Reformed addict and champion jockey Jamie Evans slams AFL’s ‘useless’ drugs policy

In the wake of the bombshell drugs saga surrounding the AFL, a former champion jockey has slammed the league’s drugs policy, saying the three-strike rule enables AFL players to take drugs.

Jockey, Jamie Evans Piture: Supplied

A reformed addict and champion jockey has slammed the AFL’s lenient illicit drugs policy and called for harsher sanctions to save players’ lives.

Jamie Evans – who “lost everything” after getting hooked on heroin – said addiction would take your “soul”.

“AFL players have got to be dealt with really harshly,” Evans told this masthead.

“Fine them substantially or rub them out for a couple of games.

“I’d fine them $10,000, that would make them wake up to themselves.

“The penalty at the moment is nothing and it gives them no incentive not to do it again.

“They think they’re protecting them, but they’re doing the opposite.

“They’re putting them in such a bad position because so many people don’t understand addiction.

“I bet the person who made up these rules has no idea about addiction.

“I was a jump jockey for 20 years and have broken every bone in my body.

“But drug addiction was like getting in the ring with a 21-year-old Mike Tyson.

“You’re beaten before you f***ing throw a punch.”

Jockey Jamie Evans.

Evans delivered powerful presentations on the dangers of drug addiction to Hawthorn, North Melbourne, Carlton and Brisbane Lions in 2015.

But Evans said he met with another Victorian club he chose not to use him because they did not believe they had a drug problem.

Evans told Hawks players on one visit that the AFL’s policy was flawed.

“I said, ‘You blokes, your drugs policy is absolutely f***ing useless’. They’d go, ‘Why?’” Evans said.

“I said, ‘Well, a three-strike policy? All it’s doing is enabling you to use drugs’.

“The AFL might want to watch out that someone will turn around and sue them.

“They think they’re doing them a favour, but they don’t understand addiction.

“Rich, poor or famous – drug addiction doesn’t discriminate.

“It doesn’t care who you are whether you’re the richest bloke in the world or the bloke out on the street.

“And if it gets hold of you, you will lose everything.

“You will be institutionalised, you will be imprisoned, and if you keep using you will die.

“I nearly died, that’s how bad mine was.

“I was an addict and I couldn’t stop. I lost everything. I lost my career, I ended up on the streets, I was in and out of rehab, in and out of prison, I nearly died a few times.”

Evans was homeless and imprisoned in 2003. He first used heroin to numb the pain after his older brother hanged himself.

Jamie Evans pictured when he was in jail. Picture: Supplied

“It’s an old saying in NA (narcotics anonymous) – a drug addict will get to a fork in the road,” Evans said.

“Go left or go right, and if you go left – and keep using – it’s institution, jail, death.

“Or acceptance, surrender, recover. We all get to that fork in the road. Luckily I chose the right one.

“Every time I’ve done an (AFL talk) I’ve said, ‘You’ve got to fix up your drugs policy, it’s f***ing bull****’.”

Evans said one critical issue was ensuring drug testers collected a real sample. He called it the “knob in jar” policy.

“I know how to beat all of them. The only way to do it is to have random testing and it’s got to be a knob in the jar policy.

“That means not give you the cup to go into the toilet, piss in it and bring it back to me.

“It’s the tester goes to the toilet cubicle with you and watches your d*** go into the jar and piss.

“I could cheat any drug test.

“I’ve seen jockeys have drug tests and they’ve had bottles of piss up in their silks and it’s fallen out. I’ve seen jockeys with false d****.

“If they’d been fair dinkum, maybe Ben Cousins wouldn’t have got to the position he did.

“I lost a lot, but he lost more than me.

“He was captain of West Coast, premiership, Brownlow Medallist, could’ve had any chick he wanted and he f****** lost it all. He lost 10 houses.

“That’s how bad it is. Don’t try and fight it because you’ve got no chance. I tried and it punched the s*** out of me.

“They go, ‘But you beat it’. I didn’t beat it – I’m a recovering drug addict.

“I’ll be a drug addict until the day I die. I’m clean at the moment, but if I pick up a drug I’ll go straight back to where I came from.”

Evans slammed the AFL’s three strike policy, Piture: Supplied

Evans told players that addiction would “rip your heart out” and warned recreational users that once they crossed the line into addiction their lives would be over.

“This three-strike bull**** is encouraging them to take drugs.

“Then when I saw (last week’s report) in the Herald Sun I thought I knew this would blow up in their faces.

“I tried to open their eyes up.

“If I can get to one player where they’re going to have a line of coke and they say, ‘You know what, I’ve seen that jockey’s story – no thanks’ then it’s all worth it.”

Unlike racing, the AFL does have an out of competition drugs testing policy and club doctors are adamant it is working.

Dr Harry Unglik, the architect of the regime that was first introduced in 2005, told this masthead, “we have definitely, 100 per cent saved some kids from becoming the next Ben Cousins.”