12/21/24
December 11, 2010
Patriots Rookie Suspended for Doping: New England Patriots rookie linebacker Brandon Spikes has been suspended four games for violating the NFL's policy on performance-enhancing substances, the league said Friday. Spikes, who has 61 tackles and one interception this season, said the drug he took was medication, "not a performance enhancer or an illegal drug."
That said, what was the medication? This should be easy to resolve
I'm not so sure about that. It may be impossible for the NFL to verify what medication was taken to cause the positive reading.
If this is the case, I can't blame the NFL for not wanting to take the player's word. So we're left with the player's spin and no response from the NFL.
It would seem to be easy enough to find out what medication would cause a positive on the test, so the player has no one to blame but themselves.
posted by cjets at 08:12 PM on December 11, 2010
so the player has no one to blame but themselves.
And this is what Spikes did. He said that he knew he should have checked with someone before he took whatever it was he took, but he didn't, and now he suffers the consequences.
posted by Howard_T at 09:48 PM on December 11, 2010
I guess you're not understanding what I'm saying. Surely spikes can say "this is the medication I used", presumably either something that's OTC, or prescribed by a doctor. If the former, then it shouldn't be under the NFL's drug policy; if it's the latter, it should be easily confirmed. And in both cases, the league should then know if said medication would create a false positive for some other substance.
If the NFL feels players need to have someone from the league office reachable 24/7 for everything from "I just bought some flu medication at the Safeway down the street" to "my doctor prescribed this anti-inflammatory" to confirm whether it's something the player can put in their body, then they might as well just ensure these players have that access, and that the team's personal trainers become responsible for being reachable 24/7 for any and all OTC or prescription medications.
If they aren't going to do that, it becomes a Kafka-esque nightmare of "You never know if some drug that Howard_T could buy at the store without batting an eye would trigger a false positive". That's why I'd like more facts, since this sounds like either the drug in question is nothing important- something easily bought without a thought- or is in fact a banned subtance. The "automatic 4-game suspension" smacks of stupid zero-tolerance policies wedded to a disinterest in the truth. It's a poor example of Solomonic wisdom: rather than investigate and determine if the punishment should be "nothing" or "Wow, you're steroiding like crazy- we gotta suspend you for the rest of the season", they've chosen a pointless, Authoritarian fake-middle-ground of "4 games, whether you did anything wrong or not".
And when Spikes says "that's all my fault", I can't help but think of a battered wife saying "No, I deserved to be hit, I was a bad wife after all...".
posted by hincandenza at 09:58 PM on December 11, 2010
I guess you're not understanding what I'm saying. Surely spikes can say "this is the medication I used", presumably either something that's OTC, or prescribed by a doctor. If the former, then it shouldn't be under the NFL's drug policy; if it's the latter, it should be easily confirmed. And in both cases, the league should then know if said medication would create a false positive for some other substance.
Disclaimer: I'm not familiar with the NFL's drug policies, and specifically how they handle matters like burden of proof and unintentional ingestion of banned substances. If we were talking about WADA, however, your statement would be cause for a big belly laugh. In Olympic competition and other competition governed by WADA and its spinoffs, the Kafka-esque nightmare you describe is simply resolved by holding athletes 100% responsible for whatever is in their bloodstream. If it got there from a prescription medication, too bad. If it got there from a legal OTC preparation, too bad. If it got there from cross-contamination in the manufacturing facility of a company that produces a product with no banned ingredients, too bad. I wouldn't disagree with you about stupid no-tolerance policies, but that's just the drill in competition that's regulated by the most well-established doping regulation agency in sports today, the one from which the others generally take the lead or at least the example. So, yeah, don't be too surprised if the NFL policy is perhaps just a lighter shade of the same color.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 11:00 PM on December 11, 2010
It's amazing how the press seem to bend over backwards to accept the story from a NFL player about how testing positive for a banned substance might be a "false positive", yet will quickly grab the torches and pitchforks when a MLB player comes up with a positive result.
posted by grum@work at 05:43 AM on December 12, 2010
Some of the choice comments added below the postings of this story included a demand to know why the league didn't test the entire team after the way they played against the Jets.
posted by beaverboard at 09:38 AM on December 12, 2010
They'd definitely have tested positive for black powder smoke.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 11:06 AM on December 12, 2010
If it really was ADHD medication, what the hell is he supposed to do?
posted by yerfatma at 11:18 AM on December 12, 2010
If it really was ADHD medication, what the hell is he supposed to do?
If it works like WADA -- again, big if -- he's supposed to not take it, or not play. Athletes whose sports are regulated by WADA don't get any breaks for medical necessity -- there are any number of athletes with asthma that could have competed at elite levels, but who could not do so and take asthma meds.
Of course, it's not WADA -- it's the NFL, and the rights of players are at least partly safeguarded by US employment law and collective bargaining agreements, which is not the case in many WADA-regulated sports. One would certainly hope that there is a provision for medical necessity, but I wouldn't necessarily assume that there is one just because not having one is crazy.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 11:28 AM on December 12, 2010
If it really was ADHD medication, what the hell is he supposed to do?
Petition the NFL for an exemption. If that fails, get the NFLPA to try and help him (unlikely I know). And if that fails, take his case to the public.
It's all very easy to complain about it after the fact. But if it really was ADHD, he should have known that it would cause a false positive and he should have taken steps to deal with it, rather than wait for the inevitable suspension.
The fact that he did none of these things suggests that it was not a simple case of ADHD medication causing a false positive.
posted by cjets at 11:47 AM on December 12, 2010
The fact that he did none of these things suggests that it was not a simple case of ADHD medication causing a false positive.
Why is it implausible that he just assumed that a legal prescription medication would be allowed?
posted by lil_brown_bat at 01:54 PM on December 12, 2010
Has the NFL ever allowed the use of a legal prescription medication to serve as a defense?
posted by cjets at 02:08 PM on December 12, 2010
I don't know, cjets. I don't know that there's a lot of precedent either way. Do you know?
posted by lil_brown_bat at 03:15 PM on December 12, 2010
If I knew, I wouldn't be asking.
Generally speaking, if it's an important issue, I wouldn't just assume that it would be allowed.
posted by cjets at 03:20 PM on December 12, 2010
From what I've heard of the NFL policy and Spikes' admissions, he took a medication that was prescribed for his condition (either ADD or ADHD, I'm not sure which). When he was told that he was to be suspended, he did not claim false positive, or make any other excuse. Spikes merely said that he had made a mistake, gotten caught, and would not appeal the suspension.
That brings us to the question of why the NFL bans substances that are prescription drugs or available over the counter. It is to preclude a player without the condition for which the medication is used from using the medication to improve his performance. Thus, a player can use a banned substance if there is a valid medical reason, verified by a physician, for doing so. There may be some substances which are banned under any circumstances, and there may be some quantity limitations on those substances that are allowed for medical conditions but banned otherwise. These things I do not know, but they would make sense. In any case, Spikes offered no excuse other than his own stupidity, and that was the point I very inarticulately tried to make.
posted by Howard_T at 06:03 PM on December 12, 2010
There's no sanity to the drug policy, and I hate when people caught in its net bend over backwards to justify the NFL and take the blame on themselves.
That said, what was the medication? This should be easy to resolve, and either he was doping or it was a legit prescription drug- and thus he should either be suspended for much longer or not at all. That the truth seems to not matter to the NFL is what offends me...