Steroids As Dangerous Illegal Substances

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.

Steroid abuse has become a huge problem in professional sports today. Athletes are now using steroids to gain a competitive edge over their opponents. Also, the athletes are using the steroids to recover quickly from major injuries or surgeries. Many former superstar athletes have been caught taking steroids during the season and offseason.

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).

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.

Anabolic steroids have been abused by Major League Baseball players for years, it’s time to forever ban the use of Performance Enhancing Drugs before they ruin America’s past time. Why should athletes be able to cheat when teammates or rivals are competing with honest effort? Every year records are broken and new heights are achieved, the game of baseball is very simple yet very humble, and to deceive the game you love, forever will you be punished. Let me inform you with the origin in which PEDs were first used and where they came from, regulation, and a possible solution.

Athletes are always searching for ways to enhance their performance. Recently, beginning in the 1950s, that search has included the use of illegal substances like steroids and growth hormones. Illegal substances have been used widely by athletes in hop es of achieving the desired Olympic gold medal or multi-million dollar contract. Some nations, for example the late East Germany in the 1970s and 1980s, have mandated the use of steroids by their athletes. The downside of using those illegal substances is that because they are illegal, getting caught using them can lead to losing that coveted gold medal, a lifetime ban from sports, and a total loss of honor and dignity. This is why the search is now on to find some legal

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 desire to compete — and win — is as old as history itself. From the beginnings of sport, athletes have sought out foods and potions to turn their bodies into winning machines. As early as 776 BCE, the very first Olympic games, there are records of attempts to increase testosterone levels (“Steroid Abuse in Sports”). Ancient Greek wrestlers ate vast amounts of meat to gain muscle mass, and Norse “Berserker” warriors took hallucinogenic mushrooms before battle. The first competitive athletes to be charged for doping, however, were swimmers in 1860s Amsterdam. Doping of all kinds, from caffeine to cocaine to anabolics quickly spread to other sports (“Anabolic Steroids, a Brief History”).

This paper explores the novel Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong by David Walsh, who published the novel at the end of 2012. This novel is about Walsh’s journey as he follows Lance Armstrong and his life as a cyclist for 13 years as Lance deals with critics and skepticisms about his correlation with doping. Lance Armstrong was a glorified athlete who won many Tour de France titles after conquering testicular cancer. He was widely appreciated for cycling, but many people were questioning how he was able to make such a comeback after his cancer diagnosis. This book explores what happens from David Walsh’s point of view and the struggles he had to face as a Tour de France sports journalist: whether he should just celebrate Armstrong’s victories or question his usage of drugs. The purpose of this paper is to give a brief summary of the novel, and to reflect on the novel while still linking it to the issues and concepts of drugs and cheating in sports.

Within every gym and athletic practice across the United States there are secrets. These secrets are kept by public gyms, membership health clubs and even high school sports. This secret is killing our youth and disrupting the sportsmanship of not only the United States, but also on an international level. What I am referring to is the use of anabolic steroids. This epidemic is spreading through our country like a wildfire. It is going unnoticed and misunderstood. Even our government has not found the money the man power or the time to deal with this killer. It can be bought wherever pleasure or illicit drugs can be found.

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”.

Lance Armstrong is known for the unmatched ability in the cyclist community, holding seven consecutive titles from 1999 to 2005. Armstrong’s success has gone above and beyond any other cyclist, but what is his antidote for success? After a short retirement and seven titles Armstrong returned to his loved sport. This didn’t go over too well with his teammates and other competitors. A former teammate of Armstrong’s, along with several other cyclist, testified against Armstrong for the use of performance enhancing drugs. If it was not for the testimonies of these cyclists Armstrong would be innocent without a second thought. This is the man who won seven titles without testing positive once in any of them, proving that performance enhancing drug tests have little value in preventing performance enhancers. Armstrong is one of many people who cheated their way around drug tests to beat the system, proving performance enhancing drug testing is a flawed system that needs to be taken out of professional sports.

The article has increased my knowledge on how EPO, testosterone and human growth hormones are the most commonly used drugs in cycling. It explored how the performance level of cyclist's was so high and this was because they were using performance enhancing drugs. I realised that the cyclist was taking the drugs because everyone was and there was very little chance of being caught. Armstrong admitted to using them because everyone in the field was and he believed he couldn't win without taking them. Armstrong at the time didn't even consider it cheating. It was just something you did if you wanted to win. Drugs in cycling lead to an environment where people weren't winning because they had trained the hardest and had the most ability but rather an environment where they didn't even consider taking performance enhancing drugs as cheating. The consequences and prospect of being caught were always there, but the cyclist were willing to cheat even though they could potentially lose everything; respect, titles and trust. The article also increased my knowledge on how they got away with it for so long. The drug use in cycling was occurring so much over Armstrong’s time because the drug testers didn't have a way to find out whether the cyclist were

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.

With the size of the fitness world, does it mislead members to both unbeneficial and monetary waste? In 2015 the global health club industry was worth 81.2 billion dollars and this begs the question of whether the clubs really help and keep a majority of their members working towards a beneficial result. According to “statista.com” there over a 150 million members to the 187,000 clubs worldwide. Around the world there are over 2 billion people that are considered obese and that is over 30% of the world’s population. This is why the fitness and health industry is such a large industry. The question is does marketing lead a misleading route or drive the world to a healthier place. Most studies have shown that the fitness world is more about making