Performance Enhancing Drugs Should Be Banned in Professional Sports

Performance enhancing drugs must be made legal in professional sports. Professional athletes would not be given free reign of all the PEDs available in the world, but rather a new set of rules would be issued. The rules would allow athletes to meet or exceed their maximum abilities as humans while making it safer than the modern state. If made legal the potential results of PEDs would be tested and altered appropriately to create the safest, most impactful drugs; however, in the current situation professional athletes buy PEDs from sellers without pharmaceutical or sports medicine credentials. Performance enhancing drugs have the potential to develop super humans, and if made legal in professional sports, it would create the most talented and entertaining sporting events of all time.

Anabolic Steroids are taken by athletes to increase muscle mass while decreasing fat rapidly and efficiently. They can push the physiological limits of the muscle, making it bigger, faster and stronger than it can get naturally. Steroids achieve this affect on the body by enhancing the natural process of muscle building. The use of steroids has had a negative impact on the lives and careers of many athletes, causing suspensions, bans, and even the loss of medals and other awards and records earned in international events. A few of the high profile athletes whose lives and careers by their anabolic steroid use include: Barry Bonds, Lyle Alzada, Jose Canseco, Ben Johnson, Chris Benoit, Roger Clemens, Marion Jones, Alex Rodriguez and Lance Armstrong.

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.

Steroids are a hot topic of debate and controversy in the world of athletes and sports. Steroids fall under the umbrella of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) and are a dark cloud that have been hovering over the sports world for a long time. In the world today, steroids are the most relevant in major league baseball. Many baseball players, such as Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun, and Mark McGwire, just to name a few, have ruined their reputations because of steroids. There are repercussions for PED use in major league baseball, which have cut down on the substance abuse by players but have nowhere near eliminated the problem.

The correct term for the steroids being used is anabolic androgenic steroids. Anabolic describes its effect of increasing muscle mass. Androgenic describes its effect on the development of male sexual characteristics. They are commonly referred to as anabolic steroids, “juice,” “‘roids,” or simply steroids. Despite all the negative accusations of using anabolic steroids as a muscle enhancer, the fact is they do work. They increase strength and muscle mass, improve fast twitch muscles, and ultimately allow an athlete to transcend physical limitations and reach a higher level of performance. Texas pitcher Kenny Rodgers said:

Today’s players are bigger and stronger than the baseball heroes of yesterday and many sports writers and baseball analysts suspect the reason involves the use of anabolic-androgenic steroids. U.S. lawmakers are considering a national anti-steroid policy to discourage players from using illegal performance-enhancing drugs. (Miga) Anabolic-androgenic steroids are man made substances related to male sex hormones. These steroids are used by athletes to artificially raise testosterone levels in the body. Raising testosterone levels allows the user to train longer and harder, increase

Steroids are used for sports, or any sort of body building. Athletes use steroids because they believe it gives them a more competitive edge on other athletes. They do not fear the consequences of what could happen to their body. Athletes only think of the upside to what they are getting. Some examples of athletes that have used steroids are Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, and Lance Armstrong, to name a few. Many people speculated Barry Bonds taking PED’s, but when he was tested ,there was nothing found. Then the idea of undetectable steroids came up. “When told that he has never failed a steroid test, as others have failed, they argue that some steroids are undetectable.”( Coleman,18). Steroids may have lifted Barry’s career, but there will always be a dent in his

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

Perhaps one of the most controversial topics in Major League Baseball is the discussion of the use of steroids and human growth hormones. Both are completely illegal in the sport, and come with drastic consequences. One would think a fifty game suspension as a first offense would scare players away, but for some reason steroids in baseball is occurring more and more often to the disappointment of Major League Baseball. The reason players take steroids in the first place is to enhance their performance on the field. Steroids make players stronger and they perform at a higher rate. Another use for steroids is to help the players on certain rehab assignments for injuries. Either way, it is still illegal and banned in the sport.

The main type of steroids causing all this chaos to the body are called Anabolic steroids. Anabolic steroids are used the most often in Major League Baseball (MLB). The reasons why MLB players get caught up in Anabolic steroids is because they have so much pressure on them to hit home runs, get on base, and entertain. To help them cope with their pressure, they turn to Anabolic steroids because of the fast gains and positive impacts players experience after treatment. This is a positive for baseball fans, who have seen an increase in home runs hit; for example, in just a five-year span between 1961 and 1996, there was an increase of nine players who hit at least forty home runs in just one season. Anabolic steroids also make one’s hands faster and they increase muscle in areas like the pectorals and forearms. When players are going through a slump and they hear about all of these benefits of Anabolic steroids, they are tempted by this easy fix.

For as long as sports have been around, countless numbers of athletes have been driven towards being the best, and doing whatever it takes to become successful. As sports become more competitive, many athletes strive to find a way to improve their strengths and abilities. One possible solution to the problem, is with the help of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), also known as steroids. Steroids first came to flourishing in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the 1970s, when Tom House a former pitcher in (MLB) openly recognizing that there were multiple players per team experimenting with steroids and human growth hormones. During the 1900s steroids quickly became much more excessive and widespread, according to Juicin’ in The Majors: A History of steroids in baseball written by Joshua Z. Lavine February, 2013. “ By the 1990s, steroids had become an epidemic….Rick Helling, a pitcher for the Texas Rangers and a player representative, stood up at the winter meeting of the Executive Board of the Major League Baseball Players Association and reported this problem…” Despite the pitchers cry and plea for awareness of the problem, he was ignored. Eventually the statistical evidence on the issue had come full force and much too strong to ignore. During the 1990s-2001 multiple players had hit sixty or

Famed writer Grantland Rice once wrote, “When the great scorer comes to mark against your name. He'll mark not won or lost but how you played the game” (World of quotes, 1). That buoyant attitude of selflessness and heart has slowly diminished throughout the course of time. Now, George Allen’s booming voice, former coach of the Washington Redskins, runs throughout head of America, “Only winners are truly alive. Winning is living. Every time you win, you’re reborn. When you lose, you die a little” (Harris, 67). It is with this frame of mind that athletes are pushed beyond the edge of reason. Although peer pressure and pressure from coaches are central reasons why one may use steroids, most users begin using in order to improve their self image or excel in sports. Ethics, integrity, and legality aside, some athletes will stop at nothing to attain “that extra edge”.

In the days when steroids were only being used by body builders and professional wrestlers, stories about performance enhancing drugs could only be found on the back pages of the newspapers. When former Oakland Raiders All-Pro Lyle Alzado admitted to steroid use in a 1991 Sports Illustrated article the whispers about what professional athletes were using steroids began to get louder. (Puma, 2005) Finally, in 2002, when Caminiti, a former MVP, came clean, two things were clear; athletes in all sports were using these drugs, and that they worked. The fact that steroid use had permeated our national pastime combined with the media explosion of the internet and 24 hour a day sports talk created a perfect storm which created the biggest sports story of the new millennium so far. However, two other facts remained clear, performance enhancing drugs were old news, and athletes in all sports from all over the world had been using them for years.

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.

This is a material world promoting material values, thus meaning that it should not be surprising to see individuals being willing to do everything in their power in order to make profits. Or should it? The sports community today is troubled by a series of athletes who have yielded to society's pressures and abandoned their principles with the purpose of taking performance enhancing drugs. It is difficult to determine if it would be normal for the masses to judge these individuals, concerning that they are actually one of the reasons for which these people have come to consider taking performance enhancing drugs in the first place. However, the only ones who can judge them are other hard-working sportspersons who have stood by their principles and who respect the idea of sport in general.