Gordon: Staff enabled drug use
Former Baylor wide receiver Josh Gordon told a digital sports programming network that the Bears staff helped him pass drug tests.
Gordon, suspended three years (and counting) by the NFL for substance-abuse issues, explained in a new video for Uninterrupted how his drug problems go back to his Baylor days, if not further.
In 2010, Gordon’s sophomore season, police found Gordon and a teammate in a car with marijuana inside. While the teammate was booted from the squad, Gordon was only suspended. About a year later, Gordon was suspended indefinitely by then-coach Art Briles after failing a drug test.
The Cleveland Browns receiver, suspended for his last 48 NFL games, told Uninterrupted that coaches in his past enabled him, even aided him, in passing drug tests:
“I’ve been enabled most of my life. I’ve been enabled by coaches, teachers, professors, everybody, gave me a second chance because of my ability. Not long after I got arrested for possession of marijuana at Baylor, one of my coaches came by saying, ‘You are going to get drug tested by the compliance office. This is how it’s going to work, this is what they are going to do. If they do call you in, here goes these bottles of detox.’ He showed me how to drink them, showed me how to take them. That was my first experience with, like, getting over on the system and the authority not really being serious because it was kind of being guided by someone who was employed by the university.”
Gordon still failed a drug test because he said he ran out of detox drinks.
Gordon, from Houston Lamar High School, said he was addicted to many drugs.
“I’ve used alcohol on many, many occasions, Xanax on many occasions, cocaine several occasions, marijuana most of my life, codeine, cough syrup, methazine — very prevalent where I’m from,” he said.