more to the game and them selves than the club

I agreed all the way up to the “club” bit. Hamlin/Mullen/Hardaker absolutely disrespected the club by their actions. Mullen and Hardaker will and have had the opportunity to make it up but I suspect Hamlin will stay in Australia and be ever remembered as a complete waste of talent.

I dread to think of the amount of powder that will get exhumed tomorrow at Aintree, I stopped gambling 6 years ago so don’t go anymore but I have heard the crowd has got a lot worse recently. It’s very much on trend and seems to attract nobs with no interest in horses, little bit like the darts crowd, just there to get wrecked.

I went to Haydock and Chester last year and recently Cheltenham for the Gold Cup. The amount of white powder is utterly ridiculous, doing it out in the open, 3/4 lads to a cubicle. Even my partner saw a group of girls in their toilets passing a bag around. If you need that to have a good time or a good night you’re nothing short of a sad pathetic person IMHO.

Juvenile i know.

But this proper tickled me this Matty

Unheard of in the 80s ands 90s lol. Give over it was just as bad if not worse.

I was talking specifically about the queues in the gents toilets, that’s a recent thing. Yes drugs was being taken in the cities around the UK (Gunchester/Hacienda wars & rave scene) but in the towns the availability of coke just wasn’t there in the abundance it is now. Back then you might have known the odd person who dabbled now it’s widespread.

It’s mental. Each year it’s got worse certain gangs of lads seem to want to just get wrecked as soon as possible... ie From midday onwards. I’m swerving it this year.

I think that's what most, if not all, are saying on here mate. I doubt many take issue with the gist of what Carney is saying. It's just the way he takes aim soley at Wigan when he, better than most, knows it's a game wide issue. It's sensationalism at it worst and moreso when you take on board that he was guilty of comparable misdemeanours during his own playing career.

Bobbie Goulding has weighed into Carney on Twitter & Facebook calling him a hypocrite.

It’s not so much the drug that bothers me it’s more the group of lads who seem to take it and want eveyone to know about it. I personally have a couple of mates who use it fairly regular and you wouldn’t know they were on it,apart from the fact they stay fairly sober and they can keep drinking longer, waste of money if you ask me.
I’ll stick to alcohol which imo is probably a worse drug but legal and a damn site cheaper!

Just legalise the stuff and tax it heavily as per alcohol and tobacco. Job done.

Never saw Goulding as a player, but as a kids coach I saw him threaten a kid, get sent off by the ref, then threaten to destroy the young refs career if he reported it. Thoroughly odious man, regardless of the image he now presents on social media.

That’s like making murder legal to ease pressure on prisons.

Then at the other end of the spectrum if your clamp down harder you risk allowing another drug to come in and take its place like legal highs did eg bubble, meow meow, spice.

Yeah, I'm not sure that Goulding is someone you want as your spokesman. Besides, if you read his words, he's defending the players, not Wigan - which is the wrong way around.

Yeah people are giving stick to Goulding but he’s not the one preaching like Carney has. His point is that he doesn’t believe Carney was ‘squeaky clean’ himself (therefore a hypocrite) although he does agree with his sentiment.

I haven't wanted to comment directly on this one because when drink driving, drug use and/or violence are involved in a topic I think it can really stoke emotion inside people that have had experiences of it. I would not want to preach to someone who lost a love one to a drink/drug driver or maybe a loved one to drug abuse. Even someone who has experienced a violent assault or verbal abuse may take offence to anything said in defense. It is human nature.

However, a very good friend of mine is a Police officer with GMP, he has said on several occasions through 7 years of traffic policing, in 90% of the roadside stoppages he performs when alchohol/drugs are suspected he is still surprised when he first approaches the vehicle...he said the split is fairly even between men/women but what surprises him most is the fact that in a far more cases than we would want to believe the occupations are quite discouraging, GP's/solicitors, surgeons/politicians, teachers and even fellow Police Officers are just as frequent as your let us say, lesser jobs or even Sports personalities. So my point, although long winded is that whilst our boys should know better, and the disappoint us, they are a small fraction of what is an alarming problem for society on the whole, no matter what warnings are offered or given human beings will always cock-up and make bad decisions.

I am in no way condoning what any of the above mentioned players have done but we must as humans understand that for the years behind us and for many years ahead of us that this cycle will continue. Educating the young players on the dangers of driving whilst under the influence of either alcohol or drugs is all that can be done by the club, examples must be made. Whilst Zak and young Mullen are punished by a driving ban and a financial penalty, they must be made to understand that in both cases the end result could of been far worse with the loss of a life.

Regards all sports personalities and drug use, there is very little chance Cocaine will ever be eradicated, given its stimulant similarities to the performance enhancing workout powders/drinks that supplement companies produce (yes Musclepharm included) that they are recommended to use for training and game day, it is very addictive and is a social influencer, in most cases now within groups of socialites it is almost laughable when someone refrains from using.

Very interesting post - Im sure the mental health crisis in this country has a lot to do with more and more people turning to drink and drugs as a way of coping.

30/40 years ago drink driving was seen as socially acceptable and was common place despite the obvious dangers. Nowadays, most people find it totally unacceptable and rightly so!
However, some of those same people see some use of recreational drugs as socially acceptable. It’s not.
The use of drugs socially is why levels of most serious violent crime are soaring. Shootings in inner cities are usually down to rival organised crime groups fighting over drug turf. Burglaries, robberies, theft of or from vehicles and mostly committed by people trying to fund drug habits, be it cocaine, heroin, cannabis, Khet etc isn’t relevant. The use of drugs in society is rife but completely at the heart of most criminality nationwide. There’ll be people who agree with me and people who don’t. I don’t know how or if we will ever stop it. It’s a debate that would take far too much time to have properly on a forum like this.

Spot on pal

Give over. It’s a widespread social activity that is in the most part totally harmless. Murder isn’t.

Make it legal then (cocaine) together with heroin and sell them in pubs and clubs. Once it's settled in there then let's start selling them in schools.
Oh and bullocks to the poor saps in Columbia who should be grateful that the west needs these harmless drugs because the no marks who use them don't give a flying shoite about anything other than themselves.

Totally harmless? Really? Honestly? Jesus...

Jesus wept!!

That’s the most gob smacking post I’ve seen in a long time on here. Seriously ill educated post.

If you had experience of being on the other side of someone on a cocaine fuelled rampage trying to restrain them or trying to deal with them and seeing them go through into Acute Behavior Disorder (ABD) which is a life threatening condition and then had to perform CPR battling to keep them alive, watching as paramedics and air ambulance perform life saving treatment on the street, you would never say such a ridiculous thing.