ANDREW Johns has been a drug user for more than a decade, but he got away with it because timing is everything. Johns, who was noted for his impeccable sense of timing as a player, apparently was also spot on with his timing off the field. Until now.

Johns said he would take drugs in the off-season, when there was no testing, or play "Russian roulette" on occasions during the season.

"If you play a Friday night, you don't train on a Saturday, Sunday and generally it's out by Monday," Johns said of the drugs clearing his system and therefore not being detectable.

But he said his family, friends, teammates and club officials probably knew of his drug-taking.

"It was a huge gamble," said NRL spokesman John Brady. "It is a sad admission on his part and the reality is, this is a tragedy. But the message is he took an enormous risk and these days a player would not get away with it."

Johns retired just as the NRL's illicit-drugs code was uniformly adopted across all of the clubs. Up until two months ago, testing for drugs such as cocaine, ice and ecstasy was a haphazard affair, conducted internally by some clubs and not at all by others.

Of course, it was in clubs' best interest not to reveal any kind of drugs problem with its star players, so they weren't tested. Or, if by chance they were and returned a positive sample, the result was easily kept in-house.

Within the Newcastle club it was well known that Johns regularly went off the rails, and there were many rumours swirling around about missed training sessions, of calling in sick, of arriving glassy eyed.

Coincidentally, the new policy, which includes the auditing of clubs to ensure they implement the illicit-drugs testing regime, was introduced just as Johns suffered his neck injury and retired from the game.

Yet Johns was still subject to the regular regime of testing for performance-enhancing drugs, conducted by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority, which enforces the World Anti-Doping Agency code. But under this code, illicit-drugs tests are only carried out on game day.

Johns knew this testing protocol, and he knew that it took about 24 hours for the drugs to clear his system. So all he had to do was avoid taking drugs on the day or so before a match.

Johns could also have influenced the test result by drinking more water to dilute his urine as much as possible during any testing period. And the odds of actually being tested by ASADA on game day were quite low. The agency conducts about 600 tests a year throughout the code - about half on game day.

Under the new illicit-drugs code, which was signed off by the Rugby League Professionals Association, each NRL club is required to conduct a minimum of 70 tests a year. Some clubs, such as Brisbane, have committed to 300 a year. Any league players who test positive under this code will be given a second chance before facing mandatory financial penalties, being named and given a 12-week suspension.

But as Johns is discovering, the social stigma of being named is the harshest penalty of all.