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Freedom of speech not respected on CFL website
By Hempology | July 13, 2007
Metro, BC
12 Jul 2007
Marty York
CFL’S POT COLUMN GOES UP IN SMOKE
Sean Millington’s Pot Shots Have Disappeared Into Cyberspace.
The CFL yesterday deleted a column from its website in which the former player-turned-broadcaster suggested marijuana use in the league is rampant and commissioner Mark Cohon is planning to waste money with an unnecessary drug policy. The column, which was topped by the headline “CFL — Clean Football League,” was initially posted on www.cfl.ca four days ago.
Metro created nationwide attention for the column in its Wednesday editions by outlining Millington’s eyebrow-raising revelations and views, and urging readers to check them out on the CFL’s site. Dozens of readers e-mailed us yesterday, however, to complain they couldn’t find the piece.
The reason? Well, upon further review, the CFL decided to pull it. And Millington was thrown for a loss.
“It’s disappointing,” the CBC football analyst told Metro yesterday from his Vancouver home. “I’d like to feel that my opinion should stand on its own merits and that it shouldn’t arbitrarily be taken off. I think it should be on the site to promote conversation and debate.”
Millington, who spent 13 seasons as a fullback with the B.C. Lions, Edmonton Eskimos, Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Toronto Argonauts, wrote, while smoking pot is “large” among CFL players, there’s little use of performance-enhancing drugs, mostly because CFLers generally can’t afford them.
He wrote that Cohon’s plans to develop a drug policy were senseless and the commissioner merely “wants the drug policy so he can have the CFL appear to be in line with similar policies in the NFL, NBA and MLB. This desire is birthed from a feeling of inferiority with regards to those leagues.”
Yesterday, in our interview, Millington took it a step further, saying: “It frustrates me because, in the CFL, people bitch about having to save money, so why is Cohon wasting money on a drug policy? I mean, the NFL has a drug policy, so the CFL has to have one? It’s ridiculous.”
Millington, never afraid to speak his mind, said he knew his column would cause a stir, but was assured on the weekend by cfl.ca editor Josh Bell Webster it would run on the website.
“Josh said it was controversial, but that he’d go with it anyway,” Millington said. “I don’t know what happened.”
The CFL, through spokesman Jamie Dykstra, refused to comment on Millington, his column or the website.
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