Legalize Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports!!!
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by user Phoenix Superfan
A bit of background before I get started. I originally wrote this as an essay for a college class which is why it flows the way it does. I considered rewording it to sound more like a blog or column but eventually settled on leaving in it original format. I did remove all of the citations but all of the information is fully researched and to the best of my knowledge 100% accurate. If anyone is interested in a fully cited copy shoot me an email. I felt this was an appropriate time to print this with Mark McGwire recently being denied entry to the Hall of Fame.
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The most talked about sports story 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 to 2006 Tour de France Champion Floyd Landis’ failed doping test 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 with steroids is nothing more than a classic example of man being afraid of science. Are performance enhancing drugs an unfair advantage, or simply improved performance through better technology? When logically thought through, it becomes more and more clear that the latter may in fact be the case, and that we should change our policies and allow regulated use of performance enhancing drugs in sports leagues. The reason that sports leagues should reconsider their position on drugs is that large numbers of athletes continue to use them despite their illegality, statistical evidence proves that the drugs are effective, and under the supervision of a physician performance enhancing drugs can be used safely.
Former American League Baseball MVP, Jose Canseco who became so knowledgeable about steroids that other baseball players referred to him as ‘The Chemist,’ said the following about steroid use.
"We’re talking about the future here. I have no doubt whatsoever that intelligent, informed use of steroids, combined with human growth hormone, will one day be so accepted that everybody will be doing it. Steroid use will be more common than Botox is now. Every baseball player and pro athlete will be using at least low levels of steroids. As a result, baseball and other sports will be more exciting and entertaining. Human life will be improved, too. We will live longer and better."
When it comes to performance enhancing drugs, you are not only talking about the future, but the past as well. Most media reports would lead you to believe that they have only become so popular within the last 20 years. The truth of the matter is that there are recorded cases of doping “as early as the 8th century BC, when the Ancient Greek Olympians ate sheep’s testicles; today we would recognize these as a source of testosterone.” Over 2500 years later, Hall of Fame pitcher James “Pud” Galvin who won 361 games from 1879 to 1892, admitted in an 1889 Washington Post report that he had taken testosterone that had been extracted from animal testicles. Some researchers even suggest that baseball’s original homerun king Babe Ruth, may have experimented with a similar elixir.
These primitive attempts at boosting testosterone were the precursor to today’s anabolic steroids which are a synthetic form of testosterone. Although anabolic steroids may be the best known performance enhancer, other types of drugs have been in use for many decades. In his bestselling 1970 book Ball Four, former major league pitcher Jim Bouton admitted that he and many other major leaguers were taking amphetamine pills known as ‘greenies,’ which increase energy and endurance. In a 2005 interview with ESPN.com, Bouton reiterated these sentiments, “In the 1970s, half of the guys in the big leagues were taking greenies, and if we had steroids, we would have taken those, too.”
Unlike anabolic steroids and “greenies” not all performance enhancers are illegal. Popular supplements such as Androstenedione (Andro) and Dehydroepiandroterone (DHEA) are sold of the counter at health food stores and can increase circulation and levels of testosterone. Perhaps the most popular supplement used by athletes is Creatine which prolongs anaerobic metabolism. Why are these supplements acceptable to be sold and used not only legally, but without a doctor’s prescription, while others remain illegal, even under the supervision of a licensed medical professional?
Newer and more advanced drugs and techniques are being discovered constantly. One of the biggest drugs in the news is human growth hormone (HGH) which affects the metabolism. It is produced naturally in the body and synthesized by the pituitary gland. Caminiti and Canseco are among the high profile athletes who have admitted to the use of HGH. Also common is the use of insulin which increases lean body mass and can be easily obtained without a prescription at most pharmacies if you simply state that you are diabetic.
Designer steroids such as (THG) which was produced by the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO) are made to be undetectable for standard test so that athletes can continue using performance enhancers in sports that outlaw and test for them. There is also currently no reliable test of HGH. If even the strictest of drug testing policies can be so easily circumvented then why bother testing at all. Wouldn’t regulated use create a more level playing field?
The future of doping lies in complicated medical procedures such as blood doping which increases the oxygen-carrying carrying capacity of blood and gene doping which actually changes an athlete’s body at the cellular level. Gene doping is currently rare due to its expense and complexity however, as with all new technology it will become inevitably cheaper and more accessible. “Experts also say that the process may be virtually undetectable by blood and urine testing” Wouldn’t we better off embracing these amazing medical procedures and seeing what possible benefits there could be outside of athletics, then we would by condemning them? Is it even reasonable to think that we could test athletes for changes in their actual DNA?
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. 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.
Sergo Chakhoyan is an Australian Weightlifter, Josep Guardiola is a Spanish Soccer Player, and Janne Immonen is a Finnish Cross Country Skier, but they all have one thing in common. They have all tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. Performance enhancing drug use is growing among female athletes as well. Martha Massa who competed for Greece in two swimming events at the 2004 Olympics tested positive for the anabolic steroid stanozolol. Canadian Sprinter Ben Johnson who set a world record in the 100 meters at the 1988 Summer Olympics, and Raphael Palmeiro who is one of only 4 players in Major League Baseball History to accumulate 3000 hits and 500 home runs both tested positive for the same drug. Some will point to the stiff penalties that these athletes faced after testing positive, and that some of them were even stripped of their accomplishments altogether. I point to what they accomplished while using steroids.
From Canseco becoming the first player in Major League Baseball History to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in one season, to Arnold Schwarzenegger being named Mr. Universe several time in the early 70’s, there is an extensive list of achievements by athletes using performance enhancing drugs. That list however, begins and ends with Barry Bonds, who set the all-time Major League Baseball record by hitting 73 home runs in 2001, then later admitted in grand jury testimony to using performance enhancing drugs. He broke the previous record which was set only three years early by Mark McGwire of the St Louis Cardinals who hit 70 in 1998. McGwire admitted to using Andro during the 1998 season and his named surfaced during a major FBI steroids probe in the early 1990’s. The previous record for home runs had been 61 by Roger Maris of the New York Yankees in 1961. Is the record tainted because of doping, or is it just a matter of sports medicine allowing a player to hit 12 more home runs than have ever been hit before? If Ruth, who set the previous record with 60 home runs in 1927, was using primitive forms of doping, is it out of the question that Maris, who never hit more than 39 home runs in another season, may have been using in 1961? Bouton admits that Yankees Hall of Fame Pitcher Whitey Ford and he, splashed DMSO, a drug used for horses, on their arms in 1965 or 1966.
There is also medical evidence that these drugs work. Research shows that injecting steroids into normal men in doses of 600 milligrams a week, which is 6 times the normal dose given to people with low testosterone levels, will boost muscle size, strength and fat-free mass, especially when combined with strength training. In addition to building muscle mass, steroids also allow the body to recover more quickly so that you can work hard the following day. Others drugs boost the bodies ability to use oxygen. All of these combine to allow athletes to work harder and longer, and perform at a higher level until an older age.
Critics of performance enhancing drugs argue that although athletes may see an increased performance over a short period of time, steroid use will eventually lead to serious injuries and even death. They use examples such as Alzado who died of brain lymphoma in 1992, and blamed his disease on steroids as examples of the harm that can be done. The fact that these drugs are dangerous and can have potentially fatal side-effects is the most important reason that they should be legalized. The most dangerous aspect of these drugs is unregulated and uneducated use. Caminiti, who obtained his drugs from a pharmacy in Tijuana, used so heavily in 1996 that by the end of the season his body was only producing testosterone at 20% of its normal level and it took four months for his testicles to return to their normal size after he stopped using. If these drugs were to be legalized they could instead be used by players under the supervision of their team’s licensed medical personnel. “The role of a doctor is to preserve their patients’ best interests with respect to present and future health. A sports doctor has to fulfill this role while maintaining the athlete’s performance at as high a level as possible. As such, as long as the first condition is met, any intervention proven safe, pharmacological of otherwise, should be justified, irrespective of whether or not it is ergogenic.”
Only a small segment of the population engages in athletic activities at an elite level. They are for the most part well compensated. Bonds earned over $10 million in 2001. While an athlete’s welfare should be the primary concern, if they can enhance their performance and increase their earning power without excessive risk then the use of drugs should be allowed. If steroids were being administered by a physician then content, quality, and dosages could be regulated. More informed use would lead to an overall decline of related health problems and instead of young athletes seeking performance enhancing drugs on the black market they would instead consult their physicians regarding the risks and rewards associated with the drugs.
For better or worse, performance enhancing drugs always have been, and always will be, a part of sports. As with any drugs there will always be dangerous side effects associated with them. However, by legalizing and regulating, these negative effects can be diminished. The only real question is whether the government and professional sports leagues will continue to fight a war that they can not win. While it would never be advisable for high school or college athletes to engage in the use potentially dangerous drugs, professional athletes are highly paid adults who should have the right to make informed decisions with the assistance of their physician.
The leagues themselves would also benefit from allowing the drugs. The improved performance of players properly using steroids and other performance enhancers would improve the overall quality and entertainment value of the product which would lead to increased revenue for all players. To level the playing field, leagues could even be divided into two conferences for players who use steroids and those who don’t and at the end of each season a championship game could be played between the winners of each conference. This would lead to increased fan interest by creating a David versus Goliath scenario, and you would even have the subplot of players testing positive and getting banished to the steroid using conference. Isn’t that a better solution than taking away an athletes livelihood and accomplishments because they took drugs that allowed them to work harder to become the best at what they do?
