NFL Players Offer a Drug Plan, Draw Fire From Rozelle

union representing National Football League players, easing its long-standing opposition to random drug testing, called on Wednesday for spot-check urinalyses of players under certain circumstances.

The NFL Players Assn. also recommended financial penalties for repeat violators and life suspension for three-time offenders.

“This is the first time the players have voted on a get-tough policy for repeated drug users in the NFL,” Gene Upshaw, executive director of the union, said. “The penalties need to be tough. That’s the way you control the drug problem in the NFL.”

Upshaw said the program will be presented to the league’s 28 player representatives on April 22 at a meeting in Hawaii, and if approved it will be proposed to the NFL’s Management Council, the owners’ bargaining unit.

In New York, however, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle released a statement, saying: “I do not feel that the proposals which were announced today will solve the problem.”

Jim Miller, director of administration of the Management Council, agreed with Rozelle, saying: “There is nothing in this so-called prevention program that we don’t already have. It’s disappointing to us that we’ve been talking to them (the union) regularly, trying to reach some sort of mutual agreement, and they’re going off unilaterally.”

Rozelle said he intends to keep talking to both the union and the Management Council.

Under the program announced by Upshaw, a player testing positive in a preseason urinalysis would be treated as an outpatient by an independent medical facility and would be required to submit to random testing for the rest of the season and the off-season. His team would not be notified of the result of the initial test.

Under the current collective bargaining agreement with the league, NFL teams may give players urinalyses as part of the mandatory preseason physicals but may test during the season only if the team doctor believes there is “reasonable cause” to suspect drug use.

According to the proposed plan, approved unanimously by the executive directors of the NFLPA last Saturday, a second-time drug offender would forfeit a paycheck for one game, amounting to one-sixteenth of his annual salary. His team would also be notified of his problem.

If a player tested positive for drug use a third time, he would be suspended from the league. After a year, however, he could appeal for reinstatement before a joint committee made up of union, management and medical representatives.

“We have a responsibility to the game of football and the society we live in,” Upshaw, a former star with the Raiders, said. “We’re very serious about this. The players feel they have a responsibility to the public.”

The union submitted its proposal a little more than a week after Rozelle’s call for random drug testing of players, during which he said that drugs are eroding the financial health of the league as well as the physical health of its affected players.

Asked if the union proposal had been made in response to Rozelle’s suggestion for complete, unrestricted testing, Upshaw said: “We’re responding to the players. They said it’s time for us to take a leadership role. This a response to the players, not Rozelle.”

Five players have been suspended by the commissioner for drug-related reasons: Tony Peters for nine months in 1983; Ross Browner, Pete Johnson, E.J. Junior and Gary Stemrick for four games in 1983, and Chuck Muncie for five games in 1984 and one game last season.

“I also plan to continue consultation with experts in the field and explore ways to hopefully resolve some of the players’ concerns regarding confidentiality,” Rozelle said.

The commissioner also indicated that if the union and owners didn’t reach agreement on a drug-testing plan, he was still prepared to implement his own program unilaterally. The union has questioned Rozelle’s authority to do that, since drug testing has previously been part of the collective bargaining process.

“What we’re trying to do is define ‘reasonable cause’ (in the current agreement),” Upshaw said.

The players’ plan defines reasonable cause as:

--A positive test in a preseason physical.

--Substantial medical or physical evidence of illegal drugs according to medical criteria.

--Objective evidence of illegal drug use or sale by any federal, state or local law enforcement agency.

--Witness by another player of use or sale of illegal drugs, supported by a signed affidavit.

The Management Council’s Miller said: “We don’t think this is a foundation to work with. We think (the owners) have a foundation.

“We have some ideas. We would care to keep those secret, but I will say that random testing is the most important thing. We have random testing for probable cause. We want random testing for anybody, period.”