Doug Bracewell: Cocaine use with no effect on performance is none of our business - Editorial

Doug Bracewell in action for the Central Stags earlier this year. Photo / Photosport

Editorial

EDITORIAL

Cricket player Doug Bracewell’s positive test for cocaine has raised familiar questions about New Zealanders’ attitudes to recreational drug use and our unbalanced notion of what it means to be a role model.

Bracewell’s recreational drug use was found to have no effect on his sporting performance.

Many Kiwis tend towards puritanical prurience when it comes to discussions about other people’s drug use. A level-headed assessment of the devastating effect methamphetamine has had on some of our most beleaguered communities shows this approach has not kept the worst effects of drugs at bay.

On Monday, it was announced the former Black Caps allrounder had received a one-month ban after testing positive for cocaine, following a T20 match for Central Districts against Wellington in January.

At a Sports Tribunal hearing, New Zealand’s Sport Integrity Commission accepted Bracewell’s cocaine use was “out-of-competition and was unrelated to sport performance”.

In which case, his recreational cocaine use ought to be none of the commission’s business; nor should New Zealand Cricket (NZC) have any public involvement in the matter.

Yet both organisations have weighed in. Sport Integrity Commission chief executive Rebecca Rolls said the one-month ban Bracewell received was a reminder to athletes about issues surrounding recreational drugs.

“There is absolutely a role model piece here,” she told RNZ.

NZC chief executive Scott Weenink said Bracewell had “let himself down”.

If we presume sportspeople should be pristine role models with no personal vices, then we ought to extend the same presumption to other role models: politicians, media personalities and pop stars could also be subject to random drug testing, with the results made public and a one-month ban from doing their job.

Two key facts put Bracewell in a difficult position.

Firstly, NZC has adopted the protocols and rules of Drug-Free Sport New Zealand. Thus Bracewell — as an athlete registered with the sporting body — is bound by the same codes and conventions.

Secondly — and most simply — the World Anti-Doping Agency lists cocaine as a banned stimulant.

In short, Bracewell stuffed up, and he seems to know it.

Nonetheless, it is reasonable to wonder why these organisations feel entitled to lean into athletes’ personal lives when nothing has been done to enhance performance. Bracewell did not cheat.

Overreach on the part of drug-testing organisations and sports bodies reduces athletes’ confidence in the otherwise worthy intent of drug-testing protocols.

If they genuinely feel Bracewell needs help, they should reach out to him privately and support him without banning him from cricket — and without dragging a private matter into the public sphere.