Fines Needed for NFL Players Using Performance Enhancing Drugs

The National Football League currently enforces rules against steroids that for a positive test, the player caught using the steroids could be suspended for four games (wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Football_League).

One major argument for steroid and PED bans is the understanding that steroid approval sets an unhealthy example and standard for future athletes. Steroids have already crossed over from professional sports to collegiate athletics and even younger than that. 2009, a study conducted by Monitoring the Future concluded that 1.3% of 8th graders, 1.3% of 10th graders, and 2.2% of 12th graders reported using anabolic steroids at least once (How Dangerous are Performance Enhancing Drugs?). This excludes the unreported cases, but even without this standing, even a measly 1.3% is too high. Between 20% and 27% of high schools have some type of drug testing, and an escalating amount of high schools are creating entire programs (Is Athlete Drug Testing

College and Professional Sports have been a major entertainment for people all over the globe. Baseball, football, hockey, basketball, golf, and soccer are a few examples of the greatest sports of this decade. These sports and more have the greatest athletes in the world involved and they get the opportunity to showcase their skills and talents each year. They only get the chance to do these things if they can pass a drug test that involves not taking steroids. Many years ago athletes were not forced to take any type of drug test thus causing many players to take steroids. Steroids made many athletes dramatically better causing more and more players to use them so they could keep up with the rest.

It was in 1987 that the National Football League started testing players for performance enhancing drugs. Even though the NFL has been drug testing athletes for PED’s for that long, unfortunately athletes still decide to take the drugs even if they will get caught and have consequences. In addition, the use of PED’s by professional athletes have been a problem sin at least the 1960’s. Also, athletes risk their health in bad ways when they take PED’s. Performance enhancing drugs are not beneficial for athletes because of legal issues and suspensions, a possibility for an athlete to end their career and ruin their reputation,and long term health risks.

‘It's part of an education program [to promote] awareness. The testing is designed to deter students from taking these substances. We need to assess whether or not the results are a deterrent.’ The New Jersey program randomly tests high school athletes if they reach the state-playoff level at the end of each sports season. By the end of this school year, 500 students will have been screened” (Geifner). To this end, we can see how the New Jersey system is just an example of programs that are taking development and are focused on teaching students to avoid PEDs. Of course, the best way to resolve high school drug abuse in sports is to crack down on substance abuse by pro athletes. In doing so high school athletes will see the major consequences that can come with cheating (even if they can’t notice the health problems). People need to sign petitions to major league corporations, such as the NFL or MLB informing these leagues the importance of banning athletes from playing in games and placing significant fines. These companies must

PEDs should be allowed in professional sports. Sports organizations fail to offer a level playing field for all of their athletes. The primary reason PEDs are outlawed, is because they give the user an unfair advantage over other players. But if players are still using them regardless of the rules, then the playing field is unfair. Testing has done little to decrease the use of PEDs, let alone eliminate it. It’s simply unrealistic to catch everyone guilty.

There is always downsides to allow drugs to be legalized. Sure there may be some health concerns dealing with the use of PEDs, but there are people who know how to regulate the drug and keep them safe healthy. These people can team up with highly educated doctors that will allow them to find a way to secure the health of the user. Yet another question with this topic would be if they find a safe way for athletes to use them would people see it as a form of cheating. Is there a difference between an athlete cheating in a game or a student cheating on a big exam to help them pass the class? Performance-Enhancing drugs is not a form of cheating and they should be legal only under the circumstances of keeping the athlete health safe, and need to be regulated by sport

I do think that legal steroid use with influence the teenage viewers of professional sports for the better and for the worse. For the better because the port game would most likely be more interesting because of everything that would be going on. For worse because teenagers that do not believe in steroids with just stop watching the sports that use them. I believe that this is unethical because it is not morally correct.

It makes it unfair that people who use PEDs can get bigger and stronger than their opponents that don’t use them. This will allow athletes throw harder, hit harder, and be faster. When athletes play unfair it takes the competition away from the rivals that they are playing against. Using PEDs in sports is cheating, and we know that cheating will automatically get the athlete

The NFL did not test for steroids until 1986 (Steroids 5). The NFL is the first sports league to have blood testing for steroids (Rules 23). The NFL also implemented HGH testing (Services 2). Although these test help bust these players they are expensive. Catlin said, "the cost for a school to test 85 players is 34,000" (Press 49). That is a lot of money so the some colleges do not want to spend a lot of money for testing when they have cheaper ones that test for other drugs just so they can say that they are trying to keep drugs out (Weinreb 3). Some football players show a big weight gain, but it does not show up in test (Press 22). It does not show up because the test are not even made for steroids. Steroid test are also really easy to get around for the athletes these days (Weinreb 3). Players find ways to get around these test like some college football players post messages on websites about how to beat the test (Press 69). In football they do not care as much about people using steroids compared to other sports like baseball (Steroids 1). It just is not as big of a deal they do not feel like spending their time on busting players. These players are good at getting away with it, but they stopped doing random test and started to test everyone at the beginning of the season (Steroids 7). Instead of just testing random people they started to test everyone to catch more people. They still do random blood test for human growth

Performance-enhancing drugs should not be allowed in sports and the ban should be more strictly enforced. They could do random drug testing and make them sit out games if they are caught with drugs in their system. Instead of using performance-enhancing drugs they could do exercises and dieting to help them improve their performance on the field. Some of the players are honest and do not do the performance drugs, so why should they suffer because everyone else is using them. They are put at the bottom, below the ones using drugs just for the simple fact that they are honest and work hard to be able to perform correctly during games. The individuals using drugs are able to build muscle quicker and are often first string compared to the others.

Performance Enhancing Drugs has not only infected professionals it is now beginning to infect amateurs as well. College and high school players want to take it to become better than their competition. Only a select few of these athletes will ever play at the next level of college football and even less

Imagine a day when sports are played by a bunch of superhumans that cheat their way to the top, and don’t work hard. If steroids and other supplements keep getting used like they are; eventually the games will be meaningless. The players will all be like superhumans. Many people are taking steroids and supplements to become better than others and get an advantage. Jimmy's basketball team was taking steroids to not have to work hard and still get an advantage, but then other teams started doing it too. This evened the playing field, so they took more than was healthy, and so did the other teams. This made them unhealthy and they did not even get an advantage. PEDs and other performance enhancing supplements should be banned in all sports,

The use of Performance Enhancement Drugs (PEDs) causes contemporary arguments in all the professional sports like in baseball. Many have argued against them because there are many health risks that come along with taking PEDs but not only that, people feel like when a professional sports player is taking them then it is considered cheating. What people don’t realize is that there is more concern for how the drug is affecting the player rather than just the game alone because those who are caught are only temporarily suspended rather than kicked out making it seem like it is not that big of a deal. Perhaps it is a big deal to some of the people who are watching the game and later find

While many sports fans, and some non-sports fans, already know there is a problem with integrity, the key is pinpointing that problem to fix it. The careless act of using PEDs not only ruins the fair play but puts the athlete’s bodies at risk. Many single-minded coaches and school boosters have been caught