Should Athletes Use Peds Research Paper

Performance-Enhancing drugs are an unnatural way of changing one's body, and the effects can be life altering, sometimes better yet always, in the end, much worse. It is for this reason why major league sports have put strict rules in place suspending athletes who use these drugs; the Olympics ban these athletes for life. These drugs harm the bodies and minds of athletes, and they are banned to protect their health for their benefit and for the sports as well.

In every sport, there has always been a desire to win. Some athletes will do anything to make winning possible. Every elite athlete wants to be better than their opponent. Some rely on performance enhancing drugs, also known as PED’s, to improve their game. This topic is very important because it can be the difference between winning and losing. Winning can mean money, fame and a place in history. I believe athletes should not use PED’s in sports because it is an unfair advantage, health risk, bad role modeling, bad sportsmanship, and results in tainted records and awards.

According to sociologists PED’s specifically improve your aggression/competitiveness towards the race or game. It also intensifies muscle growth and endurance. Most of the drugs that athletes use are stimulants which are; amphetamines and ephedrine. Other common narcotics are anabolic steroids, phototropism, and erythromycin. Athletes who do utilize these substances have a lot higher chance of winning compared to the sportsmen who don’t use them. Athletes who choose not to damage their body with drugs will have a higher chance of losing which I personally like to call cheating. An example of someone using these narcotics is Lance Armstrong. Armstrong was an extraordinary cyclist who won over 7 tour de France titles but a few blood tests later he came back positive for using PED’s. Armstrong was then stripped from his 7 impressive titles. Some people might argue that athletes don’t win success on their own, they always have a little help whether it's;

In the article, “Performance Enhancing Drugs, Paternalism, Meritocracy, and Harm to Sports” by Nicholas Dixon, argues that PED 's should remain banned due to the many different medical risks one could develop when taking drugs mostly, anabolic steroids. Anabolic steroids might be the most popular performance-enhancing drugs out there today, but most definitely isn 't the only one being used. There are many medical problems associated with these types of steroids, “they include heart disease, cancer, or other damage to the liver, and damage to both males ' and females ' reproductive system” (Dixon, 247). Anabolic steroids affect an athlete both mentally and physically. The psychological damage one may have is an increased aggressiveness and sexual appetite, sometimes resulting in abnormal

One of the underlying issues with the PED problem is that it does allow a player to gain more power with their hits. The extra power is not caused by the drugs directly, but by the fact that the drugs allow them to train harder, longer, and have shorter recovery times than normal. Power hitters are always considered the elite player, which makes sense because most people want to see home runs. As one player stated “Home run hitters drive Cadillacs, single hitters drive Fords” (Solberg, Joe, and Richard Ringer). Gaining better numbers creates an increased incentive to start using PEDs. The highest regarded records in baseball are all home run based and the players

The use of PEDs is illegal in sports, I believe that it should stay that way. Many athletes have had their lives ruined from PEDs loosing the ones they love or dying themselves, and there are many horrible side effects that include, mental problems, and even death. Also, when someone is taking PEDs and another isn’t in say football then the person who isn’t could get very hurt, in short PEDs should just be dropped out of professional sports. If PEDs stay in professional sports (illegally) then many more people will die. Weather it is from another person or yourself. Having PEDs in professional sports give the athlete side effects that are hard to live with, doesn’t even guarantee that the drugs will work-the risks are high and the chances of it being good are low- they set a bad example for kids and teens around the world who look up to the pro athletes who take PEDs, lastly it will hurt the other athlete or yourself.

How fast do we need to see a person run or bike, how far do we need to see a baseball hit or how hard do we need to see a football player tackled. The human body is an incredible machine in itself, why do we need to push that machine to limits that are not natural. Performance enhancing drugs allow for several advantages for athletes they assist in the rapid development of muscle mass and strength, they enhance focus and timing and most importantly to a professional athlete some performance enhancing drugs allow for quicker recovery time from injuries. Athletes are vulnerable; one injury could end the career that they have worked their entire lives for, and so the ability to recover at a much faster rate than a non-doping athlete is an advantage unto itself.

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.

PEDs aren't ruining sports or American culture as many people would like to believe. In reality, because PEDs in sports has become commonplace over the years, revenues have increased in the trillions of dollars (Adams et al 2004). The one thing that all the trillion plus dollar major sports have realized is that fans want to see larger than life people doing larger than life things. Fans want to see 40-yard dash times shattered each year at football combines. They want their linemen all to bench press over 500 pounds (Adams et al

Dick Butkus, a retired pro football hall of famer, stated, “There is a myth out there that somehow anabolic steroids can turn a cub into a bear. Steroids won’t make you tough and competitive. What they will do is ruin your health. It’s that simple,” on his opinion about the use of steroids. Although the stance against the use of performance enhancing drugs is clear to Dick, not everyone agrees on the topic. Many players, ranging in all sports at different levels, have used PEDs (Performance Enhancing Drugs) at least once in their career to better their abilities and performances. Some of those players have been caught and have been rightfully punished for their use; however, others get away with using PEDs and remain praised above their opposition. I believe that the use of performance enhancing drugs is wrong and should continue to be banned morally by the fans and legally by the commissioners. There are few positives to using PEDs, which ignite the urge for players to become better at their sport for fame, money, or success. Nonetheless, the negatives immensely outweigh the positives. The use of performance enhancing drugs creates detrimental health risks on athletes, changes the way sports were originally meant to be played for the worse, and shows unacceptable influence on fans and children.

Groups such as the Clean Sports Collective understand the dangers of PEDs, and were created with the purpose of helping athletes stay clean (Will 2017 be the Year to Defeat Sports Doping). As previously mentioned steroids can cause shrinking of testicles and development of breasts in males. Along with this, steroids can also cause decreased sperm count with possible impotence, masculinization in females, development of acne or jaundice, and many other effects. These side effects are even recognized by the government, which have made some steroids illegal to the general public (How Dangerous are Performance Enhancing Drugs?). If regular citizens are blocked from certain drugs, athletes should not be an exception. Steroids make humans unnatural beings, which shows how dangerous they are. Steroids inject 100 times the testosterone found naturally in a male body (How Dangerous are Performance Enhancing Drugs?). Along with this, taking steroids, gene doping, and other forms of PEDs are dangerous just to take them the wrong way. Theodore Friedmann, the head of a WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) panel on gene doping in a 2010 interview, said on the dangers of gene doping, “The fact is that the material and information that the athletes have is very sparse and very incomplete and is obviously given to them with the hope of encouraging them to do something

PEDs also help with the recovery of soreness and muscle fatigue from training, this allows athletes who use these to spend more time training allowing them become stronger and better than the competition. Another way it gives users an edge over competition is it increases the stamina and speed of the athlete within a few days as to a “clean athlete” who has to train and condition for the results. PEDs assist with the gaining of muscle mass and strength as well as weight loss. This could be an unfair advantage because PEDs can make a user lose weight in a short period of time to fit into a lower weight class for competition. Another advantage is it gives users a noticeable increase in mass and strength in a short period of time.

PED use has been a controversial topic over the past few decades in professional, both professional and non-professional. There are many positive and negative effects of the use of these type of drugs. The drugs have been said to even out the playing field if the availability was open to everybody, get the body bigger in a shorter amount of time than just training, and make for better and longer lasting events. They have also been said to eliminate the moral and principle of sports, not everybody can respond to the drugs the same way, and they may be linked to long-term negative effects on the human body. Other debates that have been brought up are the influence of these athletes on younger generations and the representation of the the club or team that these athletes play for. It has been a long and controversial road and debate over PED’s.

PEDs can and will give you: (Acne, liver damage, etc.) The reasons people use PEDs (Performance Enhancing Drugs) is because the athletes will have a higher chance of winning because some drugs give you better reflexes some make you muscular, and some can make you smart, but… some have deadly side effects; like blood clots and much more. I think that all PED production should be only prescriptions in hospitals. The drugs can hurt you like ruin your liver. They can kill you by causing a heart attack or blood clot. They can ruin your chances of reaching the hall of fame. I know that you may think it is worth it for the money and people but when they find out BAM you’re out of the hall of fame and you have to wait until you stop using the drugs, You also might also have 1 chance or no chances because of using the PEDs. Drugs are only acceptable when you are in a hospital, or if you’re prescribed a drug so you can heal bone or muscle or a medical condition. Eg: if a muscle is torn open they use steroids.

Thirdly, many serious side effects and health risks are involved with using PEDs. The benefits of these drugs are really not worth the risks. ‘It is already known that steroids cause liver damage, heart attacks and strokes.’ (Mirkin, 2007) What’s worse, these drugs harm not only the athletes themselves but also harm their children. Mirkin (2007) said that, through a study on the children of the athletes who use PEDs, ‘more than 25 percent had