The National Football League and Drug Abuse It’s nothing new for the National Football League’s players to be abusing anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. Drug abuse in the league has recently focused around recreational drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and alcohol. The newest drug being abused is painkillers. The commissioner and his personal need to change their policies. Will they wait until many more players start to die before they tighten up their drug policies? The National Football League (NFL) can stop most of these drug problems by having more random drug tests given, enforcing stricter punishments when players are caught using drugs, and requiring every team to educate its players annually on the effects and consequences of all drugs.The number of players abusing drugs in the NFL is increasing every year (www.cbs.sportsline.com). This is concerning because it seems like more and more players each year get caught either using drugs, or being involved in some kind of drug activity. The only drug being used that is on the decline is anabolic steroids. This decline is due to several players in the 1970’s and 80’s dying before they could see their kids make it to high school. The first player to publicly come clean about being addicted to drugs was Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson. He was a Dallas Cowboys linebacker who played in three Super Bowls. He told the world about his addiction in 1981. He claims that a player using cocaine and marijuana was very uncommon at his rookie season. The more he played, the more drugs he began to take. He claims that since he came clean, the problems have been getting worse. More and more players keep doing drugs even after they hear of players having drug problems. If these problems keep getting worse, there could be major implications of young athletes all over the world. Professional athletes with drug addictions are a maj...
