What they going to do to the rest of the team for taking sleeping tablets Friday night

I thought that our 3/4's had been taking drop's

In reality although a fairly serious criminal offence unlawful possession of Class A Drugs hardly ever leads to 7 years imprisonment.

I believe the courts are weak when it comes to sentencing for drugs offences and society is infested with drug misuse issues with cocaine on the night club/pub scene readily available....As for your other comment according to some research the average sentence in the UK for rape is 8 years although I believe the maximimum sentence dependant on aggravating factors is 15 years.

Walker is a professional sportsman and a role model to some....he has almost breached a position of trust. Others outside of sport would lose their jobs in these circumstances and so should he. A 2 year ban will give him time to understand what it's like in the real world trying to earn a living and pay the bills (whilst hopefully getting drugs misuse support.)

He may then at 28/29 have the chance to resurrect his career returning to rugby if he can clean up his act and appreciate the talent & opportunity he has got (and that many others would love to have!).

There needs to be a grown up conversation about decriminalising some drugs - because the so-called war on drugs has patently been lost; and the illegality of it simply means that the whole trade is done by crims and gangsters, and the money involved goes on to fund all manner of nasty things.

Whilst there's undoubtedly societal problems from some people's use - there are significantly more from alcohol - over-use of which is part of our culture and is not only tolerated, but celebrated. That seems wrong to me - particularly given that plenty of people use recreational drugs of a weekend, without robbing pensioners or causing mayhem.

With regard to Walker and Chase - this is an employment issue and a simple one; they've been found to have drugs in their system and, like any employer, if its prohibited by the club, they can be sacked; they are bloody idiots for not understanding how to flush it from your system - plenty of exercise and lots of water, and it's gone in 48 hours - or the byproduct is, since cocaine itself is not testable.

This

There is no large scale gang warfare regarding alocohol. There are shootings just about every week in Sheffield which are undoubtedly drug related. shootings about the supply of alcohol are surely extremely rare.
Can't agree with your last paragraph - you seem to be excusing them ! IMO they are bloody idiots for taking them. End of.

Yes there are many that use recreational drugs without any problems Bren, but there are far far more that use them 24/7 365 days a year which I'm Afraid are the ones who don't give a crap about you, me or anyone. You can legalise it do whatever, but that won't stop how they get the funds to finance it or the destruction and heartache they cause when on them. Only the suppliers might be slowed down slightly but will never be stopped. Stiffer sentences for all crimes and back to the old school in the penal system so they don't come back will go a long way.

This.

The grown up conversation about drugs won't happen as to make it work it needs to be a government issue and it could not be further away from being a vote winner.
No one will touch it.

That's because alcohol is legal - you don't need to go meet a dodgy guy in a back alley for a 8 pack of Fosters that's been smuggled over the Columbian border. If drugs were legalized (don't agree that all drugs should be legalized by the way) and sold from proper licensed places you wouldn't get all this gang related crime over drugs, as they wouldn't be the suppliers anymore. People are going to do it either way, may aswell do it safely

I take your point jizzer, I was just trying to illustrate what kind of people are peddling the drugs.
Legalisation of drugs is a whole different ball game, needing much cleverer people than me to decide the implications.
Even if all drugs were legalised I would doubt the mentality of anyone taking them.

2 points from here
1) Players are role models and we need to set an example - we have done a similar thing (albeit alcohol) with Tim smith etc. so he is gone for me.

2) i arrange for random drug tests at work (i work in construction) we have tested over 200 people in Yorks/lancs and have a failure rate of around 10%. interestingly we have not had one failure for alcohol.

Making it legal is the brain dead and 'ok we give up, you win' approach. The problem starts with lack of education and the 90's era of teenagers producing children (which is still happening) when they can't even look after themselves. I am 32, when i left high school in 2001 i was just about seeing the complete lack of common sense creeping in. Now it is wide spread. You go to any pub in the country and you will see empty cocaine bags behind the u-bends of toilets. Absolute diving headers. And where girls/women used to be sensible regarding this type of thing, they are now doing it in abundance. I cannot believe how in the last 20 years or so how thick the country has become. We don't make anything, trade anything or educate anywhere near enough anymore. This cesspit, especially in the northern working class towns breeds turds who will buy, sell and take drugs because the lack of education and common sense is turning folk into zombies. There is no future for most. Not surprised they turn to drugs, although that doesn't excuse it. Just listen to the music coming out of car windows these days. Trance and that black Harlem crap who sing (talk) about drugs, stabbing and shooting folk. You need LSD to make sense of it. Society is screwed but you can't just give up and say 'ok let's legalize it' Imagine how bad it would be then? Having a pint why someone is sniffing coke at the side of you. Yeah good idea!! To be honest i think we are too far gone with this sort of thing anyway, immigration, radicalization. Our children and their children are all screwed BUT....... i revert back to the point. I don't care how thick you are, if you are picking up thousands a week in an industry where children look up to you and you abuse that position then you should be dropped like a stone and i hope Wakey do exactly that. The sort of thing we try and keep our children away from being shoved into their faces by their role models. Despicable.

I go into schools to try hopefully to educate year 5s, 10 year olds, as that is when you can get arrested, about the affect of drugs and drink, to tell them about prison life and real stories from real people affected by it. Hopefully they take it on board, only time will tell. Again these so called role models know better. They have the choice, no one makes them. Too much time, money on their hands I don't know, but it's their choice so no sympathy here for the consequences they will face.

Correct sir and you are to be commended in trying to make a difference in what seems like an already lost battle.

Legalising drugs is not giving in its looking at the problem in a different way, the current way simply does not work, has never worked and will never work no matter how tough you get on the sentences.

It depends on what you mean by work.

At the moment I don't often see a group of drugged up teens or for that matter adults on the Street when I'm out with my family.
If it was all legal it would be similar to seeing people when drunk.

I think the mistake some people are making is that people of all colours, races, creeds, and most importantly class take drugs -not just working class people who have nothing better to do. The same as alcohol, which lets not forget is also a drug which kills and causes people to do ridiculous things. To me the route of the problem is deaper than people just want to get drugged up because they like it (even though some people will do it for that reason), there's a problem in society as to why people would seek to escape reality this way. But treating addiction as a crime instead of an illness is just going to see more people in prison that just need help and more education on the subject. However in the case of Adam Walker, I don't think any professional sports man should take drugs (including alcohol) full stop.

Jesus h Christ - that's such a mish-mosh of ill-informed, offensive, racist, moralistic Daily Mail nonsense, I don't know where to begin; it sounds to me like you've been watching so much dystopic, dark future sci-fi, such that you now see the world as an episode of The Walking Dead. Either that, or you're so disconnected from and frightened by youth culture, that you've retreated to the moral high ground and dug yourself in.

I agree that in a professional environment where drugs, and certain behaviours, are prohibited, the employer has and should exercise an absolute right to deal with people who transgress - but to dismiss drug use in the way you've described it is just ignorant.

To the other poster's point about not seeing marauding gangs fighting over supplies of alcohol - that happens instead in the boardrooms of multinational booze manufacturers, because for some perverse reason, we have legalised and accepted some mind-altering substances, but not others; if we had a more sensible approach to this stuff, the criminal activity that you've identified would reduce significantly - plenty of countries have done it, with positive effects. In the UK, there's too much moralising for it to be a sensible conversation - but one would hope that as the influence of old duffers and the Daily Mail diminish, some politicians might be brave enough to tackle it.

Smoking cigarettes is a big killer, because of personal family issues, I think smoking cigarettes should be illegal , especially in public. Government has tried to put off people smoking especially the Young by putting more and more restrictions on cigarettes. But I also I'm a bit of a libertarian and believe anything you do in your own home and doesn't affect anyone else should be ok.

This is from the NCDD (National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence) website

Alcohol, more than any illegal drug, was found to be closely associated with violent crimes, including murder, rape, assault, child and spousal abuse. About 3 million violent crimes occur each year in which victims perceive the offender to have been drinking and statistics related to alcohol use by violent offenders generally show that about half of all homicides and assaults are committed when the offender, victim, or both have been drinking. Among violent crimes, with the exception of robberies, the offender is far more likely to have been drinking than under the influence of other drugs.

Hardly a surprise given alcohol is legal and easlily available. If drugs were legalised making them widely available to all you'd find a different story. Sorry but if the answer is legalise drugs then you are asking the wrong questions.

The question is why not ban alcohol

You are only making assumptions that the figures would rise if drugs were legal

So you don't think they would rise if it was made legal yet you want to ban alcohol to reduce the same figures? Yeah, that makes sense.

The way to solve a problem is not to give more people easier access to said problem!