Performance Enhancing Drugs

Lance Armstrong destroyed his reputation just like Braun by taking steroids. However, Armstrong denies his steroid use, but he has stopped fighting the United States Anti-Doping Agency accusations (“Peddling” par. 2). His defense in

Performance-enhancing drugs (PED 's) have been an issue for many decades now for the medical and sports field. Olympic and professional athletes have been using them to gain an upper hand on the competition, but some may ask if it 's really worth it? Studies show that performance-enhancing drugs have been proven to negatively affect the health of athletes who take them. Simply put, performance-enhancing drugs could either improve athletic performance or can be extremely dangerous, in certain situations, deadly. There have been strict rules and drug testing in the professional sporting organizations, as well as in world competitions. For example, in the summer of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, in two of the

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).

Performance enhancing drugs, or steroids, are defined as substances used to improve physical performance. There are many types of steroidal performance enhancers. The first of these performance enhancing drugs are anabolic steroids. Anabolic steroids are also known as androgen steroids, and they are used to increase the muscle mass and strength of a person. A natural anabolic steroid is testosterone, which your body naturally produces. Some athletes take straight testosterone which is another way to boost your athletic performance. This has the same effect as anabolic steroids, but it is natural and can be found within the body. Anabolic steroids are so effective and appealing to athletes, because they allow athletes to recover faster from a

The main belief among young athletes is that by using drugs (especially performance-enhancing drugs), they will gain a competitive advantage among the competition. However, no matter the purpose, taking steroids or other drugs not prescribed by a physician is illegal and needs to be closely monitored at all levels of athletics. Some people might believe that mandatory drug testing would cause turmoil

Athletes partaking in performance enhancing drugs is another sport specific risk behaviour to achieve victory. Taking performance enhancing drugs gives an extra edge and is a short cut to good performance. It allows one to perform under any circumstances. In fact, stimulants are the most common types of drugs that are misused. Stimulants reduce tiredness and pain. Further, it increases endurance and explosive power due to the reduction of pain. The earliest reasons for the use of stimulants is because of the restricting barriers to pain. Nevertheless, this causes more injuries as they are pushing their bodies past what they are physically capable of. However, they are not aware of this because at the time the athlete is no responsive to pain.

The growth and use of performance enhancing drugs makes them no longer a taboo subject among professional athletes, and is starting to become in fact rampant among athletes. There appears to be no end in sight when leagues like the NFL and NCAA have weak testing programs.

Some athletes that have used performance enhancing drugs have not suffered the medical consequences but have suffered in another way. One of the most famous player in all of baseball Alex Rodriguez had won the American league most valuable

There has been a debate of epic proportion for the past few decades on whether professional athletes from around the world have the right to use performance-enhancing drugs. As for now these world athletes are not permitted to use most of the performance-enhancing drugs that are available by the World Anti-Doping Agency. The athletes are randomly tested by their professional leagues. Each American league has their own method of dealing with athletes who abuse banned substances. These methods of punishment can range from a fine to expulsion from the league.

Steroid use is ever present in the world of professional sports and is making its way down to the collegiate and high school levels. A large reason that PED use in professional sports is because the testing process is so poor. Many athletes, including boxing megastar Mike Tyson, have come forward after their career on their use of PED and even other drugs. Mike admitted to using urine other than his own to pass the tests. “However the existing testing program may have put too much emphasis on quantity and may have neglected quality. The above mentioned 1.76% of “findings” is in contrast to widespread belief that at least 10% of all elite athletes are doping” (Maennig, 2014, p. 1202). This emphasizes the fact that the current tests in place are more worried about testing larger

Out of the 21,849 drug tests during the 1968-2008 summer games there was 105 cases of positive drug tests (“Drugs and athletes”). Performance Enhancing Drugs can either be Stimulants, Anabolic-androgenic steroids, human growth hormones, and Erythropoientin (“Performance Enhancing”). PED’s improve your overall athletic performance. PED’ are harmful and can even be fatal. Athletes use these substances to gain an unfair advantage to become better than their opponent. Athletes who use PED’s violate the spirit of competition and makes it not fun to compete for players who respect the rules. Every year countless players take PED’s to give them an unfair boost that can harm them, it also does not show their true athleticism on the field.

Using performance- enhancing drugs has become the major part of any athletic life since the early Greek time. The first attempt for athletes to increase their performance was during the 8th century BC Greek Olympics, according to Wikipedia.com. It was documented that Olympians ate sheep testicles that increased their energy. Later, scientists confirmed that this strange method was very effective (wikipedia). However, lets look at the time that is a little closer to us, and we can see the bright headlines, “Doping has been acknowledged as a problem since at least 1960” or “95% of players in the NFL use a performance enhancing drug such as steroid”. It seems horrifying. Is it a competition of pharmacologists? Some athletes have become so addicted

On January 17, 2013, Lance Armstrong admitted to doping during his professional cycle careers. He joins other great names; such as Tyson Gay, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, and Alex Rodriguez; all great athletes who have had their reputations tarnished by using performance enhancing drugs (sometimes shortened to PEDs). In his interview with Opera Winfrey, Armstrong stated that “I didn 't view [doping] [as cheating]. I viewed it as a level playing field” (Lance). With this statement, Armstrong is declaring that many professional cyclists and other professional athletes engage in illegal doping in order to improve their performances. These drugs can be useful for their ability to decrease recovery time, allowing athletes to train more intensely. Currently, most forms of performance enhancing drugs are banned from use in professional sports (caffeine is a common legal substance). However, it is well known that performance enhancing drugs are used by athletes in a wide variety of sports at a variety of levels. Since, according to Armstrong, most athletes are using these drugs, a new approach needs to be implemented to deal with performance enhancing drugs. One possible solution is to just allow the use of performance enhancing drugs.

Even though it is proven the use of the drugs are over exaggerated it doesn’t just give you talent on something you haven’t done it before. The drugs give you an increase in testosterone so giving you stuff like more strength. But using them is also the fact of not being honest it is not a crime to use it but the punishment for athletes using it can be very severe. It is also the peoples extreme need for a win. But it is not a real win because it is a form of cheating. They give you more strength and stamina that the regular training and nutrition can do. They go far past what the regular training can do so it’s unfair to the people that are not open and that can’t use it.

In New Zealand, this year the laws surrounding drugs in sport have been updated so that they are now at the same standard of those of the World Anti-Doping Agency's 2015 world anti-doping code. This meant increasing the penalty of those caught using performance enhancing drugs from a 2 year ban to 4 years for first time offenders. This means that an athlete that is caught using drugs at the Olympics, they will miss the next one. The laws have also been changed so that all supporting staff/team members of the athlete are subject to these laws as well and therefore they can receive banes as well. They also extended the consequences to anyone who tries to cover up any doping that is occurring. These law changes were set in place to