Drugs in Sports: Athletes Abuse Marijuana

This article is the reaction of a writer to a story ESPN broke about a large amount of college football players at the University of Oregon who partake in smoking marijuana. The article plays the story off like it is okay to smoke marijuana because everyone is doing it, which in my opinion that is absoluely wrong of the writer. The article compares smoking marijuana to having premarital sex and drinking, saying that it is just something college students do. ESPN's story says that about 19 current and former Oregon players stated that somewhere between 40-60% of their teammates smoked marijuana. http://www.oregonlive.com/ducks/index.ssf/2012/04/oregon_ducks_rundown_espn_stor.html

In class we spoke about deviance in sports on 4/3 and 4/5. We spoke about the fact that athletes do abuse drugs and alcohol. We discussed the fact that drug use in sports and society is reaching endemic proportions. It is alarming that that many college students on the Oregon football team are using marijuana, not only because it is illegal but also because it goes against the NCAA policy for banned substances. Coakley discusses the fact that deviance in sports is starting to get out of control on page 191 of the textbook. He claims that in order to contol deviant unconformity, it requires an assessment and transformation of norms and social organization of sports. A transformation of that magnitude in sports requires the participation of everyone involved, and the chances of that happening are very slim to none. Deviance will remain a factor in sports as long as sports are around, the only solution is to put into place as many rules and restrictions to try to deter athletes from becoming deviant.