AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou claims their controversial illicit drugs policy helped save the lives of two players.

While the league is tightening the self-reporting feature of the three-strikes policy, Demetriou said it had helped identify that the pair needed medical help for other problems.

“We know for a fact that the self-reporting mechanism has helped save two players’ lives,” Demetriou told 3AW.

“These are people with other issues.

“They self-report because they have other issues going on.

“They don’t self-report because they want to avoid a strike, because they’re some sort of party boys.”

In the past, players could self-report illicit drug use repeatedly and there were concerns it had become a loophole in the policy.

Now a player can only use self-reporting once during his career.

While the number of players who recorded positive illicit drug test results rose sharply from six to 26 last year, Demetriou is confident that will not continue.

“We’ve enhanced the policy, we still believe in the policy and I’m confident you’ll see a drop next year,” he said.

He also said to the best of his knowledge, there were no drug addicts among current players.

“We haven’t got, to the best of our knowledge today, anyone who has a significant issue with illicit drugs,” he said.

But Demetriou is concerned that cocaine has become the illicit drug of choice for AFL players.

“It’s the normal drug out in the community, unfortunately,” he said.

“I’m horrified by it, because I still don’t get this use of cocaine and this use of illegal drugs, period.

“The normalcy of cocaine is frightening.”

Demetriou also claimed that the illicit drugs policy, introduced in 2005, had been the catalyst for Ben Cousins being exposed as an addict.

“It was actually the drug policy that flushed out Ben Cousins – he tried to avoid testing (at West Coast),” Demetriou said.

“He knew the testers were there and he didn’t show up to training.”