WADA exec calls CFL drug policy "irresponsible," ignores NCAA to NFL comparison

The war over the CFL's drug policy is heating up, as World Anti-Doping Agency director-general David Howman called the league "irresponsible" Monday. This is just the latest event on this front; Canadian doping lab head Dr. Christiane Ayotte bashed the league over its policies on June 8, saying her lab wouldn't test further CFL samples. and WADA added some more moderate criticisms soon afterwards. The CFL shot back with a statement largely defending the status quo on June 10 and then formally cut ties with the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport on June 12, suggesting they weren't particularly interested in further negotiations on how to change the policy to something CCES and its lab would support. Now, the head of WADA has weighed in with a strong statement blasting the CFL, especially over the perceived lack of punishment for players entering from the Canadian university level (CIS), and he has some valuable points. However, it's worth questioning why WADA is coming after the CFL and ignoring another professional league that doesn't punish drug violations (recreational or performance-enhancing) from the university level; the National Football League.

The CFL-WADA fight is particularly focused on the league's entrance policy. The CFL doesn't suspend players after they test positive for performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) at the university level. That's what's really at issue here, and it's not just a theoretical discussion: five CIS players tested positive for PEDs this year and received university-level bans, as did one last year, but last year's violator (Quinn Smith) was still drafted in the first round and never missed a game, and three of this year's violators were drafted as well. That caused Howman to strongly criticize the CFL in a statement released Monday:

However, this appears somewhat hypocritical, as WADA does seem to largely stand idly by while another "so-called professional organization openly ignores drug-taking by college athletes." That would be the NFL, which is largely pulling its athletes from the NCAA. NFL prospects who test positive for marijuana or other recreational drugs, as Randy Gregory did at the league's combine this year, may see their draft stock fall a little. However, as NFL.com's Bucky Brooks writes, the only actual on-field penalty they face is the same as what happens in the CFL; they're treated the same way as a first-time violator already in the league, which means they're placed in Stage I of the league's substance abuse program.

Of course, testing positive for marijuana (or being cited for it by police, as Shane Ray was before this year's NFL draft, which also hurt his draft stock slightly and got him into the substance abuse program, but had no further on-field consequences) is quite different than testing positive for PEDs. Recreational marijuana use is currently legal in four U.S. states, and medicinal marijuana is legal in many more states, as well as Canada. Marijuana is not performance-enhancing, and there's a compelling argument (outlined by Patrick Hruby at Sports On Earth in 2013) that medicinal marijuana use may be better for football players than traditional pain-killers. As discussed with the Jonathan Hefney case in 2013, it's somewhat silly to care about football players using marijuana, whether they're in the CFL or NFL. In fact, the CFL doesn't even test for recreational drugs like marijuana, and there's no compelling case that it should start doing so.

The principle of what the NFL and the CFL are doing here is exactly the same, though. When it comes to actually-caught violations, both leagues are putting college violators into the first stage of their respective drug-testing programs. That first stage doesn't come with an actual penalty beyond further tests and intervention programs. Keep in mind that multiple pre-NFL failures don't count extra here, either; for example, Gregory admitted to failing several drug tests at Nebraska before failing one at the combine, but he was still only put in Stage 1.

Now, the difference is that NCAA players headed to the NFL aren't testing positive for PEDs or for masking agents. The NFL does treat first-time offenders more harshly there, offering a four-game suspension for a banned-substance violation and a six-game one for attempting to cover up a test, and those penalties might apply to college players who tested positive for PEDs ahead of the NFL draft. However, we simply aren't seeing those tests; Hruby said on Twitter Monday he can't think of any high-profile NCAA football PED tests recently. That doesn't mean NCAA players are clean; investigations such as this 2012 Associated Press one have turned up substantial evidence of steroids being prominent throughout American college football, but they don't lead to many public, positive tests because of individual school policies, some schools choosing only to test for recreational drugs, and significant advance warning of tests, amongst other elements. Even suspicious weight gain doesn't frequently lead to tests.

There's a significant case to be made from pieces like that AP one or this 2015 Wall Street Journal one that steroid use may be more prominent in NCAA football than CIS football. That also would lead to "the educational anti-doping work done at college level and below [being] undermined as those who flout the rules ... are rewarded with contracts," comments WADA's Howman made about Canada that would also seem to apply to America. The NCAA and the NFL aren't taking flack from WADA, though, as it's a case of "see no evil." If the NCAA and its schools don't publicly catch players taking PEDs, there's nothing for the NFL to punish, and that league certainly isn't pushing for more PED testing at the university level. That's where it may be most valuable, as that's where players gain much of their crucial muscle. Steroids are incredibly helpful towards that end. The NCAA may not be catching steroid users, but that doesn't mean they aren't there.

That doesn't mean WADA's criticisms of the CFL are irrelevant, though. In fact, there's a strong argument to be made that the league's policy needs to include punishment as well as treatment for first-time offenders, especially those entering from the university ranks. WADA isn't wrong to criticize the CFL's current approach, and while the tone used here can be debated, maybe it will get the league to reconsider.

It's worth considering that the CFL isn't necessarily as out of step as WADA claims, though. For one thing, it's applying drug-test violations the same way the NFL does for NCAA recreational drug test. That doesn't make it right, but it means the CFL isn't alone. For another thing, at least the PED tests in Canadian university football are catching significant numbers of violators, something that can't be said about the NCAA system at the moment. The CFL system is far from perfect, but it's far from the only league that can be criticized. It's catching flak here where the NFL isn't because PED testing in Canadian schools is turning up more results than the drug testing (mostly for recreational drugs) we see in the NCAA. The NCAA's problematic policies aren't necessarily the NFL's fault, but they're helping keep it from similar WADA scrutiny here. It's not only the CFL that deserves examination for what happens in its unaffiliated feeder systems.