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Ricky Williams fails third drug test

By DAN LeBATARD
dlebatard@herald.com

Even if retired Miami Dolphins running back Ricky Williams changes his mind and decides to return to football this season, he will be forced to serve a four-game suspension after failing a third drug test for marijuana use.

Williams admitted Thursday that marijuana played a larger role in his retirement than he originally indicated, and that he learned of a third failed test and upcoming suspension just days before informing Coach Dave Wannstedt of his decision to quit football.

Williams said, however, that there were "a hundred reasons'' for his retirement and that his desire to continue smoking marijuana without inhibition was merely one of them. He said he was not addicted to the drug, but merely that he didn't believe in government and NFL laws banning it. He said he had already decided to quit football even before testing positive a second time for marijuana use last season and incurring a $650,000 fine.

He appealed that fine, flying to New York to argue his case before an arbiter with his attorney, but received word last week that his appeal had been denied. While the appeal was pending, Williams said he continued smoking marijuana while on tour with rocker Lenny Kravitz and Europe and failed a third test upon his return. He said he had been using a masking agent to cleanse his system while being randomly tested for two season, but said he didn't even bother before the last such test after returning from Europe.

"I didn't quit football because I failed a drug test,'' he said. "I failed a drug test because I was ready to quit football.''

Williams said the Dolphins didn't know of his third failed test or even the results of his appealed second one. NFL confidentiality rules prevent teams from commenting on player drug issues, with a possible penalty of $500,000.

Williams failed his first drug test soon after arriving in Miami in 2002. He spent much of his two seasons with the Dolphins in the league's drug program, seeing a therapist weekly and subjected to eight to 10 random urine tests a month at his home.

Williams said he continued smoking throughout his time as Dolphins, stopping only for a month here and there, but passed random tests by drinking 32 ounces of a masking agent called Extra Clean and chasing it quickly with 32 ounces of water. Upon retirement, Williams originally said that he hadn't learned yet of the results of his appeal and that the NFL's drug rules didn't run him off but rather merely reinforced that his lifestyle didn't belong in the regimented football world.

Williams, who suffers from social-anxiety disorder and was a spokesperson for the anti-depressant Paxil, said marijuana helped him once he had to stop using Paxil because it didn't agree with his diet.

"Marijuana is 10 times better for me than Paxil,'' he said.

Williams said he doesn't see anything wrong with marijuana because it is "just a plant'' and his hero, Bob Marley, admitted to smoking it daily. Williams has Marley tattooes all over his body, named his first child Marley and is friends with Marley's children.