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botica wrote:It does however also show how accepted recreational drug use is by the comments on here.. Drugs wreck lives, in somewhat a different way than alcohol. Drugs are very addictive and become a habbit much faster than alcohol. How many drug users do you know that can do without and how many people who have a pint who can do without??? i have seen how quickly a pot smoker can move on to coke/heroin causing untold grief on the way, stealing, lying. Alcohol is a lot slower and is too a hard life to live with a alcoholic... But a alcoholic doesn't become one over night. Gareth admits he couldn't help himself after such a short time, but he wasn't an addict. He is one step away from being an addict and a long way from a cure if he doesn't admit he has a problem.

People on here should stop grouping alcohol and drugs together as the progression from casual to addict is completley different.

Nobody has condoned drug use just many realise how pevalent drug use is in the UK today.

Why separate alcohol? It costs the country far more and you are very much mistaken if you think the path to becoming an alcoholic is a slow one. Some people simply cannot consume a single alcoholic drink. It is no better / no worse but because it is accepted and legal, people like to paint it as being different. Drugs, Cigarettes, Alcohol are all the same bar the legal issue.

Alcohol wrecks far more lives and can be an instant killer of the innocent (drink drivers, violence due to). It can make so called nice people into potential killers. As for drugs? Our University are full of drug use. They always have been, always will and yet most of those users emerge to have decent lives.

The amount of money wasted in this country/globally dealing with drug abuse/alcohol abuse/tobacco abuse holds us all back and has caused untold damage. How many people will be self harming in King Street this weekend?

cpwigan wrote:The problem, with your view Medlocke is that it is hypocritical. You argue that Feka is somehow different from Pryce, Cockayne and many others. He is no different. just as Jon Clarke was no different. Just as Joe Lydon was no different.

In the eyes of the law they are different. No point in arguing otherwise because Feka would have been treated more leniently than Cockayne. Pryce and Reardon were very lucky part of the case against them was thrown out or they would probably be inside doing time as I type.

Whether they should be treated differently by their clubs as opposed to the law is another matter. I get the impression most people think Cockayne has no business playing the game and ditto Pryce. They may not think the same about Feka because his was a reaction to provocation whereas Cockayne and Pryce was anything but. If so their views are only mirroring how the law treats some offences more seriously than others.

If a person said I want Hock out forever and showed me they had said exactly the same for Feka, Lydon and Clarke then I would not argue with them.

I don't see the inconsistency. It is all down to how you view each individual offence. Drug use is IMO considered worse by many people than what Feka did. Had he done what Cockayne did then people may more readily class them in the same bracket.

Dave

Why is Feka any different to Cockayne? 1 man called Feka something and he risked everything by attacking the idiot. Had the idiot cracked his head on the ground and died then Feka would have faced a more serious charge. IIRC the reason Clarke went to jail was because exactly that happened bar the individual dying.

I don't know why Cockayne did what he did. I daresay he could say awww he said something to me and I flipped. You only have to read the fairy tales put forward by Pryce and Reardon to understand how misunderstood they were.

Others are entitled to their own views but if some fool is daft enough to snort some powder up their nose or whatever they are far less a danger to the rest of us than some muscular monster deciding to inflict physical pain on others.

The reality for me is that if the RFL / Member Clubs set the punishments anybody and everybody would be told to not be a naughty boy and sent on their way. In this instance the punishment is taken out of the hand of RL and fans IMO have been OTT in their reaction to this incident compared to past incidents of a different nature.

cpwigan wrote:Why is Feka any different to Cockayne? 1 man called Feka something and he risked everything by attacking the idiot. Had the idiot cracked his head on the ground and died then Feka would have faced a more serious charge. IIRC the reason Clarke went to jail was because exactly that happened bar the individual dying.

And the fact that he was stood outside Princes nightclub shouting "come on, who wants some"? Someone stepped forward and came off second best. The fact that it was instigated by Clark is what got him sent down.
Oh and in my opinion, Cockayne is much worse than Feka, if you've seen the footage you will know what I mean. If you've seen the footage and still think that Feka is as bad as Cockayne, then you are either incredibly naive or stubborn.

To my knowledge nobody has seen the footage of Feka so all we have to go off is the press reports;

Wigan Warriors ace Iafeta Paleaaesina has admitted a savage assault in which he broke a man's jaw outside a Wigan train station

(Wigan Today)

Having viewed the CCTV footage, Mr Becker defending agreed there was a case to answer despite Mr Campbell's retraction. Paleaaesina, who is contracted to Wigan until 2010, had previously entered a not guilty plea but changed it to guilty in light of the film footage.

Like most I have seen the Cockayne video and he resembled a town/city centre scrote.

Cockayne was handed a 12-month sentence suspended for two years and ordered to carry out 240 hours of community service and pay £750 in costs and compensation to his victim. Feka was sentenced to 200 hours of unpaid work and forced to pay £1,000 compensation.

Cockayne was foubnd guilty of Assault Occasioning Actual Bodily Harm. Feka Inflicting Grievous Bodily Harm. I may be wrong but the latter is in effect a more serious assault.

Personally and I stand by it, Feka is no better / no worse than Cockayne, Pryce et al. Just because he is a Wigan player it should not make any difference whatsoever.

What I find naive or stubborn is that people believe the legal system is fair and everybody is dealt with exactly the same. Justice is largely and critically determined by how much money you can afford to spend on representation.

RL as a sport deals with players unfairly and it is naive or stubborn for fans not to accept that. In fact the only time parity is seen is with drug cases because the RFL / Clubs are not given freedom to exercise bias. Of course post ban, they exercise bias through self interest. However, on a weekly basis clubs / players of a 'lesser standing' are treated unfavourably / unfairly.

Moreover, Joe Public prefer to castigate drug use whilst offering excuse after excuse for alcohol abuse through self interest. Even the politicians take decisions based on self interest on such issues. It filters downwards and professional clubs including our own do not ban alcohol consumption for employees even though it is clearly detrimental to their own success.

RL supporters are hypocritical because we all scream for blood at our modern day coloseums whenever tempers become frayed. We all salivate when players trade blows, shed blood. We all groan when a player exhibits anything less than full blooded machoism. Yet, once he leaves the field of play we do a complete about turn and decry any negative behaviour. Sometimes hours after insisting that player 'kills' the opposition.

Life is full of hypocrisy and I think I can safely count on the fingers of my hands, maybe one hand, the number of people I have encountered in life who have the genuine right to be morally indignant. I am certainly not one of those as I am as fallable and as guilty as 99.9% of society.

:slee:

medlocke wrote:Nobodys saying ban Hock from Rugby for life or that he shouldn't be given another chance, i'm saying he shouldn't be given a second chance at Wigan, all other clubs that have had drug cheats banned have washed their hands of them, which is what we should be doing and like i have stated before, the only reason people are worrying about Gaz and want the club to keep him sis because of his talent, if it was somebody mediocre nobody would be wanting that player anywhere near the team, would everybody be wanting the club to stick behind Dennis Moran (if it had been him), i think not, big pack of Hypocrits. :eusa18:

Dennis Moran does not deserve to have anyone standing behind him even if he had been the best player in the world,because of his alledged off field activerties,which were (again alledged) to have been the reason why he left Wigan.IMO he is a low life.

God wrote:Gaz Hock is not a cheat, taking coke wont make him the best second rower on the planet, it has no effect on his muscle build, stamina,skill,awareness,pace or anything like that. If anything it will slow all of this down, this is why the club and the fans should stick with him. He is NOT A CHEAT.

In the eyes of WADA, yes he is and it is their rules that count. Cocaine is classed as a stimulant which is why it is banned in-competition but not out of competition. I presume the logic behind that is taking stimulants outside of competition won't have any effect on any results or an athletes performance but taking stimulants in-competition will. So if you take it in-competition you are considered to be cheating.

Lets make this clear we all agree drugs in sport is wrong yes??? I am not condoning it, but disgarding Hock at the club would be a very big mistake especially when he hasnt cheated.

Yes he has. That is why he is banned. He has not been banned for taking a drug classed as illegal but for taking a drug that is classed as a stimulant.

However there is a small article in the on-line version of the Sun that says the club will be sending him on some sort of rehabilitation program so they are sticking by him it seems.

It would be different if it was steroids or any other drug that sustains endurance and stamina, then yes get rid i would have no problem with that.

Steroids and stimulants are both banned in-competition. Steroids are also banned out of competition. Once the season starts steroids and stimulants are therefore treated the same way.

Coke is a filthy habit just like smoking/drinking but because its none taxable its deemed illegal which is fair enough, we all have to abide by the law.

if it was any other player at Wigan caught doing it i would not call for his head, i would use him in the same way the club will use Hock in the future by teaching younger players the dangers of drug abuse in the sport and how easy it is to get into a habit, this could be a blessing in diguise, the drug culture in Rugby League will die a death because of this.

As I said above it appears Hock is being sent on various programs to rehabilitate him during his two years away but I don't think this is going to have any major effect on any drug culture in RL on its own. The RFL have already said it is impractical to test any more than they do so if there are any players out there with more sense than Hock who dabble in the off season, are not England players or for those who are, they aren't daft enough to take the drug once selected then you can bet they will be back at it once the fuss has died down.

As to Hock being used by the club in some sort of anti-drug campaign I doubt that will happen any time soon. He actually set a very poor example so until he proves himself clean and completes whatever programs the club has lined up for him he isn't in any position to preach on the evils of drug abuse because at the moment all he has to say is "I did it, I got caught, I was stupid" and we all know that already.

Dave

I have to say the former post by God sums up my view better than I put it.

Wigan RLFC are showing Duty of Care and Hock is going into a rehab programme amongst many other things.

hock new the rules before he took drugs and the consquenses of getting caught,i personaly think he should be banned for two years and not play for the club again ,