VIDEO or photographic evidence of an AFL player using illicit drugs is likely to count as a strike under the League's new illicit drugs policy.
AFL football operations manager Mark Evans said the AFL Players Association had agreed in principle that such a situation would incur a strike but there was still work to be done to shape a policy around the issue.
Last Wednesday, Channel Nine aired a video of St Kilda recruit Jake Carlisle appearing to snort a white powder while holidaying in Las Vegas, and reported he had sent the footage to a friend via the social media app Snapchat.
The report ran just hours after Carlisle had been traded from Essendon to St Kilda.
Evans said he expected there would be consequences for Carlisle's actions, but because it remained in the hands of the AFL's integrity division, he was not prepared to speculate on what those consequences might be.
"I would have thought it is an act that he [Carlisle] will regret for a long time," Evans said.
Carlisle returned to Melbourne last week.
Evans was speaking at the launch of the AFL's revised illicit drugs policy, which will see players named, fined and suspended for four matches if they record a second strike and suspended for 12 matches after a third strike.
Carlisle is not the only player this year that has been in hot water after images appearing to depict drug use were passed on to the media.
New Docker Harley Bennell was suspended by his former club Gold Coast in July when pictures of him suggesting he was about to snort an illicit drug appeared in national newspapers.
The pictures were taken in a hotel room in 2013.
The Suns traded Bennell to Fremantle during the NAB AFL Trade Period.