For the second time in four years, basketball star Roy Tarpley has been banned for life from the National Basketball Association for violating its substance abuse policies.

Hopefully, this “lifetime” ban will stick, making professional sports’ commitment to ridding itself of drug and alcohol abuse look like a little more than the joke athletes like Tarpley and baseball player Steve Howe displayed it to be.

By punishing these star athletes that, whether Charles Barkley likes it or not, are role models to the young people of America, the nation’s sports organizations are showing they will not tolerate what is an epidemic problem in society.

However, perhaps the league’s owners should evaluate why they have athletes abusing drugs and alcohol in the first place.

Very often, these professional athletes have been raised in an environment that could not possibly prepare them for the staggering freedom that comes with signing multi-million dollar contracts, nor the immense amount of pressure athletes endure to succeed.

While some programs educating athletes about substance abuse and financial management are already being utilized, the channels used to help prevent an athlete’s self-destruction obviously were of little help to Tarpley.

Will some athletes fall through the cracks of any preventative system? Of course. You can only help those who wish to help themselves. But a situation like Tarpley’s should always serve as a reminder for us to ask, “Are we doing enough?”