Social AFL Drug Debate

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swansfan51 said:
No I didn't, I said they are both criminal offences. That is an absolute statement of fact and cannot be disputed.
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You brought it up in a debate about drug use were it had absolutely no place.

Also, testing positie for drugs is not a criminal offence as far as I'm aware
 
A lot of this hinges on whether you think people have a prima facie obligation to obey the law.

I don't but hey

And I'm a bit surprised to see someone who self-describes as a libertarian hold that position.

But very few people, myself included, can really claim to be consistent on that question.

Basically, as long as buddy doesn't miss the next 3 years through meth psychosis, or Rampe develop a crippling heroin addiction after discovering bebop (two potential scenarios imo), I'm personally not really interested in what people may or may not take
 
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We also don't know who was tested. Do draftees and rookies have to abide by the AFL drugs code prior to being drafted and were they tested? (honest question, i just don't know).

What if 4 of our positives are Mills, Papley, Dawson and Leonardis? Surely a conversation with the club doctor is better then naming and punishment, because they will only just have been made aware of the club expectations, and only now be under the AFL code.

We just don't know enough. My feelings on the matter will depend on:
What drugs did they test positive for?
What level did they see, i.e. is someone a regular user or a dabbler in the off-season?
Have they previously recorded a strike in the regular season?

And in almost every case, in terms of player welfare i'd rather they talk to the club doctor about it and get advice and help if they need it; rather than have it announced by Mark Robinson in the Hun.
 
RUNVS said:
If it were up to me if any player tested positive for any drug above the level of cannabis (so cocaine and up) would get counseling, second offense is a 4 week ban, third offence is 8 week ban, 4th offence is 12 week ban.
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Too many times & chances for mine.
They need to do something other than play footy.
 
J_Moore said:
A lot of this hinges on whether you think people have a prima facie obligation to obey the law
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This x 1000.

In my experience most people will vehemently defend and abide by laws that align with there personal views, e.g. Drink Driving, Murder,
Anything that falls slightly outside of this , people tend to disregard. E.g "It's a stupid law, I was only doing 66km/h in a 60. it should be a 80km/h limit anyway".

"Because it's illegal" is the weakest/stupidest argument you can bring to a discussion. It shows either a) laziness and not wanting to debate the issue based on it's merits or b) Inability to discuss the issue on it's merits and having other people make decisions for you.

Anyway this is neither here nor there, but I can only like J_Moores post once.
 
sataris said:
"Because it's illegal" is the weakest/stupidest argument you can bring to a discussion. It shows either a) laziness and not wanting to debate the issue based on it's merits or b) Inability to discuss the issue on it's merits and having other people make decisions for you.
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this x 10000
 
sataris said:
This x 1000.

In my experience most people will vehemently defend and abide by laws that align with there personal views, e.g. Drink Driving, Murder,
Anything that falls slightly outside of this , people tend to disregard. E.g "It's a stupid law, I was only doing 66km/h in a 60. it should be a 80km/h limit anyway".

"Because it's illegal" is the weakest/stupidest argument you can bring to a discussion. It shows either a) laziness and not wanting to debate the issue based on it's merits or b) Inability to discuss the issue on it's merits and having other people make decisions for you.

Anyway this is neither here nor there, but I can only like J_Moores post once.
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What if someone decides to pop a pill, then because they are not in the right state of mind, decide to get in a car & believing they are on any old road that is normally an 80 zone, they are clocking 66 - 70 but it is actually a 40 school zone, & while they are minding their own business doing something illegal, a few pain in the arse kids decide to cross the road at a school crossing only to get in the way of the person minding their own business while driving at an illegal limit & kills these pain in the arse kids.

What's your stance on that situation?
Because it is reality!
 
Taking drugs may be a persons right but once they start to affect other innocent parties, be it fellow team mates, family or strangers, legal or illegal goes out the door IMO. Look at how many people Cousins has affected.
 
Tedeski said:
What if someone decides to pop a pill, then because they are not in the right state of mind, decide to get in a car & believing they are on any old road that is normally an 80 zone, they are clocking 66 - 70 but it is actually a 40 school zone, & while they are minding their own business doing something illegal, a few pain in the arse kids decide to cross the road at a school crossing only to get in the way of the person minding their own business while driving at an illegal limit & kills these pain in the arse kids.

What's your stance on that situation?
Because it is reality!
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The Strawman is strong in this one. I'll play along too.

What if I pop a pill and stay at home?

What's your stance on that situation
Because it is reality.
 
Tedeski said:
What if someone decides to pop a pill, then because they are not in the right state of mind, decide to get in a car & believing they are on any old road that is normally an 80 zone, they are clocking 66 - 70 but it is actually a 40 school zone, & while they are minding their own business doing something illegal, a few pain in the arse kids decide to cross the road at a school crossing only to get in the way of the person minding their own business while driving at an illegal limit & kills these pain in the arse kids.

What's your stance on that situation?
Because it is reality!
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My stance is the responsible adult should determine it is unsafe and unfair on others to do something like driving under the "influence" of any substance.

You can replace pop a pill with consume too much alcohol or smoke weed.

It is irresponsible to endanger someone else's life because you are not necessarily in full control of your faculties regardless of what it is.
You have to set the laws on the most effected.

It has everything to do with the individual who would probably do the same thing whether it be any of these substances.

As for the topic at hand, I don't really care what they do in the off season, As long as it doesn't effect their main season performance in a negative way and the uphold the responsibility of what I said above.
 

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Tedeski said:
What if someone decides to pop a pill, then because they are not in the right state of mind, decide to get in a car & believing they are on any old road that is normally an 80 zone, they are clocking 66 - 70 but it is actually a 40 school zone, & while they are minding their own business doing something illegal, a few pain in the arse kids decide to cross the road at a school crossing only to get in the way of the person minding their own business while driving at an illegal limit & kills these pain in the arse kids.

What's your stance on that situation?
Because it is reality!
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smh
 
sataris said:
The Strawman is strong in this one. I'll play along too.

What if I pop a pill and stay at home?

What's your stance on that situation
Because it is reality.
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Not harming anyone but yourself. No problem there.
Unless.............you start abusing loved ones that may live with you because you are not in control of your actions.
 
Arwib said:
I'm confused about whether the people banging on about the evils of cannabis, mdma or cocaine in this thread are demanding abstinence from alcohol too.

Because it would seem like one necessarily should.
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If they make alcohol use or possession a criminal offence then this argument might have even a slight relevance.
 
Misuse of alcohol is a criminal offence just as misuse of other drugs is an offence. The only real difference is there's a legal regime within which alcohol is conditionally permitted. Public intoxication, sale to minors, sale to the intoxicated, sale without a licence, drink driving, manufacture without a permit. All sorts of things to do with alcohol are criminal offences. As a drug alcohol is pretty strongly militated against by the law.

In fact in Victoria, alcohol intoxication in public carries a harsher penalty than being under the influence of other drugs in public. It's almost as if drinking is nearly as illegal as smoking pot.

This is to say nothing of the strong likelihood that, per results in countries like Portugal, decriminalisation of use and possession of presently illicit substances is probably the correct policy.

It's simply nonsensical that consenting adults hitting the rack at a party, downing a pill at a music festival or sharing a few joints at a small private gathering is outlawed by threat of jail (and indeed personal use of cannabis isn't a crime in the ACT or South Australia - may that trend spread widely). Prohibition really only causes more harm than good. It's kinda why we don't have it for booze any more.

Literally over a third of Australians have used illicit drugs. Let's not pretend it's some fringe or shameful thing, and let's recognise that if a third of the population are criminals the law is probably a bit off.
 
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FWIW Evans has said the reported test results are all bogus and vastly overstated - -including the Collingwood number of "11".
 
sataris said:
"Because it's illegal" is the weakest/stupidest argument you can bring to a discussion. It shows either a) laziness and not wanting to debate the issue based on it's merits or b) Inability to discuss the issue on it's merits and having other people make decisions for you.
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Is it fair to those players who do the right thing when they see others take illegal drugs without penalty? These guys are paid very well to play the game that they love, and when they signed on with their clubs there would have been an expectation that at the very least they would be careful what they put into their bodies. It is not that hard. Why would you put your career at risk by doing something illegal?

Personally I don't care what players get up to in the off season as long as they come back to pre season training in good shape, but the law is still there. If people can break laws without consequences there's no point in having them. Maybe the laws need to change to reflect society's expectations, but the AFL has to decide whether they are going to be tough on drugs or not. If there are no consequences of testing positive then don't bother testing in the first place. Just don't make a whole lot of noise about it and then do nothing.
 
swansfan51 said:
If they make alcohol use or possession a criminal offence then this argument might have even a slight relevance.
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They're not going to make something illegal that brings them in hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue every year.
 
swansfan51 said:
If they make alcohol use or possession a criminal offence then this argument might have even a slight relevance.
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This comes back to my previous point of "It's legal" or "it's illegal" as some kind of argument (It's really not).

Alcohol is legal therefore there's no bother discussing it in terms of other drugs.

If you want to discuss legal drugs vs legal drugs (which I don't want to as legal and illegal are arbitrary distinctions imo).

Then compare Alcohol and Diamorphine.

I hate hypotheticals but.. to clarify my point about legal and illegal being irrelevant.

If I have a beer, get in my car, have an accident and I'm found to be within the legal limit. Then everything is ok, because it's not illegal.
 
J_Moore said:
Disagree.
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Fair enough, I wasn't going to reply as I didn't want to take the thread off topic but as a mod has already moved this thread, here goes nothing ;)

You said in an earlier post that you were surprised that someone who identified as a libertarian would be of the view that people had an obligation to obey the law. I fail to see the contradiction personally, traditional liberalism (as opposed to 'progressive' liberalism which seems to be in vogue these days) has always included adherence to the law as one of its principles. IMO you can't guarantee individual freedoms without strong institutions & maintaining law and order, otherwise anarchy will be the eventual result. But then I am a 'traditional' liberal so feel free to disagree.
 
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