What's So Brave?

There’s a huge headline in the Herald Sun today which I think sums up where the football bosses, and the Players’ Association, and some footy supporters and the media have gone wrong. Sums up why Ben Cousins is treated like a hero. Sums up why, in another field of heroes, Matthew Newton is being treated like a victim rather than the women he bashed .The headline read:  Brave Tuck walks tough track.

What’s so brave about somebody turning to illegal drugs to escape from their problems? Even if they do suffer from depression?

And these drugs are illegal. You wouldn’t have known it listening to Adrian Anderson the AFL’s legal eagle last night.

He stressed that Travis Tuck’s problem was not what he called ‘recreational drugs’. It was ‘a severe by-product of clinical depression’.

And another Herald Sun headline summed up the impotency and what I believe to be the illegality of the Three Strikes policy. The headline says:

rugs policy finally bares its teeth. I would say bares its gums.

If it had any teeth a third striker would be banned for life. At least his club’s president and board should have been told they had a problem in their ranks after the first strike.

And surely a young man’s parents had the right to know that not only was their son taking illegal drugs but he had been diagnosed as clinically depressed.

How can a football administration think that they know best? On this one Jeff Kennett is right. He is not only the president of the club that employs Tuck, he is the head of Beyond Blue. Surely Kennett and his organisation could have helped Tuck yonks ago.

And how about Victoria Police ? I couldn’t believe Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe and his comment that charging Tuck  was ‘not in the best interests of the community’.

We checked with Police and this was their official statement: ‘ Before pursuing any investigation  for ‘use and possess’ offences at incidents of non-fatal overdoses, members are to first consider whether this action is in the best interests of the community. Removing the fear of prosecution may encourage people present at overdoses to call for any ambulance without delay’.

Tuck was found unconscious in his car. Does that mean that if a drunk is found unconscious they don’t get booked for being in control of a vehicle?
Try that defence if you’re not a footballer.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2010