Quote ="nottinghamtiger"My understanding is that it is performance enhancing if taken and still in the system at the point of competition, so is a banned in-competition substance. It's not considered performance enhancing in out-of-competition ">testing.'" In the past I have taken Cocaine to my shame. While it does appear to give you extra energy I couldn't imagine trying to play rugby at professional level while on it. When you take it just on a recreational level it increases your heart rate to uncomfortable levels. I can imagine taking it while playing Rugby League at the highest level would cause massive exertion on your heart. If you were to take it the night before a game it would probably be a hindrance, imagine the worst hangover you've had multiplied by ten.

Quote ="nottinghamtiger"My understanding is that it is performance enhancing if taken and still in the system at the point of competition, so is a banned in-competition substance. It's not considered performance enhancing in out-of-competition ">testing.'" In the past I have taken Cocaine to my shame. While it does appear to give you extra energy I couldn't imagine trying to play rugby at professional level while on it. When you take it just on a recreational level it increases your heart rate to uncomfortable levels. I can imagine taking it while playing Rugby League at the highest level would cause massive exertion on your heart. If you were to take it the night before a game it would probably be a hindrance, imagine the worst hangover you've had multiplied by ten.

Quote ="Superted"That is unfortunately the very real worry - which makes the rest of the conversation irrelevant. Whether it's genuine mental illness, or just poor life choices, or a mixture of the 2, he's clearly got a self destruct button and a trigger happy finger. So then it's a question of is/has the game done enough to support him - he's certainly had plenty of opportunities and has had more than his fair share of '2nd, 3rd and 4th chances' at various clubs. We couldn't be sure what other support has been given to deal with whatever issues he has as an individual, but there does come a line where the game are no longer responsible and it's over to him and his friends/family to get things sorted (maybe with the help of the NHS etc). Fundamentally though, my belief is that if the game was much tougher on some of the contributing factors such as drink, drugs, gambling so that anyone joining the sport at pro-level knows there is zero tolerance (and I mean absolute zero tolerance - not the 'turn a blind eye' zero tolerance we currently have), then we wouldn't have as many guys getting themselves into these issues - granted the individuals may still have the same problems (though I'd like to think some would never escalate down that route), but they'd never have been part of our game, so as harsh as it sounds, they wouldn't be our problem. Culturally, if it's a no go in our sport, we don't need to have this ">conversation.'" I don't think zero tolerance towards drink is practical, no one would be able to field a team!

Quote ="Superted"That is unfortunately the very real worry - which makes the rest of the conversation irrelevant. Whether it's genuine mental illness, or just poor life choices, or a mixture of the 2, he's clearly got a self destruct button and a trigger happy finger. So then it's a question of is/has the game done enough to support him - he's certainly had plenty of opportunities and has had more than his fair share of '2nd, 3rd and 4th chances' at various clubs. We couldn't be sure what other support has been given to deal with whatever issues he has as an individual, but there does come a line where the game are no longer responsible and it's over to him and his friends/family to get things sorted (maybe with the help of the NHS etc). Fundamentally though, my belief is that if the game was much tougher on some of the contributing factors such as drink, drugs, gambling so that anyone joining the sport at pro-level knows there is zero tolerance (and I mean absolute zero tolerance - not the 'turn a blind eye' zero tolerance we currently have), then we wouldn't have as many guys getting themselves into these issues - granted the individuals may still have the same problems (though I'd like to think some would never escalate down that route), but they'd never have been part of our game, so as harsh as it sounds, they wouldn't be our problem. Culturally, if it's a no go in our sport, we don't need to have this ">conversation.'" I don't think zero tolerance towards drink is practical, no one would be able to field a team!

Not sorry to print the obvious:

Cocaine is illegal. Full stop.

If it's so widely used and abused as people have posted then , as RL cannot ignore or change legislation, then its use is something we need to challenge.





Comparing it to alcohol has no statistical standing.



What we have ignored is that many younger persons are drawn to illegal activity but Mr C seems to have this to a high level. So how do we prevent our players from dropping into such a sub-set. I do not think the stick is the main answer.

Quote ="Hillbilly_Red"So how do we prevent our players from dropping into such a sub-set. I do not think the stick is the main ">answer.'" I don't think they drop into it - it's where they come from; if we were to adopt a zero tolerance approach to drinking, gambling, recreational drug use and chaotic lifestyles, there wouldn't be enough RL players to go around.

Quote ="Hillbilly_Red"So how do we prevent our players from dropping into such a sub-set. I do not think the stick is the main ">answer.'" I don't think they drop into it - it's where they come from; if we were to adopt a zero tolerance approach to drinking, gambling, recreational drug use and chaotic lifestyles, there wouldn't be enough RL players to go around.

More media coverage from our friend Garry Schofield



[urlhttps://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/4181256/cocaine-is-a-massive-problem-throughout-rugby-league-says-legend-garry-schofield/[/url

Pint pot calling the kettle black.