How about cannabis v's alcohol for overdose risk for example? Should a player smoking a normal cigarette inside a place of work be banned? It's illegal after all.

The depressing thing about drugs being illegal is that the black market will always traffic the highest potency drugs by preference, highest cash per weight/risk. This was the same in prohibition in the US, spirits not beer were smuggled. Many of the studies around drugs have been based on some very flimsy evidence, the studies that lead to cannabis being banned used monkeys in a high cannabis / low oxygen environment at the end of the study they had lots brain cells, to be expected with oxygen starvation.

Personally I think that the evidence from places like Portugal show that the "natural" recreational drugs should be legal as this also erodes the market for new chemical drugs which are very high potency. Just because the law say's "no" doesn't automatically create something that's right.

Where performance enhancing drugs are used a higher ban should be enforced as they are only used by a player to artificially enhance and cheat. Recreational drugs without performance enhancing, less of a ban.

Where is your evidence for this? As far as I know (not that I'm a user) cocaine's popularity has been falling and it's relatively cheap.



And when have the players been under the influence of illegal drugs infront of the fans? Seem odd that it's OK to drink and spray drinks from the top of an open top bus in public and there's no concern at all but something which no fan sees is beyond the pale.



I bet if you looked hard enough there's evidence of people trying alcohol once and death occurring. Interestingly going to McDonald's 10 times a day has no ill health impacts the walk would probably do most people good. Eating excessive calories does - I suggest that you watch a documentary called Fat Head.

Incidentally, 10 beers + 10 Sambucas + whatever food is eaten in the day would be worse than the McDonalds trips with food.

Clearly you are very close minded on the whole issue and are not prepared to read the evidence around many of the social and health mis-conceptions. I don't use drugs or smoke but I do drink. I am very much of the opinion that if somebody wants to alter their conscious state, let them as long as they are not out causing fights, primary cause alcohol perchance? The legalisation of many recreational drugs would most likely, as seen in Portugal reduce drug use on the whole and tend to make the market for the man made high potency stuff from China largely go away, the very high potency cannabis strains which have been engineered could be kept out of the legal market just like high tar cigarettes - I don't see a black market for them.

Was never going to get punished without the TV cameras. Wigan should release the evidence they sent to the RFL and let the fans see it for ourselves. It's a complete joke how differently televised and non-televised games are treated by the RFL disciplinary. Video refs should be implemented at every game and it should have been done a long time ago.

Given the drink drive limit is scarecely over 1 drink it certainly wouldn't be too hard to find many such examples. To be honest I'm less concerned with the damage a grown adult does to their own body through their own free will than the damage they do to others through that same choice. The study I linked to before shows that alcohol does far more 'societal damage' than any other drug, ie it causes lots more harm to people not consuming than any other drug. So if players want to be good role models abstaining from , at least in public, would be by far the easiest thing they could do (in terms of stopping bad behaviour I mean).

I mean there's another thread here talking about the success of Bradley Wiggins and how the club should be trumpeting the fact he's a fan. Trumpeting the disciplined lifestyle and dedication to his craft would also be no bad thing. He used to drink heavily in the close season. Then he got serious about road cycling, sorted his diet and lifestyle out all year round, and is now reaping the rewards. That there's a lesson to players and fans alike.

I think the drug argument has 1 decisive factor and 1 only. Forget legality and forget how much they harm or dont harm the body the decisive factor is this.
Recreational vs Cheating.

If you take a recreational drug then you are a complete and utter idiot but you are doing it for exactly this "recreation."

If you take a performance enhancing drug then you are deliberately taking a drug that is going to give you an edge over your competitors.

Now it doesnt take a brain surgeon to realise that theres a huge difference between the two. And before people say about how "steroids are prescribed but drug like weed, cocaine and heroin arent" you're wrong Morphine is very related to heroin and there are also pain killers related to cocaine.

I understand that this means that cocaine can help with pain relief but I think if a study was conducted they would almost certainly find that these pain relief effects would not still be in effect the day after or two days after whenever it was that Hock took the drug.

In my opinion, if someone is caught having used a recreational drug it should be left to the clubs discretion whether the player is punished but with a mandatory drug awareness course and a set RFL imposed ban that is of indeterminate length until the player completes the drug awareness course (a minimum of 3 months) then if the player still tests positive they are banned for life and they are also banned for life if they ever test positive again in the future.

I also feel that bans for HGH or Steroids should be supported with psychiatric help. They need to still be as long as they are now though as this is cheating whether you like it or not. Gleeson was a cheat. Newton (RIP) was a cheat. Simple as.

My thoughts to a T, only put a lot better than I could put it.

Well said Sir, I agree with almost every word you wrote.

I don't follow your argument. No-one from the RFL's said that Sam wasn't bitten, only that there was insufficient evidence to confirm whether or not he was.