Performance Enhancing Drugs: Should Athletes Use Steroids?

Ever since the start of sports, steroids has been a rising problem found in athletes but is it really a problem? Although steroids are considered cheating to numerous people, they have become the biggest use for athletes looking to boost their endurance and should be made legal. Steroids should be made legal because steroids enhance athletes through their ability/resistance by passing their limits. Steroids would not be considered cheating if everyone used them and is on the same level of greatness. Steroids allow athletes to reach their full potential of their talent, by being recognized more by people.

In sports, the competitive drive to win can be very intensive between athletes. Winning in the game usually brings rewards to athletes both financially and psychologically. Such temptations and the consecutive pressures faced by athletes to excel in the sporting events, attempts to achieve a rival edge especially when the application of performance enhancing drugs by athletes in sports activities has becoming a new trend and relatively common. Performance enhancing drugs are used so athletes could achieve better results with least efforts, even as their health and their athletic careers will be placed in danger. That explains why athletes, sports people and body builders turn to performanc enhancing drugs.

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 benefits of using some types of performance-enhancing drugs are obvious. Professional athletes have a very 'short shelf life' as competitors in most sports and must cash in on their talents as soon as possible. For Olympic athletes, the

Should athletes be allowed to use performance-enhancing drugs (such as steroids or EPO) or techniques (such as blood doping or oxygen tanks)?

The competitive drive to win at all cost is fierce among athletes. Winning at all cost often includes using one of many performance enhancing drugs such as anabolic steroids. Many athletes use performance enhancing drugs, like steroids, to achieve higher goals and set higher records than other drug-free successful athletes. Although athletes are performing at higher levels when using such drugs, what is the cost? Finally anabolic steroids should remain banned from sports because their use results in many harmful side effects; because their use violates sports regulations, and because their use can cause death.

“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

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.

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

Barry Bonds, Mark Mcgwire and Sammy Sosa, some of MLB’s biggests stars, are players who have used Performance enhancing drugs like steroids (Auerbach). Athletes wanting to get an advantage on others started to use drugs like steroids. These enhancing drugs should not be allowed in sports. The drugs have bad side effects, and also gives athletes an unfair advantage.

As spectators, we push athletes to their absolute best, where doping is needed to reach those heights (Steadman). Everyone wants to see the best competitor. Eventually, natural athletes will reach a wall. Then there comes the question of how to keep sports interesting (Steadman). The PEDs would increase playing competition and allow athletes to reach those heights to entertain us at a great level (Hoffman). The people are complicit in turning the sport into an entertainment industry in which winning is everything (Cashmore). Everyone wants to be a winner. Steroids improve the effects of training, allowing them to produce more effective training (Steadman). The Anabolic Steroid, Androgen, is used as a lower dosage. But is shows that muscular strength could be improved by five to twenty percent (Savulescu and others). During the steroid era, 5693 home runs were hit. This could be reproduced in the future if PEDs are legalized (Hoffman). “Baseball should sponsor the use of steroids.” (Uni Wire) In 1992, Nicky Rabinowicz found out that Olympic athletes, in general, believed most successful athletes were using banned substances (Savulescu and others). This is a third reason why PEDS should be legalized in sports.

Attention Grabber: Depression, convulsions, anxiety, jaundice, myocardial infarction aka heart attack, eczema, abscess. All of these are listed in the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System as known side effects of Vitamin C(Adverse Event Reporting System)…? Huh...What makes steroids more controversial than Vitamin C? After all, it’s common knowledge that the abuse of pretty much anything can come with some pretty severe adverse effects.

Do you feel that PED’s should be allowed in sport? The problem is that players use PED’s or Performance Enhancing Drugs to get an advantage over their opponents. Despite the advances in technology for discovering PED’s, there is still a great number of people who get away with PED’s. Many people continue to use PED’s and will continue to use them until they get caught, and even after they get caught. Performance enhancing drugs should not be allowed in sports, resulting in more fair competition.

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

PEDs and steroids provide better stamina, stronger muscles, and more muscular endurance. "Society cares because steroid use is a form of cheating. Since steroids work so well, they create an unfair advantage for those who take them, and this breaks the social contract athletes have implicitly agreed to: We are going to have a fair contest. There are things we can and cannot do. Even if there were a safe performance-enhancing substance, if it weren't available to everybody, using it would still be cheating" (Dillingham). The end game will be actions that are increasingly violent, extreme, and meaningless, practiced by a class of chemical and or genetic mutant gladiators. The use of performance-enhancing drugs is not accidental; it is planned and deliberate with the sole objective of getting an unfair