Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports

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).

Understand that athletes want to be remembered, but is that really any reason to ruin your reputation and hurt yourself. Its not just profesionals that have been using performance- enhanced drugs. Teenagers have been using them too, American teens more than doubled in human growth hormones in the past year. Kids in high school have been under major stress and want to get scholorships to colleges. As a result of doping, high school athletes have been less focused on there school studies, and becauses of that they don’t get that scholarship anyways, because of there bad grades. Students that are taking human growth hormones get suspened from school for the number of days nessaccary and is not able to finish the rest of the sport season. Depending

In the world of sports it is a competitive place where athletes lay everything they have worked for their whole lives to win the game. Now these athletes have been striving for greatness and dedicating so much of their lives to getting bigger faster and stronger to be able to win some games and ultimately move up in their careers and possibly make a living out of the sport they love to play. Sports rewards players who are motivated and works harder than the other team and stay focused and just dedicate so much to the sport. Now there are shortcuts to becoming bigger and faster and stronger. While some athletes bleed sweat and work as hard as they can and sometimes get changes slowly and far between some athletes will take performance enhancing drugs which will help these athletes take a shortcut and beat out the others who strive to get better. There in my opinion is nothing wrong with athletes wanting to get an upper edge on opponents by getting bigger and stronger but when the athlete uses performance enhancing drugs to get an upper edge I do not agree with this and feel like those athletes should receive some type of punishment.

Do you want to want to become the peak athlete that you know your body is capable of? Well, this paper will not do that for you, but it will tell you how, and it will tell you why it should be legal to do so. Doping in sports is one of the most extensive debates within the realm of athletics. Whether it be injecting anabolic steroids, consuming them, or blood doping, athletes will do drugs. Doping has no effect on the viewership of the sport. Athletes can always find ways to cheat the system, and trying to prevent the use seems impossible. The use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) should be legalized, as long as it is allowed under medical supervision.

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.

Think back to 1999. The Foo Fighters were one of the most popular bands in the United States, Bart Simpson starred on thousands of Americans television screens and that summer, Lance Armstrong won his first Tour de France. With his win, the world started to question his ability and how amazingly he ascended into the Alps. The thought of illegal, sport enhancing drugs came about. Drugs are a form of cheating, so it was not fair. It was not the first hearing of the drug, but it was the first at the turn of the century. Doping has been around for many years. Humans will continue to use illegal substances, no doubt about that, however if we imply stricter regulations, it will make it harder for athletes to cheat.

This lead to an investigation that ended up with positive TGH urine tests from four athletes competing at the U.S National Championship. European 100m champion, Dwain Chambers, tested positive for TGH. Victor Conte, the head of BALCO was sentenced to four months in prison and then house arrest in 2005 for illegally providing athletes with an undetectable steroid. In 2007, Marion Jones, who won three gold medals and two bronze medals at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, admitted to THG use. In a short few months, Jones was sentenced to six months in prison after originally lying about her steroid use in court. Jones was immediately stripped of all five medals by the International Olympic Committee (Baker). Famous Boxer, “Sugar” Shane Mosely, used THG in 2003; Mosely claimed that he thought they were legal vitamin supplements. An athlete is liable for the violations of taking steroids regardless of whether the athlete intentionally, unintentionally, or negligently took the prohibited substance (Gillespie); which happened to MLB superstar Barry Bonds whom tested positive for THG, and later claimed that his trainer gave the THG pills to him and he had no knowledge of the pills being steroids (“Barry Bonds steroid abuse”). 14 time all-star, Bonds, holds various MLB records that

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

Sports illustrated interviewed a cohort (group of people) of elite Olympic athletes, asking, “If you were given a performance-enhancing substance, you would not be caught, and you would win, would you take it? Ninety-eight percent of athletes answered yes.”(Charleston) That is a big number. Big risk with such a small chance of success. Taking drugs to enhance your performance is just not right. Striving to get better, takes patience and perseverance. Athletes are known for their road they take to get to where they are today. Along with jail time, athletes that commit illegal acts should be banned from their sport, for their careers will never be the same, children should not look up to athletes who do those things, and the chance of losing

Is it okay to use performance enhancing drugs in sport? Some people would agree because they would say that taking enhancing drugs improves athletes’ performance which makes the sport more interesting. The more interesting the sport, the more fans are gained. Most athletes say they dope because everyone else is doing it and they need to do it if they still want to be the best. However, if doping could be put to an end altogether then everyone would have an equal chance at being the best and the winner would be the one who worked the hardest instead of who found the best drugs to use. Doping has diminished the value of sportsmanship.

Almost every sport has had a steroid disaster, however the correlation between baseball and steroids is greater known than any other sport. Barry Bonds is the most effective example, for those who don't know, he broke the home run record of 73 home runs in a single season and was inducted into the hall of fame. Barry Bonds took anabolic steroids, there is no question the court has documents and tests stating that three types of performance enhancing substances were found in his tests. (barry) Most people were concerned about how to view his all time record, whether or not any of his achievements should remain, because knowingly or not he did this with chemical support. An athlete on performance enhancing drugs broke one of the most honored records in baseball history, not only offended some and troubled Barry Bonds’ accomplishment but also tons of people’s faith in baseball. Baseball is making an attempt to fix the reputation left by Bonds and many other athletes, but this legacy from the steroid era of baseball stands as testimony to some significant mistakes by both athletes and policy makers in the MLB. Ben Johnson, track and field, was an amazing competitor in the 1988 Olympics. He dashed across the track with a record breaking time of 9.79, soon after being awarded he was found to have taken a supplement of stanozolol. He was stripped of his gold medal, and taken out of the Olympics for good. Lastly, Cyclist Lance Armstrong, wasn't able to

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

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.

Many people believe that drug use in professional athletics is not a serious problem, however it is more widespread and serious than people think. In professional athletics the use of drugs is looked upon as somewhat of a serious problem, but is also very discrete and low key. Every once in a while one might see a prominent figure in a certain sport being reprimanded for the use of some outlawed drug, however this is just one of the many who happened to get caught. Athletes today seem to find no moral problem with using performance-enhancing drugs, or in other words cheating. Also many of them feel that because they are "stars" there should be no repercussions for their illegal activity.