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Okay, I concede the point about players mixing with underworld types. I think it was Didak who spent the day with that bikie nutter who ended up shooting his ex girlfriend and a good samaritan in the street later that night, and clearly it's not a good look. Still, if the goal of the program is to identify players who are in danger of being coerced into bringing illegal practices (match fixing etc) into the AFL, is testing for marijuana/ecstasy use in October the best way to do that? I strongly doubt it.

Incidentally, there's a pretty substantial link between alcohol abuse and domestic violence... Does that mean the AFL should terminate every player that has a beer on the basis of the fact that they might smack their woman when they get home?

Christ almighty, are you serious? You've never actually bought drugs, have you? "Drug dealers", that is, the person that sells small quantities for personal use, tend to be relatively normal people who've worked out that selling substances whose price have been artificially inflated by short-sighted prohibition laws can be a lucrative trade. They generally have normal jobs as well, and have large networks of friends who are "civilian" (ie, not criminal). You wouldn't notice them as being any different to anyone else at the supermarket. "Drug traffickers", that is, people who sell large quantities to be divided up and onsold, are more likely to fit the stereotype you describe, with networks reaching into the underworld and all the other nastiness that entails. Note that "more likely" is just that. It's not a guarantee. I knew a bloke who used to grow and sell weed in commercial quantities (like, kilograms at a time), and he was in all other respects a normal functioning member of society. Perhaps he had a slightly worse driving record than average. Suggesting that a normal user, purchasing small quantities for personal use, is likely to come under pressure from those "deeper" parts of the underworld while buying a gram of weed from the bloke in the house on the corner illustrates that you really have no experience or understanding of how this whole system works. Funnily enough, however, you have raised the number one reason why all illicit drugs should be decriminalised and regulated; to remove the profitable nature of drug trafficking, which is far and away the most profitable venture the underworld engages in. Making drugs legal (and available) would cut the flow of money to these illegal organisations almost overnight, removing their ability to commit a great many other crimes which rely on the capital raised by drug trafficking to fund.

Some drugs can have a direct effect on games, yes, and I'm not suggesting that we wouldn't test for those. But there's plenty of illicit drugs which would clearly cause someone to play worse (marijuana, alcohol and LSD all come to mind as obvious examples of drugs that would adversely affect performance). Why should the AFL test for those, particularly in October? They have no greater effect on player performance than tax evasion.

The idea of of zero tolerance, and by extension the so called war on drugs as a whole, makes no effort to educate people about the effects and consequences of putting chemicals into our bodies. It demonises almost totally harmless chemicals (like marijuana) by classifying them as dangerous narcotics like opiates, whilst almost actively encouraging the use of other highly dangerous chemicals, like alcohol, thanks to glaring inconsistencies created by entirely arbitrary lines drawn between these substances. "They" were lying about the dangers of marijuana, and as a result, the people they were lying to chose not to trust them when it came to their warnings about other chemicals. Ask any teenager with overly-strict parents how seriously they take warnings and advice from their parents (hint for the lazy: not seriously at all), and you'll understand. Agree, and I'm certainly not arguing that the AFL shouldn't be testing for performance enhancing drugs, particularly on game-day. Thank you. On that basis, why is it appropriate for the AFL to arbitrarily investigate their players for other breaches of civil law?

I realise the newspapers have moved on the the next exciting drama, (and we have actual football to talk about!), but as a person who has lost a couple of friends to drug-related causes, I remain an active harm-minimisation campaigner, so I'm digging up last week's issue. I found this quote today, and in the context of people calling marijuana a "gateway drug", I think it's very powerful... When asked why he and so many other 60's musicians ended up as heroin addicts in the 70's, Dickie Peterson of the band Blue Cheer said "When we discovered they were lying to us about (the dangers of) marijuana, we figured they were lying to us about everything else." The war on drugs is an abject failure, and it's time we tried something else. Demonising those who choose to experiment with drugs, whether they be AFL players or confused teenagers, doesn't help anyone. Incidentally, my invitation to the "zero tolerance" crowd to explain why the AFL shouldn't actively seek out and punish tax-evading players remains open.

Anyone would have gotten concussed with that impact. He copped the full force of Vickery's weight to his face - concentrated through the lump of rock that constitutes Jack Reiwoldt's head.

If we win a flag in the next five years, I think our ruckman's name will be... Mitch Clark.

I reckon Couch is the man to take McKenzie's spot. He's played some incredible games at VFL level.

I love Toumpas signing for an extra year. As supporters, we can't know what's going on behind the scenes at a club, but when a guy heralded as one of the best young players of his draft has seen three months of operations and is willing to commit himself, I'd say that's an excellent sign that the culture which saw Tom Scully getting out as fast as he could has been pretty severely curtailed by our new coaching and management team. I'm a happy camper.

Christal.

I hope he'll be more than generally sore by the conclusion of the match. This'll be a game for Tappy to shine.

I don't doubt that a player on speed possibly could outperform his sober self (indeed, current players are eating caffeine tablets on game day like they're M&M's for precisely that reason), but drug use while playing is not what we're talking about here. The issue is whether the AFL should be testing players for illicit drug use on a Wednesday night, or in October. Caffeine? Nicotine? Codeine? Which drugs? If we're going to make substance use on game day illegal, surely we need to have a logical discussion about which drugs are okay, and why. Caffeine is already causing some players serious issues with sleeping, even days after the game - leading them to start abusing other chemicals to counter the affects. But people are talking about marijuana being the gateway drug... Do you believe all players should be tested by the AFL for tax evasion as well? If not, why not? (I'm really struggling to find an anti-drug campaigner capable of answering this one! It's the third time I've asked!)

"Kent" is an oft-employed euphemism for a slightly different word...

I'm not responding emotionally at all. The AFL does not currently seek to uncover breaches of any kind of law by their players... except for drugs. You guys are not asking for players to be immediately ejected from the league for breaching any kind of law... except for drugs. You're happy to let the current legal process apply for all matters of law... except for drugs. Explain to me why the AFL doesn't need a "zero tolerance" policy for tax evasion, and how that differs from recreational drugs. I don't have the time to link you to a thousand different sources of peer-reviewed data. Here's just one from near the top of a google search, from a Canadian government study. In summary - "In terms of (health-related) costs per user: tobacco-related health costs are over $800 per user, alcohol-related health costs are much lower at $165 per user, and cannabis-related health costs are the lowest at $20 per user." I can tell you with total confidence, further research on your part (if you stick to peer-reviewed stuff, not sensationalist waffle) will confirm without doubt that marijuana is vastly less harmful than alcohol, and LUDICROUSLY less harmful than tobacco. Unfortunately, laws get written by lobbyists and pecuniary interests, not scientists.

Yes, and the law is wrong. It's based on outdated thinking and pecuniary interests of a bygone era. The law used to be that women couldn't vote and aboriginals were considered wildlife, should the VFL have put a collar on every indigenous player? The AFL is grappling with an issue that society as a whole is still largely confused about. I'm not pro-drugs, I'm pro-logic. If you can logically explain to me how alcohol and marijuana differ in any way at all (other than that marijuana is proven to be vastly less harmful to both the individual and society at large), then I'll take your position seriously. You want zero tolerance? Why should a player with a drink-driving conviction get a second chance? Why should a player with an assault conviction get a second chance? Why does the AFL test for illicit drug use, but not tax evasion? Why is a breach of illicit drug law considered different to a breach of any other law? Respond with logic, not emotion.

No one is going to give Colin Sylvia one eighteenth of their salary cap for four years. No chance!

I find this whole situation very strange. Do all of you zero-tolerance zealots think a player should be sacked for having a beer? If not, why not? Alcohol is a drug, just as marijuana, MDMA and LSD are. Why does it receive special dispensation from your indignation? Because the US government couldn't stop gangsters from distributing it in the 1920's? It's a joke. Smoking a joint is not going to affect the performance of an AFL player any more than drinking a beer. The line between them is entirely arbitrary and impossible to logically justify. You want zero tolerance? You have to include alcohol, caffeine, ibuprofen, aspirin, and everything else. It's a morally untenable position.

And your opinion is based on what factual evidence?

Geez your polls annoy me, RR. Your bias is so clear when you create them that they don't actually measure anything except the extent to which your ridiculous options have tainted the result.

I reckon this will be his breakout year. Thanks for the photos!

You reckon? In my experience, you show me a confident young man and a rule, and I'll show you a broken rule. It's been scientifically proven that the ability to consider consequences fully develops quite late in life... like, well into the 20's for many people. That Garlett kid who failed to get drafted this year was a prime example of someone unable to comprehend the consequences of their actions.

Quite right, and funnily enough it's quite the opposite. Third world countries have very low rates of both depression and suicide. When you've got to fight just to survive, there's no time to think of anything else. The more affluent you are, the more likely you are to get depressed. With regards to a link between drugs and depression, I have some anecdotal evidence to present (and yes, I too am a statistics nerd so please don't lecture me about statistically significant sample sizes people!). I am an occasional recreational drug user (alcohol and weed roughly fortnightly, mushrooms, LSD and ecstasy much less often, but not never). I speak from the position of someone who has tried (but for the most part, not abused) drugs, and who has mingled with many people who have tried (and abused, in some cases) nearly everything. Note that I'm a fully employed "white collar" professional in my mid thirties. You'll see me in a tie in the city. I don't live under a bridge. My experience of basically all drugs (alcohol included) is that they amplify whatever mental state a person is in. A happy, chilled out person becomes a bit more happy, and a bit more chilled, on drugs. A thug with violent tendencies on drugs becomes the guy you read about in the news after an incident in King St. Someone who is a bit depressed, like my friend who killed himself recently, spirals into deeper and deeper depression with the assistance of drugs. Is there a link between drugs and depression? I'm not sure, and correlation isn't causation, but anecdotally it seems to me that drugs exacerbate depression. Drugs become the easiest way for a person to make a temporary escape from how they feel, while paradoxically making them feel that depression even more acutely. It becomes a vicious cycle. Depression on the whole is vastly misunderstood. You don't blame a person who suffers kidney failure...It's a symptom of a malfunctioning organ in their body. For the same reason, you should not blame them for suffering from depression... they too have a malfunctioning organ, it just happens to be the brain. In any event, Curry & Beer, I too felt like you about "perfect people" with "perfect lives" suffering from depression... something I had no experience with and no tendency towards myself. Suffice it to say, finding out your outwardly healthy friend has hung himself after a brief but intense addiction to meth is an experience that can alter your worldview pretty significantly. It's a complex situation with no simple answers, but compassion trumps cynicism as a starting point.

Mark LeCras!?

Couldn't agree more on Dunn. He's turned his body into a killing machine, found a spot on the park that suits his skillset, plays big and small opponents well, and is a vocal and supportive teammate for those around him. I want to see 22 games out of him this year.