Friday, May 9, 2014
Josh Gordon... Wow
Josh Gordon is looking at a 1 year suspension for failing a drug test. Considering that there are two rules for being a millionaire NFL player, don't do illegal/performance enhancing drugs and don't break the law, this is really bizarre. The Browns are going to lose one of the three or four best WR in the league. Sheer stupidity. And if there are readers out there (I think we might have one or two) who want to argue whether marijuana should be legal, I'm not a sympathetic ear.
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Beating your gf/wife and murder are totally acceptable though.
ReplyDeleteMarijuana should be legal (yeah, I bit), and if nothing else, the punishments are draconian (sometimes in the legal system, certainly in the NFL--a year?!). Even if it was legal, though, I suspect teams would institute employee standards involving testing, right? I hardly think it's harmless, and I think they'd be within their rights to ask guys they're paying millions of dollars to abstain. That's part of what makes this so absurd--even aside from drug testing and suspensions, why do something that might impede your performance, and risk a contract, even a career? It's not like this was one of those "crimes of passion" things where a guy got out of control (presumably). He had a choice, he made a bad call. This was one of the questions about him in college, in entering the Supplemental Draft, and now it follows him into the NFL. He's still young, so maybe he matures and grows out of things like this, but I'd have trouble being confident in that if I were his coach or GM. Hopefully it's a wake-up call for him, because he's talented, I love watching him play, and the team does seem to be headed in the right direction--maybe he comes back to a team that's improved without him, and Cleveland has something for a few years. Fingers crossed.
ReplyDeleteJason, there is a 50% chance that you don't actually believe marijuana should be legal, but want me to go on a rant. Here's my view. Marijuana should be legal medically. There is absolutely no reason that it shouldn't be available for treatment of nausea and pain that are refractory to other treatments. My big concern with marijuana doesn't so much stem from the fact that it is "worse" than other drugs. For example, marijuana is about as bad as alcohol. Unfortunately, if a dude smokes a bunch of weed and gets a ticket, you can't necessarily tell if he was acutely intoxicated or is just a chronic smoker. There is currently not a field test available to test. So, if marijuana is legal, how do you punish for acute intoxication if there are blurred lines regarding toxicological evaluation of level of intoxication. I don't think marijuana is the devil, I just think there are issues legally.
ReplyDeleteBrennan, don't get me started! The NFL is a microcosm of our legal system. A person can rape a child and get a handful of years in prison, while a person who mules cocaine in baggies in their stomach can get dozens of years in prison. Some of this defies logic. My favorite (least favorite?) example of ridiculous standards of punishment is when Leonard Little killed someone while driving drunk. He served a suspension, and was just welcomed back. Ugh. I'm starting to get sad.
Finally, with regards to Josh Gordon's potentially yearlong suspension. This is his second offense. Likely they will give him a 6-8 game suspension, but they could go a year. I hope the dude turns it around. Contrary to what chronic potheads will tell you, THC DOES have addictive potential, and Josh Gordon is probably addicted to the drug (and the whole argument that it is only psychologically addictive, but not physically addictive is bunk. They are one and the same, but the withdrawal symptoms just happen to be mild with THC). Hopefully the Browns and NFL put some plans in place to get the young man some help. Once his career is over, he can move to Colorado and smoke all the week he wants!
Finally, finally. Dammit Jason. Why? You can't hand a guy with a big mouth a soapbox. It's just mean!
I legitimately believe it should be legal, but I did want to provoke a rant (sorta--I also wanted to see what your actual rationale was, and I think you've got a perfectly reasonable argument in terms of testing and enforcement). Honestly, one of my major issues is that the punishments for using and possessing seem to me to be out of whack with the severity of the offense, and we expend tons of resources enforcing laws against marijuana when relatively speaking, it isn't all that bad. On top of which, there are social justice issues involved, and the ways of addressing offenses are punitive rather than rehabilitative (though both could be said of most of our legal system anyway). As for Gordon and the NFL, well, he's an employee, they have expectations, and he's a repeat offender; I think a year is too much, but 6-8 games isn't too much, and if there's another violation soon, I'm fine with a year, cutting him, etc.
ReplyDeleteAs usual, we mostly agree, we just wanted to argue on the way to admitting it!
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