THREE urine tests a week. Four hair samples a year. Welcome back, Ben Cousins, to the strict new world of AFL footy.

For a self-confessed drug addict, the system is set up for him to fail, but if he does, the entire AFL drugs system fails, too.

Cousins is lucky to be getting this slim chance of redemption to be back playing footy. He should be buying a lottery ticket, and listen nought to his supporters commiserating "the poor bugger".

Perhaps Cousins should ring Wendell Sailor, or Werner Reiterer, chat to a cyclist or familiarise himself with the World Anti-Doping Agency code if he feels hard done by. Cyclists are tested most mornings - some as early as 3am - during long, rigorous road races; swimmers tell of being tested three times a day.

Sailor tested positive to cocaine on match day and was banned for two years; Reiterer, a Commonwealth Games gold medallist, wrote about taking drugs in a book after his retirement and had to fight in the courts to have a retrospective drugs ban overturned. Usually, athletes confessing to taking drugs are pursued by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority.

In Cousins's case there wasn't enough evidence - despite a secret investigation - to prove that he had been taking the illicit drugs on match days. If they had unearthed such evidence, Cousins would be on the sidelines for a further year, pondering his future, and facing a life ban for any further positive test.

Yet this week the AFL bosses refused to clarify the ramifications if Cousins tests positive in one of its new, persistent tests. They would only say he would be suspended pending an investigation. Is this a drugs policy being created on the run? The AFL has already deviated from its own drugs policy in handling Cousins's issues. Bizarrely, despite his addiction, Cousins has never tested positive under the AFL illicit drugs code, which was considered soft and unworkable in many quarters.

Cousins's manager, Ricky Nixon, claims his client is being singled out, and he is right. When the AFL introduced its own code it should have understood the consequences of its new-found social conscience and introduced proper processes. For the AFL is surely kidding itself if it thinks Cousins is the only player to have such an addiction.