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josh gordon has a problem with weed. we can argue about the severity of his problem or what to label him, but neither of these two facts should be in dispute. the problem is that josh gordon doesn't believe he has a problem with either substance, and one well-written letter later, way too many people are agreeing with him.
context is everything here. people keep pointing to the frequency of his drug/alcohol use and saying he doesn't have a problem. but the fact is that when your drug/alcohol use is actively destroying your career, it doesn't matter how often you're doing it. you have a problem. if obama has two drinks per year, and they both just happen to come 15 minutes before the presidential debate, obama has a drinking problem. "but he only had two drinks all year" is not a defense.
likewise, josh gordon had two drinks on a plane, big deal. except that seven months ago, he was arrested for drunk driving and put on probation with the NFL. in that context, having two drinks is an enormous deal because it got him fired from his job-- and he knew that was a potential risk when he did it. the fact that he didn't say no to those two drinks in that situation, under those circumstances, the fact that he couldn't just ask for a pepsi instead, means he has a problem with alcohol, period. people who don't have a problem with alcohol don't get arrested and fired for it in a seven-month period. counting the number of drinks you had is irrelevant.
you say the NFL is being too strict here. i understand the impulse-- with its history-- to side with the individual over the institution, and i think that's the trap most people here are also falling into. yet at least two other organizations agree with the NFL's assessment that josh gordon has a substance abuse problem: baylor (which kicked him off their team) and the legal justice system (which arrested him-- he plead guilty-- in july). the NFL isn't picking on josh gordon. he has a problem.
two other things to remember about the NFL here: one, they're a P.R. driven organization. it's a very public profession, you're in the spotlight, so the NFL's tolerance for substance abuse is just flat-out gonna be lower than other professions. that just is what it is. two, the NFL is a sports organization, so again it's gonna have a lower tolerance for substance abuse. things that are perfectly legal to have in your body are banned by the NFL, and that's true of every major sports organization in the world. there are prescription medications that are perfectly legal to take, yet if you want to play sports, you can't have them in your body, not even when prescribed by a doctor. that's not just the NFL, that's sports.
so, again, it sounds insensitive to say, but it's the hard truth: if you can't keep these substances out of your body (something that thousands and thousands of college/professional athletes around the world manage to successfully do, even those who are "only" 23), then you should go work somewhere else. you can't be a football player. when your body is your profession, what you put into your body is also your profession. if you're careless about what you put in your body, you lose your profession. pick a different one. josh gordon isn't entitled to be an athlete. he has to follow the rules of sports in general and the NFL specifically just like everyone else, or else he can't play. this is the world grown-ups live in, he should step into it and stop acting like he's being singled out or picked on.
likewise, josh gordon has a problem with weed. smoking weed cost him his athletic scholarship, it got him kicked out of baylor, it dropped him from being a likely first-round draft pick to a supplemental pick, costing him millions of dollars, and even after all that, he still tested positive for it in the NFL. anyone who loses that much due to drug use and CONTINUES using or being around those who use drugs (we're all taking his secondhand smoke story at face value here, when let's be honest, that's actually being extremely generous-- he didn't just test positive, he was over the limit), that person has a problem with drugs. doesn't matter whether weed should be legal, wouldn't even matter if weed *was* legal. in your chosen profession, you can't have this substance in your body, period.
so the big problem here is that josh gordon doesn't believe he has a substance abuse problem. people who don't think they have a problem don't get help for that problem. they don't say, no, i can't have that drink because i have a problem with alcohol. no, i can't go to that party because i have a problem with weed. those are things josh gordon should be saying just as a person in general, but ESPECIALLY as a professional athlete who's on substance abuse probation. josh gordon isn't saying those things because josh gordon doesn't believe he has a problem. he does. he clearly does. he needs to be saying those things and he needs help. if the people around him are falling for his rationalizations the way everyone here is, he's gonna 100% end up in another situation where another banned substance magically finds its way into his body-- through absolutely no fault of his own of course. thing is, at this point, the NFL won't care how it got there. it's just gonna end his career, and rightfully so. "i smack clowns with nouns, punch herbs with verbs..."
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