Steroid Use

Testing for performance-enhancing drugs in the 2008 China Olympics is in the best interest of all and says plenty about the country, but China needs to crack down on its own steroid black market that produces 70-80% of all steroid drugs in the world. The upcoming Olympics have been marketed as the cleanest games ever. This is very well proven by what china has accomplished so far for the games, and by what is still planned for the upcoming year. So far they have broken many records that range from the number of predicted test, to the size of the testing facilities. But China can brag on and on about their future accomplishes and it still won’t change the fact that they are the leading distributors in the entire planet. Recent statistics have put China ahead of the rest of the world, combined! The numbers aren’t pretty, and although they are trying to make a stand in the Olympic Games, the country needs to focus on its own problem as well. Both these things lead to a solid utilitarian ethical problem for it involves the lives of many, and not focused on no one individual. Keeping the ethical lens open, the individual rights lens comes to mind as well. Why can’t players decide what goes in their body’s?

In previous Olympic game’s drug testing has not been taken lightly, even then some individuals seem to sneak by it. “Marion Jones has recently admitted that she did in fact take steroids before she won her three gold medals back in 2000” (Milton) . She will be stripped of a total of five medals: three gold and two bronze. Although it wasn’t focused on as heavily as today, steroids were being tested in those Olympic Games as well. Federal prosecutors charge the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, known as BALCO, to distributing undetectable steroids to elite athletes in the form of a clear substance. Now with technological advances and many more cases being brought up, all performance-enhancing drugs will appear on test. Wu Moutian, head of China's Doping Control Center, is already losing sleep over next summer's Olympics, not to mention his government's vow to host the cleanest games ever. Lab directors from around the world will fly in to supervise the estimated 4,500 tests Wu expects to conduct. His 5,000-square-meter facility, which is still under construction, will house 150 drug testers and the largest collection of detection machinery ever assembled for a sporting event.

On Thursday, September 20th, 2007 Operation Raw Deal was in full effect. Raw deal was over 100 U.S investigators tracking down and searching for illegal steroid makers in 27 states. At the end, 124 dealers were put off the streets and 56 labs shut down. Investigators seized more than 500 pounds of raw steroid ingredients that originated in China. Raw deal was the largest performance enhancing drug bust in U.S history and still nothing links them more than there supplier, China. In the last seven years, the size of China's drug industry has emerged from $22 billion to an estimated $67 billion. “The World Anti-Doping Administration estimates that Chinese factories are responsible for as much as 70-80 percent, or up to $480 million worldwide, of an annual $600 million black market in human growth hormone” (Assael). China is trying to crack down on these industries and the U.S has given them plenty of leads, over 27 underground companies were reported to them and so far only 5 have actually gone under investigation. With the bold promise they have made to keep the Olympic Games clean, it’s about time they start to do something about it.

The ethical problem that stands out is the right or wrong of steroid testing. Some may believe that one can do to his/her body as they please, others disagree. That’s were individual rights come in, after all it is there body. “For example, athletes taking steroids may improve their own ability but they set off "a steroid arms race" that could destroy their sport” (PLS). That’s what users don’t think about. What they do is up to them, but they don’t realize people are there to help. After all they are really just destroying their own future and health. Steroids are illegal for many reasons, not just because they give you an upper hand in your competition. Utilitarianism is the moral norm that fits in the situation for the Olympics, as well as any other sport, it is in the best interest of all. “The greatest good for the greatest number” (Cavanagh).

Some argue and state that it only affects the athletes. Even if this were true, 4500 test are being given in the sporting event. Fact is that it affects more people than the athletes; it affects the viewers as well. Viewers tend to watch more competitive matches. Therefore, a “juiced” athlete would defeat his opponent and lower the audience. If spectators don’t watch, who does that