Should drugs be banned in sport? (Part one - Performance Enhancing)

So, it’s a big question on all sports fans’ minds at some point during their life. Is it really necessary to ban any drugs, peformance enhancing or otherwise? Surely taking drugs to enhance your peformance isn’t strictly giving you an unfair advantage because anyone can get hold of them. I am going to attempt to look further into the issue to try and find an answer to my question.

Firstly, why do athletes take these drugs? Well there are three main reasons:

1. To enhance performance. This is the main reason many drugs are banned in sport. Some drugs can make your muscles bigger, or give you an overdose of energy causing you to race past opponants, which is crucial in almost all sport. So this is why even medication can be banned as athletes may find it easy to get their hands on pills, which will help you to get better when you’re ill, but will give you unfair bursts of speed and energy if you’re healthy.

2. As medication. It is hard nowadays for athletes to get the correct medication because the doctor has to prescribe only medicines which comply with the rules of the sport. This rule seems to me clearly unfair because if an athlete falls ill, he is faced with two choices: Take the medication and risk a ban, or leave the medication and become more ill and, in some cases, die.

3. Recreational use. Drugs such as cannabis are banned in sport and is in fact illegal in most countries as it is thought to be harmful. This kind of drug, however, doesn’t improve your performance. It is more likely to make it worse. The main reasons authorities give to ban these recreational drugs are that athletes and sportsmen act as role models or even heroes to kids, teens and adults all around the world. There are strict punishments for any athlete, amature or professional taking these drugs.

Today I will talk about performance enhancing drugs. Drugs such as steroids are used for a number of reasons, including dulling the pain response in the body, building muscle at an accelerated rate, reducing weight, lowering stress, and even hiding other drugs that may be in the system. So this is obviously cheating, right? Well scientists suggest that drugs can’t make you any faster. It’s true. They say drugs are used merely for utilising the human capacity for self-improvement and removing the effects of genetic inequality. In addition to this, anyone can get hold of these drugs. It’s not illegal. It’s just taking these drugs if you are an athlete can get you a ban. So really there’s nothing wrong. Anyone can get them; bofs suggest they can’t make you better than your body can physically take and no one has access to them more than anyone else.

There is a problem with taking them though. I say this because only a fool would want to put there bodies through the effects of these pefromance enhancing drugs. As the bofs say, it won’t make you a lot better it will just help you reach your potential. But hard work and non-stop training can help with that. So here are the side effects of using steroids:

Men may develop:

• Prominent breasts
• Baldness
• Shrunken testicles
• A higher voice
• Infertility

Women may develop:

• A deeper voice
• An enlarged clitoris
• Increased body hair
• Baldness
• Increased appetite

Both men and women might experience:

• Severe acne
• Liver abnormalities and tumors
• Increased low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (the “bad” cholesterol)
• Decreased high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (the “good” cholesterol)
• Aggressive behaviors, rage or violence
• Psychiatric disorders, such as depression
• Drug dependence

I personally wouldn’t want any of those things, even if it got me a gold medal in the 100m sprint. I am a man so basically I will become a bald, infertile woman - with acne. Also these drugs aren’t cheap. The average price of a ten millimetre bottle of steroids is around US$75 or about £37 for us Brits. So my next question: Why bother with them? That’s one I find hard to answer.

Drugs are ruining lives for athletes; who think drugs will help them improve. Usain Bolt is a newly famous sprinter, who smashes world records without the aid of any drugs. He is a true hero which people respect. I don’t think performance enhancing drugs should be banned in sports, however athletes need to be educated on the consequences of using harmful drugs.