Sports: The Use Of Performance Enhancing Drugs In Sports

Athletes use performance enhancing drugs to boost their game. The professionals who use these drugs are ruining the integrity of the game. Many people don’t understand why professional athletes would go to such extreme measures to be better when they have already proven themselves. Athletes are just taking away from their natural ability by using these dangerous drugs. The risk of using performance enhancing drugs is a lot greater than the reward, because an athlete’s reputation could be tarnished and their career ruined. Money is one of the major reasons why players use them; if they perform at levels higher than what their natural abilities could do they will be offered a large sum of money.

Steroids in sports has been one of the biggest controversial topics since 1904 when Olympic marathon runner, Thomas Hicks, used a mixture of brandy and strychnine and nearly died. However, the use of PED’s (performance enhancing drugs) dates all the back to 776 BC with the Ancient Greek athletes. In sports todays the question is whether or not these types of drugs should be banned from competition.

The use of Performance Enhancing Drugs(PED) has a major impact on athletes negatively and cause many problems in sports and competitions. These PEDs should be banned for athletes and competitors on any level because they are, unhealthy and harmful to the body, give users an edge over competitors, and it diminishes the true sportsmanship of the game itself.

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).

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.

The issue of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) has been among the most controversial in the sports world. A number of high profile athletes from Barry Bonds to Lance Armstrong have seen their reputations tarnished as a result of their use of these substances. Even the US Congress has held a number of high profile hearings on the subject to rid professional sports of their usage. In the sports world, it is almost assumed that sports are better when PEDs are removed from the game, and that the sport’s integrity is threatened when its players use these banned substances. Bud Selig, the former commissioner of Major League Baseball, described ridding baseball of PEDs as necessary “to maintain integrity, fairness and a level playing field.” Sports leagues have created highly sophisticated systems to identify players who use PEDs and levy them with harsh punishments. I will argue that the argument from fairness presented by Michael Lavin is not a valid reason to ban PEDs from professional sports. To clarify, my argument is not that PEDs are good for athletes or professional sports, but merely that they should not be banned out of a concern for fairness.

“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

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

The use of performance enhancing drugs has been in full effect since the very first olympic game. According to Sally Jenkins from the Washington Post "The ancient Olympic Greeks champions were professionals who competed for huge cash prizes as well as olive wreaths, experimented with herbal medications in an effort to enhance their performances." "Greeks would take a dose of strychnine before and after every olympic game so they wont wear their body out" (Jenkins 2007) . Greeks knew that the drug cheat was against every law in sports. Drug use in sports should be banned, because the use of drugs in sports has a number of different features. Drug use in sports could be very harmful to not only athletes but their families too. Using the wrong kind of drug or to much of it can lead to health risks.

The use of performance enhancing drugs to help athletes perform better is illegal and considered cheating as this drug gives the athlete who may have been an average performer an edge over the competition after the use of these drugs. This is unfair to the other players who are playing a fair game. No matter at what level whether its high school, college or a professional, athletes should not be using drugs to help or boost their performance in any way as it wrong and the athlete is basically cheating his way to the top. No doubt that drugs/HGH may help the player’s vitality and even reduce injury time but the serious side effects of prolonged use is still unknown and is still cheating since it’s not legal as not every player is taking it to make it a fair game.

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

Besides the awful side effects from using them, they are illegal in the United States. Most athletes just throw the law out the window, as long as the drugs that they take make them hit harder, run faster, and recover faster. They do it for the “Now” and not the “Later”. They want the hits and scores now and will do whatever it takes to score points. Having a Zero Tolerance Policy in all Sports leagues is the way to go. There needs be better testing procedures for detecting the use of PED’s. One regulation (AR 600-85) that they have in the US Military is “Pop hot once and you’re done”. There is a absolute zero tolerance policy for any type of drug. That’s what they need to incorporate in all American Sports

Many people know that these drugs are extremely dangerous, and in some instances deadly. Some people ask “why do doctors prescribe steroids?”, most times it is to help with pain, and sometimes it can reduce the cause of swelling. But most athletes realize the steroid makes them stronger, and use it more and more often. Most people don't realize the health effects on taking PED. By taking performance enhancing drugs it's not considered an unfair advantage is what experts have proven. PED are banned by the International Olympic Committee, the National Football League and other sports bodies. Due to economic circumstances or even luck, some athletes have better nutrition, 'natural' supplements, coaches, trainers, nutritionists, information, and equipment than others do. Some athletes have more free time to train than others do. A lot of people agree that some athletes are naturally smarter, faster, and stronger than others are. All athletes, whether or not they use PED, are not “playing on a level playing field” and that is considered fair. If athletes that took PED stopped taking the steroids and worked just as hard as the athletes that didn't take the PED, then it would be

Performance enhancers are very prominent in professional sports today. A lot of players are facing suspensions and other penalties for using them. The sport that gets scrutinized the most for this is Baseball. Many former users in the MLB (or formally the NABBP) have come out saying that they were using these drugs while playing. Some of these players are Jorge Sosa, Antonio Bastardo, and the famous Alex Rodriguez. Although these drugs have been prohibited, players are still finding ways around the tests which is why in some other countries they are legal so that no one player can have an unfair advantage.

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.