Welcome to another
installment of Straight Shoot, where we pull on our boots and bounce around the
ring with some of professional wrestling's most fascinating issues. If you
haven't already, catch up on this week's Raw with our Monday Night Raw Recap weekly write-ups. Then follow writer Aubrey Sitterson on
Twitter and make sure to check back every Thursday
afternoon for a new Straight Shoot.
Earlier this week, WWE issued a 60-day suspension to Evan
Bourne for a violation of its Talent Wellness Program, which is a nice way of
saying that the guy failed a drug test. This isn't a new thing for Bourne, as
he was booted off of television for a month this past November for his first
violation, which was later revealed to be related to the smoking of synthetic
cannabis, which is a nice way of saying "fake weed." While I understand the
need to keep a wrestling roster clean and punish those using illicit
substances, I have to question the wisdom of how WWE's current Talent Wellness
Program is administered.
Going back at least to the 1980s, the popular conception of
professional wrestlers has been that they're all juiced up maniacs, crazy on
roid rage. Given the explosive anger on display in many matches and the
oversized, heavily muscled physiques that no amount of Muscle Milk and creatine
will ever give a guy like myself, it's an understandable conclusion to draw.
But the fact is, outside some notable exceptions, the average size of wrestlers
in the country's top promotions has actually dropped steadily since the hulking
behemoth heyday of the late 1980s and early 1990s. And while it's certainly
possible that the exceptions above are granted special dispensations from their
corporate overlords, it's rather more likely that they're just genetic freaks that
can put on mass much more easily than mere mortals like us.
Ever since a 1993 steroid controversy that saw Vince McMahon
put on trial for distributing drugs to wrestlers, WWE has made intermittent
efforts to clean up their organization. Arguably the biggest and most significant
of these was the institution of the current Talent Wellness Program in 2006,
which came soon after the death of Eddie Guerrero. While Guerrero's death was
ruled the result of heart failure related to cardiovascular disease, not drugs,
his health certainly wasn't helped by years of drug use. The following year saw
the infamous Benoit murder-suicides, which also possessed a potential link to
drug abuse, as well as the Signature Pharmacy scandal, in which a large number
of WWE's top stars were discovered to have been receiving steroids and other
prescription drugs illegally. This led WWE to take a very public, very hard
line against drug use, vowing to announce the names of performers punished
under their new three-strikes-and-you're-out-policy.
While I certainly won't defend the use of steroids outside
of medically approved instances, they weren't the most dangerous substance
being used and abused by talent - just the most visible. For as long as
professional wrestlers have travelled town to town, subjecting their bodies to
intense physical punishment for money, there have been wrestlers who used
alcohol to dull the pain, and a percentage of those have fallen into full-blown
alcoholism, wrecking both lives and careers. While excessive steroid use can
cause long-term damage over time, the effects of alcohol abuse can be just as
serious and far more immediate. And yet, for a combination of reasons, WWE
performers are allowed to get as drunk as they want on their own time.
I'm not suggesting that WWE or any wrestling promotion
forbid its wrestlers from drinking - it'd be completely unenforceable, and for
most people, that kind of draconian measure just isn't necessary - but when
discussing drug use, it's important to take into account all drugs, even legal
and socially acceptable ones. Plus, alcohol abuse becomes more dangerous by
orders of magnitude when combined with other legally obtainable drugs, like prescription
painkillers.
Anyone who's read about wrestling in the late 1980s and
early-to-mid 1990s is familiar with the stories of wrestlers, oftentimes top
talents, zonked out of their minds on painkillers and booze, before, after and
sometimes even during their matches. For some, painkillers became not just a
way to get over an injury, but a method for self-medicating untreated or still
healing ailments, or simply to just as a way to relax after a rough night (or
week) of performing. But taken in the huge quantities that wrestlers would
sometimes consume and wash down with alcohol, these highly addictive
painkillers became increasingly dangerous, and have taken the lives of numerous
wrestlers in a much more direct manner than any type of steroid or performance
enhancing drug.
Thankfully, WWE has recognized the fact that even legal medicines
can be dangerous to their wrestlers, and have kept their Substance Abuse and
Drug Testing Policy up-to-date by prohibiting the "non-medical use" of muscle relaxers,
benzodiazepines and other prescription medicines as well as the synthetic
cannabinoids that resulted in Bourne's first suspension back in November. What's
truly impressive about WWE's policy, however, is that it seems to recognize
that while marijuana remains illegal in most of the country, even for medical
uses, it lumps punishment for pot-smoking in with alcohol use and not more
serious drugs. Under the current policy, a positive test for either alcohol or
marijuana results in a $2,500 fine. The problem is, when it comes to marijuana,
that's still too stiff a punishment.
The first thing to understand is that if a WWE performer is
punished for drinking alcohol, it means that there was "reasonable suspicion"
they were drinking, which led to a test that then revealed they had imbibed
less than 12 hours before an event or performance. Read between the lines, and
that basically means that if you show up to work seeming drunk, and it's proven
that you have been drinking, you have to shell out $2,500. Considering the
considerable danger wrestling drunk can put a performer and his opponent in,
this seems rather lenient to me.
But while you more or less have to be drunk at a wrestling
match in order to get fined for alcohol, marijuana can show up on a drug test
for more than 30 days after the last time you smoked - even longer if you're
testing hair. That means that someone could have smoked weed a day, week or
even a month ago, and still end up getting slapped with a hefty fine as a
result of a random test. Should responsible home use of marijuana really garner
the same punishment of someone trying to wrestle while intoxicated?
Not only is the $2,500 fine unfairly administered, but it's
also too high for marijuana usage. While it's probably little more than a drop
in the bucket to WWE's top stars, for younger, less established talents, that's
a substantial cut into a paycheck that has to help them travel around the
country and pay for their own quite expensive health insurance. It should come
as no surprise then that wrestlers like Bourne would decide to risk getting
caught smoking synthetic cannabinoids instead of having to open up their wallet
for a $2,500 fine.
But the real issue here should be harm reduction. Wrestlers
live extraordinarily tough lifestyles, putting their bodies through hell on a
nightly basis and sustaining injuries that a couple extra strength Tylenols
just can't handle. These guys are going to find a way to self-medicate, so it's
important to ensure they do it in the healthiest way possible. By punishing
marijuana use with such a heavy fine - even when enjoyed at home, thousands of
miles away from the arena - WWE is driving its talent back into the arms of
legal, but more dangerous forms of intoxication, like alcohol and prescription
drugs. Even if someone's painkiller prescription is approved by WWE doctors,
there's nothing keeping them from abusing it afterhours and mixing it with
alcohol use, nor is there any good way to test for it.
No one overdoses on marijuana, nobody gets violent when
smoking weed and there's nothing physically addictive in THC - none of those
things can be said about alcohol or most popular painkillers. The use of
marijuana, or any drug, should never be tolerated during a wrestling
performance, but to punish people for using such a benign drug on their own time
while allowing others to indulge in far more risky, yet legal, drug-related
behaviors, reeks not just of hypocrisy, but of short-sighted adherence to the
letter of the law instead of the spirit of it.
The primary goal of WWE's Talent Wellness Program should be
to keep the company's wrestlers healthy, and all policy-based decisions should
be based on that objective. Leveling heavy fines for at-home marijuana use
might promote a drug-free environment in theory, but not in practice, as
wrestlers will find other more dangerous alternatives to alleviate their pain
and relax. By issuing this tacit approval of alcohol and prescription drug use,
WWE's Talent Wellness Program runs in opposition to its stated purpose, making
a dangerous profession that much more risky.
What do you think about marijuana use by wrestlers? Should
it be more tolerated or would WWE be wise to classify it along with harder
drugs? Tell us in the comments below!
