THE AFL is in denial. Its illicit drugs policy does not have widespread public support and it seeks to protect the league's standing above the health and welfare of its constituents.

Further, the AFL Players Association has hidden behind the policy in its biased protection of player rights. So the issue is back on the table with today's meeting in Melbourne between the AFL and two Federal Government ministers. But what will it take to make the AFL and the association change their philosophies? Another addiction? A death within AFL ranks?

As a parent, I preach to my children that experimentation with drinking and smoking can turn into addiction. I plead with them to avoid swallowing, snorting or injecting any substance whose origins they are unsure of.

I have overindulged in alcohol many times and paid the price. I have had one puff of a cigarette in my life. I have never resorted to illicit drugs. They kill.

So here we have the AFL policy in operation. A Brownlow medallist, who played in a premiership six months earlier, admits an addiction to an illicit substance. Did he become addicted in the six months after the premiership? I doubt it. In fact, he was tested 14 times and was not caught. Or was he?

If he was one of the 25 players who tested positive over the past two years, you would expect the rehabilitation programs and counselling to have stopped him becoming addicted. In both areas, it would appear the system failed.

I feel for Ben Cousins' parents. My son was in the AFL system for two years. If he had tested positive once, I would have wanted to know. With great respect to drug counsellors, can they counsel 24 hours a day as a partner or a parent can? No.

My children are my responsibility for life. Legally, they have freedom once they have turned 18, but morally, I feel bound to protect them.

Does drug counselling after a positive test take place once a week or once a month? Are players checked off as to their attendance? Surely such facts don't compromise confidentiality; they only enhance — if in the positive — that action is being taken.

Cousins became addicted while playing AFL football. As a parent, I would be looking to find out how this happened, investigating whether the AFL policy contributed to this situation and seeking possible legal recourse.

Initially, I was a zero tolerance advocate — two years' suspension for a first offence, no arguments. I think I've mellowed. Here are my penalties.

First offence with illicit drugs: eight weeks' suspension away from the football environment with full-time (nine hours a day, five days a week) rehabilitation.

Second offence: two-year ban.

Illicit drugs can not only kill, they are illegal. I cannot see how rehabilitation can work while a player continues to fulfil his full-time football commitments.

Performance-enhancing drugs: two-year ban, regardless of whether the positive test was in or out of competition. Using performance-enhancing drugs is blatant cheating at the highest level. Any less a penalty and we will be seen as a joke. Rugby league has shown us the way with its decisive drug penalties.

The AFL throws back the line that everyone is ill-informed or misinterpreting the drug policy. I think most of us understand the policy, we just don't understand the reasoning and the penalties.

The AFL says it will test more. That's great, but testing isn't the issue, the penalty and the players' welfare are the issues. I understand that AFL Commission chairman Mike Fitzpatrick and AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou don't make these policies alone. However, as the face of the AFL, they can show great courage and win over all and sundry in changing a policy that is out of step with community standards and other sporting codes.

If my son was still playing AFL, bugger the confidentiality, bugger the AFL's image. I'd want to know now, not after he became addicted.

And as for the politicians, unless you are prepared to cut or stop federal funding to the AFL, which is already at disgraceful proportions compared with other sports, you are as hypocritical as the policy you are trying to change.

Tony Shaw's column appears every Friday.