought to be fairly acceptable, even anticipated, to have that drug all evening lengthy.
Alcohol is the one doing the injury, not cocaine.
(And I’m not wagging a moralising finger towards alcohol right here, by the best way – I’ve spilt extra grog than you’ve drunk.)
None of it is smart.
And clearly, this all suits into the broader debate of the lunacy of our drug legal guidelines.
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As I’ve mentioned many occasions, our drug legal guidelines don’t work, by no means have labored, by no means will work. If it have been as much as me, I might change them tomorrow to recognise that when hundreds of thousands of individuals need medication that the legislation says are illicit, it’s really extra smart to vary the legal guidelines than to presume you’ll change the folks. You gained’t.
And simply as these drug legal guidelines are unworkable in wider society, with billions of {dollars} spent for no outcomes – you may get medication delivered to your door on this city faster than you get pizza – they’re equally unworkable in soccer. I might gently recommend this is the reason the testing regime might be as farcical as Andrew Wilkie says it’s.
Not one of the officers need to say out loud what they know to be the reality: the most important downside that comes with cocaine use for footballers will not be atrocities or ill-health, it’s merely the hullaballoo that comes with them. And that’s the reason there’s an inclination to see nussink, hear nussink, know nussink.
So it needs to be open slather, then? Nuh. I’ve mentioned this many occasions, too. To these on the sting of the medication world questioning if they need to or shouldn’t indulge: have a superb go searching you, at those that take medication often and people who abstain. Spot the distinction? There is no such thing as a query that the best choice is to avoid medication solely.
But when the important thing star that soccer needs to steer by is the well being of its gamers, getting them off the grog is the primary and most essential factor, and step one alongside that path is stopping all sponsorship.
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(Crickets.)