Steroids in Sports

Steroids in sports

When it comes to sports and non-prescribed anabolic steroids there has been an ongoing controversy between numerous of the professional sports players, professional sports leagues, their fans, and the government and congress. The controversy thrives from the professional sports player’s use of anabolic steroids to improve their game statistics, their body size, and their athletic abilities. The professional players use these illegal steroids or performance-enhancing drugs to increase muscle mass and body size, which gives them a competitive advantage against their smaller opponents. One of the major issues that develop from the use of anabolic steroids is, who is supposed to regulate the use of these illegal steroids, and who is going to ensure that these steroids are not being used in professional sports. The professional sports leagues along with several fans believe that the sports leagues themselves should be the ones to handle the regulation of these illegal steroids. However, the government and congress believes that they should be the ones who regulate the use of anabolic steroids in sports. This is because the government believes that professional sports leagues have not been successful with regulating the use of the steroids in previous year. However, the NFL believes they are doing an excellent job in keeping these steroids out of the Nation Football league. NFL also believes that they should be able to regulate the league with out congress interfering because the regulations that are intact are working.

This issue on whether Congress or the professional sports leagues should be the ones regulating the use of steroids is an original dilemma in democracy. It is an original dilemma, due to the issue on how much power the government and congress should be able to possess. When creating the government and the different levels, such as congress, there were countless of disagreements on what powers the government would and would not have. The disagreements questioned what issues the government and congress had the right to regulate and intervene in, and what they should not be able to regulate or interfere with. These disagreements are still going on over various issues in today’s society. The issue on who ought to regulate the professional sports players is a disagreement that goes back to whether the government has the power to intervene and regulate the professional sports leagues.

“There are numerous problems with Congress imposing a uniform drug testing policy, not the least of which is that a law imposing federal guidelines on the sports industry flies in the face of the idea of self-regulation among professional leagues. Congress's proposed legislation also turns a blind eye to earlier legislation that tackled the issue: the Anabolic Steroid Act of 1990 made possession of steroids illegal without a prescription. So why is Congress asking the professional leagues to do the work of law enforcement? If Congress is so concerned about steroid possession, it should let the proper law enforcement arm handle the investigation and arrest of suspected distributors and users, just like it does for other controlled substances, including cocaine, heroin, and other drugs.(Weiner)”

The sports leagues should be able to self-regulate the leagues with out congress trying to pass laws about the number of times and how exactly the players should be tested for these anabolic steroids.

The concern in the article “NFL serious about doping policy” is regulating the use of anabolic steroids in professional sports especially the NFL. The article explains how the National Football League is getting serious about the regulation of many illegal substances, so the government will not try to intervene and begin to regulate the testing for steroids. The NFL has been trying to enforce that there should be no anabolic steroids use in the league. They are imposing new regulations that are even more severe then before to stop the use of these illegal steroids. “With congress holding hearing on steroids use and the bonds/baseball debacle, the NFL likely wants to show that it can police itself and not have a drug scandal reach monumental and scandalous proportions.” (Ledbetter 1). Therefore, due to increasing government involvement in other sport such as baseball, the NFL is cracking down on the use of anabolic steroids in football. They are doing this to show that they do not condone these actions of taking anabolic steroids and that they are taking this issue extremely serious.

The Primary stakeholders in this controversy are the Professional sports leagues. The reason they are the stakeholders is that they have the most to lose, not only do they have the players to please and the government to please; they have money to lose as well. The professional sports leagues have to please everyone,