Why Steroids Should Be Allowed in Sports
The ban of steroids in sports is from a moral principle and not one of providing an athlete with an unequal edge. Sports should not be held to a higher standard than the rest of society. Drug testing athletes is unfair and athletes should be allowed to use certain performance enhancing drugs. Should not athletes, prized as models of athletic capacity, be allowed to try out drugs for the common people? Steroids should not be banned from sports due to many contributing factors.
Opponents of steroids claim that they are banned for the overall health and safety of the participating athletes. Which first of all is not entirely true, when administered by a medical professional the risk is lowered significantly. Only when administered by themselves do athletes begin to see issues like overdosing. Many drugs used in regular everyday life are banned from higher level sports. Prozac, the anti-depressant, was banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency after marathoner Alberto Salazar ended a victory-less dry spell with the anti-depressant. Everyday millions of people use it in their lives. As drugs are more commonly used in everyday life, they will become impossible to ban in sports because of nonexistent health risks. It should be noted that abuse of any substance can prove to be dangerous. Approximately two thirds of all premature deaths can be attributed to an abuse of personal behavior. High fat diets, heavy drinking, lack of exercise, improper seat belt usage are all much more dangerous, but nevertheless, still have no rules against them.
Even proving that an activity is harmful is not a sufficient reason to prevent a competent person from pursuing that activity. Athletes are in the position to decide for themselves if taking steroids is in their best interest. In full contact sports like hockey and football, the dangers involved are much higher. The majority of professional football players that play for five or more years develop some sort of permanent disability. Far more deaths have been attributed to football than to steroids. Athletes choose to put their bodies in harm's way for the sport. Should athletes not be given the same freedom to make decisions for themselves about using performance enhancing substances as everyone else does?
People argue against steroid usage with the claim that they provide an "unfair" advantage and somehow that makes the athlete in question a cheater. Merely seeking out or gaining an advantage over an opponent is not implicitly unfair. In fact, it is the essence of sport itself to gain the upper hand on your competition and exploit it. Olympic swimmers shave their entire bodies, because they say it reduces friction with the water. Whether this tactic works or not is beyond the point it just goes to show that athletes are always seeking an edge over the competition.
According to the International Olympic Committee director general the fact that only eight athletes out of 11,000 Olympic competitors tested positive is proof that “the war on doping is being won.” But the argument that the small number of athletes testing positive is indicative of the low prevalence of doping is nonsense. The number of positive tests is an extremely poor indicator of the prevalence of doping. There is general recognition among those involved in elite level sport that those testing positive represent only the tip of the iceberg. It is impossible to estimate precisely how big that iceberg is, but it is clearly very large. Firstly, drug-using athletes often beat tests because they have access to specialized medical advice from sports physicians. Secondly, there is evidence of collusion between dope-using athletes and senior officials. Positive tests have been 'lost' at several Olympics.
Steroids easy availability in the field of athletics has been widely acknowledged by athletes, coaches, and the media. This equality of accessibility between athletes means that there is no unfair advantage to using steroids. An unfair advantage would be for only a few out of the whole group to have access to steroids. When Bob Seagren first used a fiberglass pole in pole vaulting it was banned, because the other athletes’ equipment did not match his. Four years later when access to fiberglass poles was equalized then they became unbanned. If steroids are so easy to acquire then they should not be banned. It is time for the ban on steroids to be lifted, because all athletes have an equal access to them.
There is the philosophical rationale that if a group of athletes uses steroids then it forces the others to as well. It is not proper to say that the success of one's competitors forces that person to make the choice to compete. Olympic competition requires countless hours of intense training and practice. The ever increasing demands of being that caliber of an athlete "force"