Narconon Drug Rehab News

Should drug treatment be mandatory for professional athletes who violate team drug policies?

One of the hottest news topics out right now is the recent alleged use of performance enhancing drugs by one of baseball’s greats J.C. Romero. J.C. was recently left with a 26 game suspension after failing a drug test. He has maintained he was using a nutritional supplement and was unaware that this supplement contained ingredients that would violate his  team agreement on drug use.

But whether he was aware of this or not, he was certainly not the first professional athlete to show up positive for drug use. Professional athletes using drugs is not something new. Just do a search on the Internet and you can easily find Jose Canseco’s book Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big where he admitted using anabolic steroids and even stated that about 85% of major league baseball players performance enhancing drugs.

So with this long history of drug use in the professional arena, shouldn’t athletes who fail team drug tests be required to get some type of drug treatment?  Some argue that the punishment should fit the crime stating that it would depend on what types of drugs were taken. But many of the so-called performance-enhancing drugs are related to amphetamines as well as steroids.

Even Congress has stepped in on this topic when they put out a new bill, the Professional Athletes Testing Bill that established the minimum drug testing standards for all major professional sports leagues. This bill was released with the hope to minimize the continued number of professional sports stars who have started using drugs to “enhance performance.”

However,  even after this bill was released we have had continual problems in the professional athlete arena with substance abuse and no real solution such as drug treatment.

“Leaving a substance abuse untreated is one of the worst things you can do to the addicted individual,” says Ramsy Darwish, Director of Intake for Narconon Freedom Center, a Michigan drug rehab program.  “Because what happens when you fail to treat an addiction is that the problem gets progressively worse.”

Ramsy Darwish has helped hundreds of people get admitted into drug treatment through Narconon Freedom Center. The Narconon drug treatment program has achieved a more than 70% success rate for treating substance abuse for the last 44 years and treats all types of hardcore addictions including addictions to drugs such as steroids and other performance enhancing drugs.

“Drugs like steroids are associated with a wide range of negative effects,” says Darwish. “They can range from things that are physically unattractive to major effects like strokes and heart attacks that can affect users of all ages.”

Without being offered the solution effective drug treatment many professional athletes will not beat their addictions. Putting in an effective drug treatment policy within all professional games, when an athlete test positive for drug use, will help the athlete get back to the game stable, ethical and drug-free.

If you or someone you know is suffering with drug abuse issues contact Narconon East U.S. today at 877-237-3307.