But it's not a strong punishment, at all. He's been banned for no games. Not one. It's not only a weak punishment, it's no punishment. It sends the message that if you accidentally took a prohibited substance because it belonged to your wife, that's fine.

Agree absolutely.
Disgrace.

But it's not a strong punishment, at all. He's been banned for no games. Not one. It's not only a weak punishment, it's no punishment. It sends the message that if you accidentally took a prohibited substance because it belonged to your wife, that's fine.

He was provisionally suspended by the RFU some time before 20th April so he missed at least the last two premiership games and the semi-final.

How would you know if you had?

What a mistake to make! Wonder if he's taken any other of his wife's pills by accident?! ;) Seriously though - it is a bit of a minefield out there, but this shows that the testing does actually work.

Being cynical, I would say this shows that the testing works when a player doesn't realise that they have ingested a particular substance and therefore takes no steps to make it undetectable. Also possible that this is an easier-to-detect substance than a lot of what's out there (though I've no idea).

Not trying to cast aspersions on Johnson or anyone else in particular at all - his story in this case seems solid - but I wouldn't take one positive test for a random substance that the player took by accident as proof that there isn't a wider PEDs problem out there. For a start, the amount of testing in premiership rugby is fairly pitiful (I think it works out as less than one test per player per season, whereas a cyclist who leads the tour de france from day 1 would get tested 21 times in 3 weeks.).