Essay about Steroids in Sports: Right or Wrong?

Should athletes be stripped of their titles and medals for using sports-enhancing drugs? Do sports-enhancing drugs actually improve the athlete’s natural abilities to the extent where their abilities are no longer natural? These are the controversial questions that stem from athletes involved with sports-enhancing drugs. Substances that improve the performance of an athlete are classified as an enhancing drug. Anabolic steroids, human growth hormones, and even diuretics are some commonly used sports-enhancing drugs. The professional sports industry, in my opinion, is being defined by athletes who are using or not using sports-enhancing drugs. The athletes who are in the professional sports world today and are achieving greatness end up being on a form of enhancing drug in most cases.

“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

In Major League Baseball, numerous players have put up tremendous statistics and record breaking numbers. There are a great amount of players in the league that have done this naturally, however it is not uncommon to see star players get caught taking performance enhancing drugs or steroids. Steroid use in baseball has been an issue since the earliest days of the game, and can be seen very frequently in players today. Jose Canseco was a star hitter in the major leagues, who had admitted to steroid later in his career. Canseco once estimated that 85% of other players were also taking performance enhancing drugs. Though that estimate is not proven, there are still many players today that are taking these steroids, and it needs to remain an issue in the eyes of the MLB. Taking these drugs not only promotes the risk of significant side effects and health problems to the player consuming them, but it makes changes to the game itself as well. The way the game is being played has changed over time due to this issue, and players are receiving advantages that other players are not. Overall, these illegal drugs are unfair to other players in the game and simply are not safe, and should never become legal in the league.

“…medical researchers believe that between 1 and 3 million youths and adults have taken anabolic steroids in one form or another specifically to enhance their looks or athletic performances,” stated Nuwer (Nuwer, 61). As astounding as these figures are, the number of performance drug users is steadily increasing. With this progressively increasing numbers, it is projected that millions more will use steroids in the immediate future (Newer, 61). Athletes have always sought an advantage in competition even if ignoring the law and their health if necessary. Using drugs of any sort to facilitate an athlete’s athletic ability should be illegal. The use of performance enhancing drugs is not only detrimental to the user but it also creates an

The problem with today’s society is that steroids are everywhere and companies are finding ways around the steroid label by producing drugs that contain the same ingredients but are labeled differently. Professional athletes are also becoming big icons for people and many athletes are using steroids to enhance their performance. Athletes are supposed to be role models and by getting involved in these kinds of things people see it as an ok thing to do. Steroids are common everywhere, baseball and football players are constantly finding ways to take these drugs. Pro wrestling

Why exactly are steroids wrong? They can make great athletes into exceptional athletes, they are easily obtainable and in some circumstances are medically necessary. Could there be a valid argument that allowing them to be policed in sports would make steroids acceptable? No. Even if steroids were allowed in sports there would still be controversy. For example, if the NFL were to make steroids legal, the temptations for many athletes would be overpowering. These actions would need to include a policy for regulating how much is acceptable and safe. Therefore, making steroids legal would only transfer controversy to a different rule. Another conflicting factor would be the competitors that believe taking performance enhancing drug are wrong would be at an unfair advantage.

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.

Taking Performance Enhancing Drugs makes the athletes phony and doesn’t show true skill and talent. Rather it shows that the athletes taking them don’t believe in themselves and need to have that extra boost in order to show the sporting world what they are “truly” capable of. PEDs should be banned from sports with a no tolerance policy. The consequences should be stricter and the athlete should be banned from the sport for life so that there will be less athletes to take the PEDs for years to

Professional sports are a competition between the greatest athletes in the world. And when I go to a game, that’s exactly what I expect to see. Sports are entertainment. There is no room for purity and respecting the limits that athletes had in the past. Modern athletes should utilize all the resources that they have available to them. This includes steroids, which enhance an athlete’s performance. After all, performance is what really matters.

Recently, the number of athletes being caught using drugs has increased majorly. Few athletes are using drugs as a performance-enhancer, and few several others are just using illegal drugs to do it. No one knows the exact stats to this since some athletes never are caught including not having any choice but to suffer the aftermath of taking drugs. Participants are using anabolic as well as other similar steroids to improve their ways of playing, be the greatest, and have hope to being noticed. Not all though, others are only using illegal drugs for stuff related to making them feel pleasant about themselves, or they’re obsessed with it. Although some professionals are not using performance-enhancing drugs, the fact that

Society has an odd relationship with pharmaceuticals and medical technology. If something can be said to be 'natural', we tend to be ok with it. If it seems lab-made or synthetic we tend to be wary. But even synthetic drugs and manmade technology seem to be okay if the aim is to make sick or broken people well again. Steroids and doping help pitchers to throw harder, home runs to go further, cyclists to charge for longer and sprinters to test the very limits of human speed. A huge part of watching sports is watching the pinnacle of human athletic ability, and legalizing performance enhancing drugs would only help athletes climb even higher. Radley Balko stated in an article for Reason magazine that “Sports is about exploring and

Placing a total ban on the use 0f steroids by professional bodybuilders has both positive and negative implications that should be carefully considered before any decisions are made. Such a monumental decision should be thoroughly debated amongst all stakeholders because any final decision reached is bound to have far reaching implications. Some will argue that the sport of bodybuilding is all about displaying the extremes the body can be taken to and that the current state of affairs needs to be upheld. Well, it is common sense that most if not all professional bodybuilders use steroids to develop their massive physiques.

There is currently a war on drugs and the way that they are used. I’m talking about steroids specifically. Professional sports and school sports have been unfortunately victims in this war. And just like any other war, there is two sides. Some people think that steroids should be illegal and banned from sports. These people believe that steroids have a negative impact on society, as well as health risks and its history. Other people think that steroids should be legal and used in sports. These people believe that steroids have physical benefits. In my opinion, I think athletes should be drug tested and steroids be

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.

As has been noted, the use of steroids is driven by the athlete’s desire to improve their athletic performance which leads to fame and fortune. For this reason, athletes are willing to risk their health. Although there are benefits to the use of steroids, the negatives effects vastly out weight those benefits. Therefore, steroids should stay banned unless absolutely necessary to improves one’s health and prescribed by a certified