He's saying something much more profound than what previous posters have posited - and that is that for him, and by extension, many of his colleagues, doping is not something that they view through a moral or ethical lens. And by extension, when someone tests positive, he is not interested in excoriating them for supposed moral-failings. Rather, he sees doping primarily as something to be avoided because of fear of medical complications, and accepts the fact that his decision not to dope came not from any high-minded moral principles, but rather, simply from being scared.
Cyclingnews heavily edited the original interview to create that article, and Mike would have been better off just doing it with NY Velocity again, whereby they transcribe everything that's said.
Anyway,
what's most noteworthy to me, and what I thought more people would pick-up on, was the reference to Creed's being
benched for two months without explanation by Team Type 1 management. For those of you who
follow Pappillon, you also know that Creed was wrongly accused of being a bitter insider leaking embarrassing details of the poor leadership within that organization that saw at least five staff members quit the team in frustration. Despite the fact that
it was impossible for Creed to be the leaker, because I was in conversation with him on one line, and effectively receiving messages from the leaker on another, the team's mgmt won't even answer Mike's queries. I'm not entirely surprised by that, however, as my experiences interacting with Phil have seen him reply only when it was convenient and not when the rules of decorum suggested it.
Creed's not a doper and never has been,
though he's got balls for trying to suggest we drop the fake moral outrage, so to speak. That didn't translate in the article, and he should have gone with a different format that would have allowed us to read Creed's comments Verbatim (he's an engaging interview, for sure, and a funny guy to be around). But regardless, being honest about how the peloton has not - in general - viewed doping as a moral problem and still doesn't (although some PC riders are too scared to admit that right now, so they tow the line and
call for the application of the death penalty for cases of doping) shouldn't be reason for him to be shunned by his employer.