HOW long does it take to process a drug test?
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I can't say I'm an expert on the subject, but I'd have thought a week and a half would have been ample time.
Yet here we are, a fortnight after Kalyn Ponga and Kurt Mann visited a certain toilet cubicle at a certain inner-city Newcastle hotel, still none-the-wiser about what transpired that night.
It was widely reported that the NRL Integrity Unit had sent drug testers to Newcastle early last week to obtain samples from Ponga, Mann and other unnamed Knights players.
The Rugby League Players' Association and Knights officials were dismayed that news of the testing had leaked out, and rightly so.
It merely fuelled the inferno of public opinion, after video of Ponga, Mann and a security guard went viral on social media.
Under the code's "three strikes" illicit-drugs policy, any first offenders are entitled to confidentiality.
So who knows how the NRL, and the Knights, will deal with this complicated situation.
The Knights say they can't comment and are awaiting further direction from the NRL, but while ever it remains unresolved, unfortunately people who may have jumped to the wrong conclusion will have no cause to reassess their opinion.
If, as Andre Ponga claimed, his son was simply being sick in the toilet and Mann came to check on his mate, then I'm surprised the two players haven't held a press conference to declare their innocence.
Maybe they will be given that opportunity, once the Integrity Unit investigation is compete.
If it was me, I'd be demanding access to a microphone on game day to tell the club's fans: "I've done nothing wrong. I've been falsely maligned."
In the meantime, the incident seems to have become a source of amusement, culminating in a comedian's publicity stunt that involved attaching a commemorative, engraved plaque inside the cubicle.
The reality is, however, that this is a serious issue, and the Knights should be well aware of that.
There is probably no club in the NRL with as dubious a reputation as Newcastle when it comes to the subject of drugs, both of the performance-enhancing and illicit varieties.
Harsh statement? Maybe so, but there is a truckload of corroborative evidence, dating back almost a quarter of a century.
Cast your minds back to 1998, when the euphoric high of Newcastle's premiership win was rudely interrupted by a sobering postscript. Three grand final heroes - Robbie O'Davis, Adam MacDougall and Wayne Richards - were suspended after testing positive for banned substances.
As the Newcastle Herald's then senior sports writer Stewart Roach declared in a brutally honest column, the steroid scandal left "a stench over the club".
Fast forward to 2007, and barely six months after a neck injury forced him to retire, club legend Andrew Johns was arrested in London with an ecstasy tablet in his pocket, prompting him to bare his soul in an emotional Footy Show interview.
"Probably 10 years I've taken it, on and off, generally during the off-season," the club's greatest-ever player revealed, admitting he would regularly "run the gauntlet" with drug testers.
"It has left a black mark on my reputation, which I will work very hard at erasing," Johns said.
At the end of the 2009 season, the Knights were again embroiled in a crisis when young forward Danny Wicks was arrested and charged with drug supply. Teammate Chris Houston was later charged as part of the same operation, but his charges were eventually dropped.
Houston was sidelined for a season before he was reinstated by the Knights. Wicks pleaded guilty and spent 18 months in jail, before making a remarkable comeback with Parramatta in 2015 - six years after his last game for Newcastle.
At the time, then Knights CEO Steve Burraston said he did not believe other players were involved and added: "Nor do we believe that we have a drug culture in our club."
Among Wicks' teammates, however, was a young halfback called Jarrod Mullen.
Mullen was 29 and Newcastle's most experienced and highest-paid player when he tested positive in 2016 to a banned steroid, which he said was described to him as an "amino acid" designed to help repair a chronic hamstring injury.
Banned for four years, his life descended into freefall before he suffered a near-fatal drug overdose, and was arrested and charged with supplying cocaine.
Mullen entered rehab and pleaded guilty in court, copping a two-year community corrections order and 300 hours of community service.
He has stayed sober and clean for four years now and resumed his rugby league career, briefly, last year with an injury-hit stint playing for Queensland Cup side Sunshine Coast Falcons.
Mullen, who has embraced a new vocation as a youth counsellor, is the perfect example of why NRL clubs need to be so wary of drugs. An 18-year-old schoolboy when he debuted for the Knights, he played during an era when it has been proven that at least some of his teammates were using illicit substances.
When the day-to-day routine of football was suddenly ripped away from him, his own drug taking spiralled out of control.
Mullo's life is back on track, but he remains a cautionary tale, one that others - including his former club - should heed.
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