Drug Use In Sports
Ninety-eight percent of professional athletes say that they would take performance enhancing drugs if they didn’t have a chance of getting caught. Performance enhancing drugs, or PEDs, or steroids, have been around since 776 BC when the Greeks would use them to improve their performance in the Olympic Games. During World War II, the Germans, including Hitler, would take steroids to make themselves stronger and more aggressive. The Americans, British, and Japanese also began to use steroids during World War II shortly after Germany. After the war, athletes started to get their hands on these drugs and began to use them to boost their performance. More recently, athletes such as bicyclist, Lance Armstrong and baseball player, Alex Rodriguez have been caught using performance enhancers. While there are some people that believe performance enhancing drugs should be illegal in professional sports, some say they should be legal because using the drugs should be the athlete 's decision, not someone else’s and steroid use could possibly even make the sport more fair than it is today.
Athletes in professional sports should be allowed to make their own decision whether or not to use performance enhancers. “If athletes prefer the gains in performance allegedly provided by the use of steroids” and they understand that there is a chance that the steroids could have a negative effect on their bodies then “what gives anyone the right to interfere with their choice?”
In 2013, 12 Major League Baseball players each received fifty game suspensions without pay for using performance enhancing drugs. Big names such as Ryan Braun and Alex Rodriguez were on this list. Testosterone, an illegal substance, is what is found in the performance enhancing drugs. Testosterone increases male characteristics such as body hair, aggression, deepening of the voice, and of course massive muscle growth (“Steroids” par. 1). Some professional athletes claim to use performance enhancing drugs to recover more quickly from injury; others take them because they have not seen the positive feedback in working out, without the use of the steroids. Steroids may be referred to as 'roids', juice, hype, or pump and they are
The Intelligence Square U.S. held a debate about whether or not the government’s rules on performance enhancing drugs should be ban in professional sports. For the debate they had Radley Balko, Investigative Journalist, Norman Fost, Professor of Pediatrics and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, and Julian Savulescu, Uehiro Professor of Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford argue for the motion. They argue the fact that the medicines we take on a daily basis from the pharmacy are also performance enhancers. This goes back all the way to the Romans who once used herbs to improve themselves for battle, making them believe that the only exception that separates this from steroids is that it is illegal. On the other hand, you have
“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
Athletes that are in sports should not be allowed to consume steroids. Or if they are consuming steroids they should not be allowed to play sports. There are many unfair advantages of athletes that use steroids to make gain in a game they love to play. First, the use of steroids is cheating and it violates the rules and contracts athletes have agreed to. A player uses steroids to enhance his or her performance is illegal, so when a player uses them they are cheating. For example; Cheating is monitored today in sports by the use of referees or umpires. Referees and umpires cannot enforce steroid use because they have no way of telling if a player is on steroids or not they cannot be
Abstract: With the increase of competition has also come the need to become bigger and stronger than the opponent. The use of steroids among athletes has caused the focus of the game to change. No longer does an athlete want to win by doing their best, but they want to become bigger and have an advantage over the opponent. Ultimately, all athletes feel that they need to use performance-enhancing drugs to compete at the same level. Despite all of the warnings and information on performance-enhancing drugs, athletes continue to use them and overlook the potential health risks associated with steroids.
“…medical researchers believe that between 1 and 3 million youths and adults have taken anabolic steroids in one form or another specifically to enhance their looks or athletic performances,” stated Nuwer (Nuwer, 61). As astounding as these figures are, the number of performance drug users is steadily increasing. With this progressively increasing numbers, it is projected that millions more will use steroids in the immediate future (Newer, 61). Athletes have always sought an advantage in competition even if ignoring the law and their health if necessary. Using drugs of any sort to facilitate an athlete’s athletic ability should be illegal. The use of performance enhancing drugs is not only detrimental to the user but it also creates an
Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, and Lance Armstrong are all athletes that have even been accused of or admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs. Many associate the word Performance Enhancing Drugs or steroids to athletes, which is actually a common misconception. PEDs are substances that are used to improve any form of activity performance in humans and since 776 B.C.E, people have been taking them. The Greeks first used them in the Olympic games to gain an advantage over the other professionals competing. Around 100 A.D., Roman Gladiators also used stimulants to prevent fatigue and improve the fight’s intensity. The act of taking these drugs really started in 1904 when every Olympic team developed their own formula, which mainly consisted
Over the past century using steroids or performance enhancing drugs has been a massive issue in today’s athletic society. Using steroids is unfair to athletes and their fans, because it gives certain sportsman an unfair advantage. Some athletes try to win at all costs even if sometimes that cost is there career, achievements, and even there lifes.
It’s crazy, why people think that it's okay to use performance enhancing drugs (PEDS) . It gives the most unfair advantage in sports such as Increased leanness and muscle definition, Increased muscle mass, General weight gain, Increased strength, Increased effectiveness of training, Improved recovery rate Euphoria (feelings of positivity and confidence), and Increased aggressiveness. This is why I think PEDS do not belong in professional sports.
In today’s world, sports have become more and more about winning than the game itself. Success within sports not only comes with status, but popularity and fame as well. The want and need to succeed in athletics has driven great athletes to take illegal measures to give themselves an edge over their competition. Performance enhancing drugs such as anabolic steroids, androstenedione, and ephedra alkaloids are all used by athletes to take the shortcut to success and bypass all the hard work that success takes. Although performance enhancing drugs do enhance an athlete’s performance, at the same time they do more harm than good to the human body. Some of these side effects include hypertension, heart disease, liver disease, acne, high LDL, and “roid rage” are just some of the many problems that come with PED’s. Not only do these drugs bring along many health problems but can be lethal as well. Many people believe that PED’s should be allowed because athletes are only doing it for their own good. Professional athletes are not the only ones abusing the easy way out, high school and college athletes are starting to do the same to earn a scholarship to a Division-1 school or landing that big time contract with a professional team. All in all, it’s just not the right thing to do; success from hard work is a lot sweeter than the success from cheating. Performance enhancing drugs must be outlawed in all aspects of professional sports for the future of
"I needed to perform, and perform at a higher level every day… I had just signed this enormous contract… I felt like I needed something, a push… to get me to the next level." admitted Major League Baseball player Alex Rodriguez in 2009. Performance-enhancing substances have been an issue for many years: a temptation for numerous athletes. Athletes desperate to succeed are turning to illegal substances, despite the long and short term effects. The pressure on athletes to succeed is soaring and most athletes do not want to let people down. Clean, hard working athletes are being put on the 'back burner' because their contenders want to use drugs to thrive in competitions. The use of performance-enhancing drugs has certainly come to the forefront
Evidence suggests that despite comprehensive and ongoing deterrence and detection efforts by antidoping agencies (e.g., World Anti- Doping Agency [WADA]), the use of banned performance-enhancing substances among elite athletes remains pervasive in many sport disciplines (Alaranta et al., 2006; Backhouse, McKenna, Robinson, & Atkin, 2009; Laure & Binsinger, 2007). In addition to the moral and ethical issues arising from transgression of antidoping legislation, long-term use of many banned performance- enhancing substances confers serious side effects deleterious to the health of athletes (Lentillon-Kaestner, Hagger, & Hardcastle, 2012; Pipe & Ayotte, 2002) (Chan et al. 241-42).
Performance enhancing drugs (PED) are a delicate subject in the world today. Many people have opposing views to the topic of steroids in sports. The sports world is invested with people who use these performance enhancing drugs from an early age to increase strength, speed, and overall ability. However, there is positives and negatives to this.
As great as sports is for our society, there is still a pressing issue regarding ethics in sports: the use of performance enhancing drugs in sports. There is a debate among athletes, owners and fans whether athletes should be able to use performance enhancing drugs . With that being said, performance enhancing drugs has had a negative effect on sports Athletes should not be able to use performance enhancing drugs because they have
Athletes should not be able to use drugs to enhance their performance because of the health risks, the lack of fairness this institutes, and the negative impact on the people who watch them.