Drug Talk: Performance-Enhancing Drugs in Sports

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.

Over the years, this has been forgotten as people focus only on winning. From 1968 on, hundreds of Olympic athletes have been caught doping. PED’s are considered cheating in today’s sports. Although every athlete is determined to win, PED’s have no place in sports. When athletes resort to using these drugs, the endanger their health and their safety. An example of this is the death of Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen who died in the Olympics from the use of amphetamines which caused him to lose consciousness and fall from his bicycle to his death. Another consequence of PED use is setting a bad example and being a bad role model. In 2007 many fans were let down when Barry Bonds tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. Many fans, both young and old, looked up to Barry and were disappointed with his choices. With so many baseball players using performance-enhancing drugs today, the integrity of the game has been lost. The players who use PED’s negatively affect the players who play the game without cheating. One of the worst consequences of all for using PED’s is being suspended or banned. Since the 1960’s, the technology for PED testing has improved and more athletes have been caught, suspended or

A number of prominent athletes have recently experienced a 'fall from grace,' because of the revelation that they used performance-enhancing drugs. Perhaps the most famous example of this phenomenon is Lance Armstrong. In an advertisement for Nike that his former sponsor now no doubt regrets, Armstrong is shown asking the viewer "what am I on? I'm on my bike, busting my ass six hours a day." Professional cycling is often cited as one of the sports in which doping is most endemic to its subculture, however a number of professional sports have been embroiled in drug scandals. Because of the many revelations about the number of baseball players who used steroids to get their record-breaking statistics, the 1990s are often called the 'steroid' era of baseball. The Olympic track and field star Marian Jones was stripped of her medals, after finally admitting to the use of performance-enhancing drugs (Lardon 2008). "Despite the health risks, and despite the regulating bodies' attempts to eliminate drugs from sport, the use of illegal substances is widely known to be rife. It hardly raises an eyebrow now when some famous athlete fails a dope test" (Savulescu, Foddy, & Clayton 2004).

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

Performance enhancers are very prominent in professional sports today. A lot of players are facing suspensions and other penalties for using them. The sport that gets scrutinized the most for this is Baseball. Many former users in the MLB (or formally the NABBP) have come out saying that they were using these drugs while playing. Some of these players are Jorge Sosa, Antonio Bastardo, and the famous Alex Rodriguez. Although these drugs have been prohibited, players are still finding ways around the tests which is why in some other countries they are legal so that no one player can have an unfair advantage.

Understanding how to persuade people to not abuse drugs is not always simple. Teaching people to be abstinent is hard to do because you do not know what people are really going to listen to you after the prevention program has ended. When you are learning about drug prevention as a teen it can be hard

The harmful physical and mental health effects that coincide with the usage of performance enhancing drugs explain why PEDs should stay out of the hands

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.

PED use has been a controversial topic over the past few decades in professional, both professional and non-professional. There are many positive and negative effects of the use of these type of drugs. The drugs have been said to even out the playing field if the availability was open to everybody, get the body bigger in a shorter amount of time than just training, and make for better and longer lasting events. They have also been said to eliminate the moral and principle of sports, not everybody can respond to the drugs the same way, and they may be linked to long-term negative effects on the human body. Other debates that have been brought up are the influence of these athletes on younger generations and the representation of the the club or team that these athletes play for. It has been a long and controversial road and debate over PED’s.

Do you want to want to become the peak athlete that you know your body is capable of? Well, this paper will not do that for you, but it will tell you how, and it will tell you why it should be legal to do so. Doping in sports is one of the most extensive debates within the realm of athletics. Whether it be injecting anabolic steroids, consuming them, or blood doping, athletes will do drugs. Doping has no effect on the viewership of the sport. Athletes can always find ways to cheat the system, and trying to prevent the use seems impossible. The use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) should be legalized, as long as it is allowed under medical supervision.

One of the easiest methods to justify why consuming performance enhancing substances is wrong is the fact that it is forbidden. Once an individual accepts that he or she will be a part of a community that values particular rules, the respective person automatically agrees to respect those rules and to do everything in his or her power to make sure that fairness dominates the community as a whole. There are basically three arguments reinforcing this ide:

The use of performance-enhancing steroids in sports is forming a problem. The sports that they play end up being cheated by these frauds. This is a disgusting epidemic. For example, “The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) recently estimated that over half of a million 8th through 10th grade students are abusing AAS, and that many high school seniors do not believe their use constitutes a health risk” (steroidabuse.com). The problem exists in professional sports and below. Steroid use in sports is becoming more common and is dangerous to the games that it cheats.

Athletes work hard for years to achieve their goals and dreams. Some athletes use performance-enhancing drugs to skip the hard work that natural athlete did. It works the same way for academics’ life, some researchers steal ideas or even complete work from other scholars and claim it as theirs. This is called cheating because they are not putting the effort that it takes to achieve the goal. The competition between athletes or even academics become dishonest because they did not put equal effort. In my opinion, if the drugs get legalized there should be two competition for each sport, one for people who do not use drugs and one for who uses the drugs.

There is no defined number to how many people in the world love sports. Whether you play it, watch it, or just simply hear about it, it’s no surprise that over half of the human population finds at least one sport appealing. From the era of the B.C.’s to our 21st century, sports have always been a popular aspect of our daily curriculums. There’s just something about the action and the winning triumph moments that really gets the adrenaline pumping, for all athletes and fans alike. Victory is important, but how can the actions of getting there affect the sporting world as a whole? As technologies improve throughout the years, more and more athletes are cheating their way to success by taking drugs or blood doping. Drug usage and doping have

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