He took a recreational drug (possibly). Am I the only one who doesn't actually think it's a big deal? Certainly not worthy of year+ ban

*edit* it it's not cocaine, I take it back

Hopefully. I believe WADA regard cocaine as a PED 'in-competition'. That's apart from the fact that it can destroy the lives of users and those involved in the supply chain and funds organised crime. There's absolutely no excuse as a (supposed) professional athlete for taking it. If it proves to be cocaine could be looking at a 4 year ban as it's difficult to come up with any extenuating circumstances for having it in his system.

Does that extend to everyone, or just sports people? There'd be about 40% of the population banned from work otherwise. It's not a PED either. Coke might make you think you're better, but you actually won't be.

Lots of legal drugs/activities can destroy lives too. The biggest destroyer of lives is the war on drugs

Hey let's allow our players to smoke weed, sniff coke, take speed. You name it, as long as it's is not performance enhancement why should we care.



Let's even use this as a way to introduce youngsters to the sport. Create slogans saying recreational drug use is totally fine in rugby league.

Gareth Hock was one of Terry's pallbearers, and he was heartbroken. I always thought that was the moment the RFL started to help him to avoid another similar situation.

We allow them to drink and gamble.

The crazy thing you did makes you seem like you're 6 btw.

Illegal drugs must be bad coz they're illegal. Legal ones are fine though

Ben Barba got a 12 game ban.

Why would Hardaker get a longer ban than Barba?

I've had the 'pleasure' of seeing Hardaker and his mates on nights out a few times and speaking to them on a couple of those occasions and it tells you something when Hardaker came across as one of the sensible ones of the group. Some of them just clear and utter toilet parts and what's really sad is that they'll probably have little interest in hanging around with Zak now he's not 'Zak the RL Star'

No-ones said it shouldn’t be punished. Just that the ban could be seen as excessive.

Youngsters take far more of a lead from their peers and the coaching/club setup/atmosphere than they do from an individual pro players isolated actions. High tackles and aggressive behaviour are far more of an issue for youngsters if that’s what you’re concerned about. Yet they often receive no ban at all.

As I understand it there are performance-enhancing elements attributed from taking cocaine even if they’re only minor compared to dedicated performance-enhancing drugs. Which is why I’m still in favour of a decent ban. If there were no performance enhancing benefits to taking it then I’d be in favour of a much shorter ban.

2 reasons:
1. Barba's test was not conducted by a WADA testing agency (it was a club/NRL test).
2. Barba's test was out-of-competition. Hardaker's test was in-competition.

Barba was 'caught' in an in-house, out of competition test which had nothing to do with the doping agencies whereas Hardaker's was an official doping agency in-competition test hence the difference. You could argue that Barba got off very lightly but I doubt the testing procedure was anywhere near as rigorous as that required by WADA to allow a more severe punishment. My own employers carry out random drug tests and they certainly wouldn't be. IIRC Hock got 2 years for cocaine use and the punishment has doubled since then.