Paul Thomas: Exposed: Hypocrisy of star drug busts

Back in the early 1980s, a jet-setting playboy-cum-gossip columnist had this to say about cocaine: "Starting with Hollywood, where being without it is commensurate to social leprosy, all the way across America and Western Europe, the use of cocaine has reached epidemic-like proportions."

The son of a Greek shipping magnate, Taki Theodoracopoulos was hardly on the outside looking in, thus it came as no great surprise when he was later arrested for possession of cocaine.

His lawyer pleaded in mitigation that Taki moved in circles "where cocaine was used at dinner parties in much the same way as the ordinary person would take wine". Even though everybody who was anybody was, supposedly, on the snort, Taki copped six months in Pentonville jail.

Fast forward 20-odd years: Waratahs and Wallaby wing Wendell Sailor faces disgrace and oblivion in the form of a two-year ban that would effectively end his career after testing positive to a drug believed to be cocaine.

As a former resident I can confirm that the epidemic reached Sydney some time ago. Among the paragons of virtue lining up to cast stones in Sailor's direction, there must be quite a few whose innermost thoughts are along the lines of, there but for the grace of God go I.

Western society has got itself into an awkward and undignified position with regard to recreational drugs. Their use is widespread to the point of banality, yet whenever a celebrity gets busted it's given the shock-horror treatment.

We saw it when a few homegrown celebs got roped into a drugs bust in Auckland last year and again with the Kate Moss affair.

The latter was a particularly nauseating exercise in hypocrisy given that fashion, like most branches of the entertainment industry, is practically fuelled by recreational drugs.

Until she was caught on camera snorting cocaine, Moss' edgy mix of hedonism and self-destructiveness - the heavy drinking, the rehab, the druggie boyfriend - had been a significant component in her appeal.

Getting high on the front page of a tabloid, however, was seen as being too much of a bad thing and Moss was hurriedly stripped of millions of dollars worth of modelling contracts.

What society objects to, it seems, is not drug use per se but being put in a position where it can no longer turn a blind eye to it.

These days, while it remains against the law, recreational drug use isn't really treated as a crime. Even flaking out at the wheel of one's car, as the singer George Michael has taken to doing, no longer seems sufficiently flagrant to galvanise the Old Bill.

And only on the wilder shores of religious fundamentalism is recreational drug use in itself seen as proof of moral degeneracy. I don't imagine many of the solid citizens and old dears who wobbled their butts at the Rolling Stones' concerts had to suppress an abiding disgust over Keith Richards' well-documented hard yards with hard drugs.

So what's the issue here? Why is Sailor's career and livelihood under threat for doing what vast numbers of others do without anyone giving two hoots?

It seems to have something to do with them being role models. Apparently, kids look up to them.

Little boys want to be rugby stars and little girls want to be supermodels, and it wouldn't do for them to get the idea that drug-taking is part of the deal.

I can follow that up to a point, although I'm pretty sure celebrity example is a long way behind peer pressure when it comes to nudging kids towards any form of experimentation.

It's also a fact that teenagers are pre-programmed to do things their elders disapprove of, so the more fuss that's made over these incidents the more likely they are to be imitated.

Sailor was aware of the risks; he'd signed a code of conduct. The problem is that when they clock off and venture out into the real world, athletes find themselves in a much laxer environment.

Sooner or later, and notwithstanding the vague blather about role models, sport is going to have to address the discrepancy between its hardline stance and society's nod and wink tolerance.

(In other walks of life there's very little disincentive. When laws and rules are more honoured in the breach than the observance, why should anyone take them seriously?)

Sailor knew the score, but if the incident was a one-off lapse then taking away his livelihood seems draconian. And if he does in fact have a drug problem, then treatment rather than punishment should be the priority.

But I don't expect leniency. If the results are confirmed, Australian rugby, which recruited him partly for his larrikin capacity to generate headlines and put bums on seats, will probably cast him adrift.

He'll become another victim of our society's hypocritical insistence that we won't tolerate drug use when in fact we have no choice but to do so. The alternative is creating a police state. What we really don't tolerate is people being stupid and thoughtless enough to put us on the spot.

And by the way, Taki didn't lose his job. He's still writing his High Life column in the Spectator. And Kate Moss reportedly now earns more than ever.