Steroids can be fuzzy issue for some of us

They trickle into spring training day by day now.

Paul Lo Duca … Eric Gagne … the prominent Andy Pettitte on Monday … more to come.

They answer questions at news conferences about their use of baseball's banned substances.

At some point Brian Roberts, whom the Cubs have considered acquiring, will arrive in Orioles camp if he hasn't already.

Roberts also will have to address his name being included in the Mitchell Report as a steroids user. Then you'll have to decide what you think of him.

I'm more forgiving of these guys than many of you are. Maybe that's because they remind me of those of us who survived the recreational drug era of the 1960s and '70s.

My goodness, what would it be like if years later the authorities came after everybody who smoked marijuana back then?

You know, like it has been awhile but somebody comes up, slaps the cuffs on and reads you your rights because an investigation revealed you used to smoke dope.

Yikes!

Similarities exist between the eras. That's probably why what occurred decades ago became my context for what occurs these days in the games people play.

Rules and laws aren't always the factors determining behavior in society. Sometimes it's the prevailing culture.

Like, a stigma wasn't always attached to smoking cigarettes or even drinking and driving. They were simply things people did without thinking.

Now society and sports emphasize the adverse effects of those activities, so anybody doing either must be aware of the health and legal consequences.

It seems to me that baseball players believed it was OK to use performance enhancers in the 1980s, '90s and '00s because it was ingrained in the culture.

Just as people believed it was OK to use recreational drugs back then because it was ingrained in that culture.

Participants didn't necessarily think it was all right. They just thought it fell into a wink-wink gray area that wasn't all wrong.

"If I had to do it all over again," Pettitte said Monday, "I probably wouldn't do it."

Some players have been scared straight. Yet many likely continue to try to beat testing and the system.

Not all drug users are created equal. The degrees of use and motivation are as diverse as the players are.

Some who smoked dope back in the day did it once, some did it regularly over a period of time, some did it for fun, some did it to cope with emotional distress, some advanced to harder drugs, some went into rehab, some went to jail, some didn't live long enough to do either.

At least one claimed he didn't even inhale.

Some athletes who used banned substances experimented briefly, some did it regularly over a period of time, some stopped when they wanted, some became hooked, some did it to overcome injury, some did it to gain a competitive edge, some just wanted to make a living, some were caught, some weren't, some fessed up, some covered up.

Make no mistake about it, boys and girls, recreational drugs and performance enhancers were a bad idea then and still are now.

Hopefully those who experienced those unfortunate eras can convey to young people today what is proper and what isn't.

Then maybe a better, safer, saner culture will emerge in both society and sports.