Essay Athletes And Drug Use

Sports are something that everyone in the world, regardless of age, sex, or nationality, can enjoy. Whether it's a child playing in his first t-ball game or a professional athlete swimming in the Olympics and everyone in between, sports can connect almost everyone. Fan support and overall devotion for athletic competition has raised professional athletes to superstars and national icons; Super Bowl Sunday is a national holiday to some, and sports are one of the largest moneymakers in the economy.

Drugs in sports is becoming a problem everywhere. “Another 26-year old athlete died of liver cancer after taking a number of different types of steroids over a four year period ” (Drugs and…). This is significant because this shows how dangerous drugs can be. If we have drug testing in schools this student could still be alive and would have stopped drugs before it got bad. The evidence points to the fact that drugs are a major health risk that is very concerning. In some cases taking drugs can even lead to death. In addition, another situation took place that affected a college student named Bob. Bob tried everything to gain weight so he could play football, so he chose to try steroids like everyone else. Steroids got him to play professional football, but horrible things were happening to him. He was having serious health problems. Bob quit drugs and is lucky to be alive (Drugs and…). This connects to the fact that doing drugs is a major

For many years sports have played huge roles in human’s everyday lives. From entertainment, political, financial and to actually competing in them. The task for the sportsmen or women, especially in the top rank, is to beat the other competitors and get a good result from it. Here there is a high amount of pressure on many athletes coming from the media, coaches, themselves etc. They have the wanting to do well and achieve their goals and aims so much that some of the athletes turn to performance enhancing drugs. Obviously training for competition is the main thing to do but using drugs is another helper to succeeding. So, to their way of thinking, doping does not seem like cheating it just seems like

“Commentators claim that performance-enhancing drugs are not right or wrong, simply another strategy to improve performance” (Introduction to Performance-Enhancing Drugs). There are two main problems wrong with the use of drugs being legal. Health of athletes would drop devastatingly, and the true competition would become who gets lucky. “Some mourn the loss of yesterday's baseball heroes, while others argue that sport figures who use performance-enhancing drugs expose flaws in American culture” (Introduction to Performance-Enhancing

Drug testing student athletes have helped lower drug abuse in high school and middle school. According to The National Center of Addiction and Substance Abuse, 15 to 17 percent of student athletes have failed their drug test. People believe that the student athletes should be drug tested before big games and events such as a state tournament. Drug testing needs to go around schools before big events and games to check for play enhancers and drugs, such as steroids.

In all areas of sports, professional, college, and even high school, there is widespread illegal use of performance-enhancing drugs. It seems like you can’t go more than a week without hearing about somebody’s PED problems. Although there are many reasons for athletes to choose to use these drugs, the cost of such use, both to the athlete and to society can be extraordinarily high. The question that many people must answer to themselves is “is it worth the risk”. Therefore, it is important to understand why performance-enhancing drugs are used, the consequences of their use, and then apply that knowledge to how they are represented in the media.

What do you think about athletes and drug tests? Well I believe that every athlete should be required to take a drug test, first off I'm going to tell you what exactly is drug testing and what the point of it is. Why people use them and some cons of them and the health risks drugs cause. Also what happens if you get caught using drugs in sports

In the world of sports it is a competitive place where athletes lay everything they have worked for their whole lives to win the game. Now these athletes have been striving for greatness and dedicating so much of their lives to getting bigger faster and stronger to be able to win some games and ultimately move up in their careers and possibly make a living out of the sport they love to play. Sports rewards players who are motivated and works harder than the other team and stay focused and just dedicate so much to the sport. Now there are shortcuts to becoming bigger and faster and stronger. While some athletes bleed sweat and work as hard as they can and sometimes get changes slowly and far between some athletes will take performance enhancing drugs which will help these athletes take a shortcut and beat out the others who strive to get better. There in my opinion is nothing wrong with athletes wanting to get an upper edge on opponents by getting bigger and stronger but when the athlete uses performance enhancing drugs to get an upper edge I do not agree with this and feel like those athletes should receive some type of punishment.

No matter the sport, most athletes seek every competitive advantage to make it to the top. One of the main advantages is the performance athletes gain through drug use, and a big question today is the real purpose behind the drugs. Is an athlete truly just trying to enhance his or her performance to make it to the next level, or is there a deeper meaning, a problem with body image and how the public views these athletes, or a combination of both? According to an article on the Dilemmas of Doping, the rules in sports have two effects, “One is private: rules produce an entertaining game that generates private benefits for players, owners, and especially spectators. The other is social: rules tend to reward play that exhibits self-discipline, sacrifice for the good of the whole, and fair play.” ( qtd in Bird, Edward J and Gert G. Wagner). An athlete not only is rewarded by fair play, but winning without cheating, using drugs, etc. is the ultimate feeling of accomplishment. These athletes may have a sense that without stimulants they will never reach the top and feel like they have no other choice.

The most commonly discussed issue in sports of the 21st century is the use of performance enhancing drugs by professional athletes. Over the past four years, it has been nearly impossible to turn on the television without hearing something about athletes and these drugs. From former National League MVP Third Baseman Ken Caminiti's admission of steroid use in an issue of Sports Illustrated (Verducci, 2004) to 2006 Tour de France Champion Floyd Landis being stripped of title due to a failed doping test (Blue, 2006) virtually every sport is involved. Are performance enhancing drugs a substance that threatens the very existence of professional sports, or are they the future? Perhaps the issue

If Rob Garibaldi had one wish it would be to play major league baseball. Growing up he played baseball throughout high school and college. There was one problem. He wasn’t as big as the other players. Beginning in his junior year of high school he was strongly influenced to take supplements to increase his strength. A few years later, after continued use of steroids, his life started to spiral out of control. He was feeling very depressed, struggling academically, and had become very aggressive. That bright, young man with aspirations to play major league baseball ended up taking his own life with a fatal gunshot on October 1, 2002. Ultimately, Rob Garibaldi killed himself but steroids could easily be deemed his accomplice.

Doping has widely become known as the use of banned substances and practices by sports personnel particularly athletes in an attempt to improve sporting performances. No sensible fan of sport today denies the prevalence of drugs in virtually every major sport, yet none would argue they can ever be eliminated completely. Money alone would seem to guarantee that much. High profile athletes today are competing for high stakes, not just millions, but dozens of millions. The fear of losing everything career, opportunity, contracts, name, fame, and money is pushing more sportsmen all over the world to use performance enhancing drugs, mainly

This is a material world promoting material values, thus meaning that it should not be surprising to see individuals being willing to do everything in their power in order to make profits. Or should it? The sports community today is troubled by a series of athletes who have yielded to society's pressures and abandoned their principles with the purpose of taking performance enhancing drugs. It is difficult to determine if it would be normal for the masses to judge these individuals, concerning that they are actually one of the reasons for which these people have come to consider taking performance enhancing drugs in the first place. However, the only ones who can judge them are other hard-working sportspersons who have stood by their principles and who respect the idea of sport in general.

Drugs should be banned in all sports. They have been a problem for a long time. Athletes use them to enhance their body and for simply just the edge. There is nothing wrong with using some drugs to enhance your body as long as they are legal. The problems that come with drugs in sports are how to detect them. Some professional sports, such as the NHL, do not even use drug tests. The only sports that test for everything are the NBA and NFL. The Major League Baseball only tests for illegal drugs such as marijuana and cocaine. They do not test for steroids or any other kind of pill. The reason for this is because the player’s union will not allow these tests. They are currently voting to reconsider this idea. The other problem is that drug

More and more, of our society views winning more important than itself. Success in competition brings status, popularity, and fame, not to mention college scholarships. Today’s athletes are looking for an advantage over the competition that will make them winners. Unfortunately, the drugs of today are caught up in the high stakes competition frenzy. Of this reality, teenage use of performance improved drugs is growing ever more popular. In colleges and in the professional league a lot of people are doing drugs and its ruining their health and life. Also, if some teenagers take performance drugs they are making them better than everyone else giving themselves an advantage over everyone else which is cheating, so why should they get money