Footy's finest - young, rich and out of it

[Sockeye Salmon]

Re: Footy's finest - young, rich and out of it

Interestingly Eade has come out and said anyone who tests +ve should be named.

Does this mean he thinks we don't have any users?

[Go_Dogs]

Re: Footy's finest - young, rich and out of it

Interesting ploy. The other thing that I find interesting is, that if so many players are apparently using, how come there are very few who have tested positive?

[Topdog]

Re: Footy's finest - young, rich and out of it

We seem to be one club who escapes a lot of conjecture about this sort of thing, but I wouldn't be surprised at all in 10-15 of our players were regular users of drugs like Ecstasy, Speed/Meth, or Coke. I don't really see many footballers taking acid or those kind of substances.

Going off this sample you think that >30% of people use drugs. Gross exaggeration. I'd be surprised to see any more than 5 players at one club on it.

[Mofra]

Re: Footy's finest - young, rich and out of it

Going off this sample you think that >30% of people use drugs. Gross exaggeration. I'd be surprised to see any more than 5 on it.

I'd be looking at the opposite end of the scale - possibly 30% as a gross underestimation.

Lets face it, as a footballer your body is your life - why would you wreck in with alcohol, which is detrimental to almost every cell of your body? You could take ecstacy (and I have seen players out on it many times - including one ex-Bulldog player) which will play with your serotonin levels but physically has much less (and in the case of pure MDMA, very little) physiological impact.

Dale Lewis was blasted a few years ago for speaking out against a drug culture within the AFL, yet given the weight of evidence you would have to say there is at least a solid foundation foir his accusations.

[Topdog]

Re: Footy's finest - young, rich and out of it

what exactly did Dale Lewis say? I think it was as I was moving away from Melb so I never really knew what happened with him.

[Go_Dogs]

Re: Footy's finest - young, rich and out of it

Dale Lewis pretty much went on record saying that drugs are rife in the AFL - a lot more than people tend to believe. Morfa makes the point I was trying to illustrate, that the drugs (the "cleaner" ones if we can call them that) don't interfere so much with the players bodies and minds.

Senior players aren't the exception either...as the player I referred to in my initial post is a senior player and if I can say w/o giving too much away, a club captain. The culture of players owning bars and clubs also fuels this type of thing too I think.

[southerncross]

Re: Footy's finest - young, rich and out of it

In light of everything that has been said of late does anyone else think Lewis might have been harshly dealt with by some of the players and media?

[Dry Rot]

Re: Footy's finest - young, rich and out of it

In light of everything that has been said of late does anyone else think Lewis might have been harshly dealt with by some of the players and media?

Whistleblowers usually are.

[Topdog]

Re: Footy's finest - young, rich and out of it

Dale Lewis pretty much went on record saying that drugs are rife in the AFL - a lot more than people tend to believe. Morfa makes the point I was trying to illustrate, that the drugs (the "cleaner" ones if we can call them that) don't interfere so much with the players bodies and minds.

Senior players aren't the exception either...as the player I referred to in my initial post is a senior player and if I can say w/o giving too much away, a club captain. The culture of players owning bars and clubs also fuels this type of thing too I think.

I know exactly what the effects of the cleaner drugs are and I can see how it would be easier for players to do but I just can't believe that any more than 5 players at 1 club do it.

[Mofra]

Re: Footy's finest - young, rich and out of it

Topdog, although there are footballers who take their responsibility as role models seriously, I don't know how you can estimate that footballers are that much cleaner than the remainder fo the population of an equivalent age.

Many footballers see the AFL as a part-time career. Even some of the most highly paid players in the game see themselves as property developers first, athletes second. Some who don't have an excess of time & money, and are immersed in a culture where every temptation possible is merely a phone call away. Unfortunately it is inevitable, especially when for all intensive purposes they have access to drugs that are cheap, cleaner than alcohol and virtually undetectable if the right preparation/night after cures are taken.

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

Re: Footy's finest - young, rich and out of it

Top debate folks!

There are some equally interesting viewpoints to this debate, and it's unfortunate that at least for the time being there won't really be any accurate figures on drug use in the AFL.

The one thing I have been thinking after reading this is that AFL players as fully professional athletes are not a random sample of the total population and therefore it's not possible to use societal drug usage %'s as any sort of reflective comparison.
The amount of variables and metaphorical sieves and filters players of the modern age seem to go through to make it onto a clubs list in the first place, ensure that the group that do make it are almost certainly not able to be compared with the general population at large.

NOW.... I would say that this still doesn't answer the question of whether the usage is either significantly higher or lower amongst football players than the general population. Just trying to point out that we can't really just use general population as a gauge for comparison.

The main points in my mind that seem to make this group more likely to choose certain illicit substances over alcohol to unwind are;
- Club environment discourages players drinking in modern era,
-ability to mask and hide certain drug use perhaps??
-perception of alcohol reducing performance compared to certain drugs.... I'd certainly think there would be some basis for challenging this though.. especially in a medium to long term study. I can't see in any shape or form how prolonged meth or cocaine use could not be more devastating to the brain than alcohol......

On the other hand though given the hoops this group of the population have to jump through and the psychological and medical scrutiny to get picked up by AFL clubs..and also given the level of sustained physical athleticism required to play the game nowadays........Are drugs and alcohol in general more unpalatable to the modern day player than they were in previous generations of players? Were prior generations more likely to get blasted than today???.......or do you also have to factor in the comparitive ease of access to a more vast array of substances today than there used to be????

Some sort of survey not unlike I think what was done in the cricket a couple of years ago should be undertaken I think to see how much of a problem this is..
The original article that inspired this debate was a jaw dropper for me, and in opinion highlights that sooner or later some sort of real tragedy seems almost inevitable if some of this is true...