New Drug Policy and Eugene Update

A few days after Eddie Guerrero was found dead in a hotel room, Eugene was found passed out in a hotel lobby in Manchester, England. The cause of this was his use Somas and other prescription medicine. He has been indefinitely suspended and will spend the next two weeks in a drug rehab facility.

In light of these two incidents, Vince McMahon addressed the locker room and announced a new drug policy. They will test for recreational drugs, performance enhancing drugs, and abuse of prescription medicine on a random basis. The details of the program are still being worked out. The only detail known is that it will be conducted by an outside agency and Vince McMahon has said everyone will be treated equally.

The WWE used to have a drug testing program from 1992 – 1996. It started due to Vince’s steroid trial and was stopped when they were losing The Monday Night War to Ted Turner’s WCW. That policy was not applied equally to every performer and was not done independently of the WWE. The biggest difference between then and now is that the WWE is a publicly traded company and has to answer to their shareholders about the drug problems in the industry.