Ethics and Steroids

Many athletes of all ages are turning towards performance enhancing drugs as a way of improving their performance by giving them that extra edge. This is not only wrong but its cheating and harmful to the athlete. Performance enhancing drugs have been around for hundreds of years. The Incas of the South America country Peru used the burned leaves of coca trees to give them great amounts of energy when faced with battles, hunts, ect. Even today they use coca leaves as a way of giving them the energy to do a full days work. Today we know that the ashes of the coca tree’s leaves actually contained cocaine. The “first recorded drug related death in sports”{1} was of a European cyclist in 1886. The drug responsible for the cyclist was a “mixture of heroin and cocaine”{2} nicknamed the speedball. Tom Hicks of the U.S. collapsed after winning the marathon in the 1904 Olympics. It was later found that “Hicks had drunk a mixture of brandy and strychnine {Dolan 1986}.”{3} As you can see, the use of drugs to try to enhance performance is not a new idea; athletes have been experimenting with drugs for years. Probably the most recognized performance enhancing drugs are anabolic steroids. Steroids have been used in medical practice for years. As with most drugs, steroids can be helpful when used under medical supervision. The muscle-building capabilities of steroids were soon discovered by the athletic world. Steroid use by athletes were already under way by the mid 1950’s. Steroids were first introduced to the U.S. by the late Dr. John Ziegler. Along with “being a physician and scientist, he was also an athlete”{4}. He was a “leading weight lifter”{5} in the U.S. In 1956 he traveled to Vienna, Austria for a wrestling meet. While he was there, he talked to a Russian trainer who told him that “Russian athletes had discovered a miracle drug”{6}, anabolic steroids. The athletes had enormous strength gains from this new drug. Dr. Z. wanted to help his country keep up with the Russian competition so when he came home he started prescribing them for his weight lifting friends. The most popular steroid formed under his company is called Dianabol, which still exists today. In time the doctor realized the incredible harm that steroids caused and turned against them. Right before he died in 1984 “he said he wished he had never heard of steroids {Dolan, 1986}”{7}. Of course steroids aren’t the only performance enhancing drugs. Amphetamines are another popular performance enhancing drug. The popularity of amphetamines in sports is because of the drugs ability to give the body an enormous sense of energy. Just like steroids, amphetamines are widely abused. In “1970 [the] U.S. government passed strict laws against amphetamine abuse {Dolan, 1986}”{8}. These listed are just a few of the many abused drugs being used in athletics. All in all, use by athletes is getting out of hand. Even after all the research, which concludes that steroids are harmful to the body “steroid survey…. Indicates use by…. Both sexes on the rise.”{9} Now the question that Don Herrmann, chairman of the sports medicine committee for the national federation of the state high school association, and America ask is why? David Newton discusses the question in his book Drugs and Sports. The claims for using steroids “vary from peer pressure to enhanced performance.”{10} As the competition is getting better each year people feel they need to take steroids to enhance their performance so they can, just compete. To some winning is everything and “what people are willing to do in order to win [is] frighten[ing].”{11} Even when some of the steroid users already have the athletic ability they use them anyway just to fit in. That is called peer pressure and it’s more common among adolescents. Another reason people give for using steroids “is for improving the way they look.”{12} That is where the majority of females fit in. A study shows that highschool students who used steroids rose from 1.2% of 40 kids to 1.7% of 40 kids in the last year. A question that plagues us all is “how much faster is it going to grow?”{13} Though all is not lost for there are many kids like Joey Hess and Chris Lewis, athletes at Southport High school, who claim “there is no temptation to use steroids.”{14} I’ve heard a lot of dangers. “Loss of hair and stuff like that,” says Hess who plays Football and Baseball. “I’d like to get big on my own, do something I could be proud of,” says Lewis a Basketball player. The overall reason people use performance enhancing drugs is because they feel it is worth the risk. Now that we know performance enhancing drug use is increasing, people find themselves asking what can we do to prevent it. That is exactly what the National Institute on Drug Abuse {NIDA} and other organizations thought of. The NIDA “has a campaign to prevent drug abuse in sports.”{15} There is also a program