Athletes have passed or failed many tests in their life time. Either on the field or off the field it’s safe to say it would be better if they pass. Failing a test in the class room just means a bad grade. Failing a test in the sports world means an athlete can lose their job, get suspended, lose money, and lose their loyal fans and much more. Athletes can be drug tested for basically anything whether it is illegal drugs or performance enhancing drugs. Steroids are obviously the most well known drug in sports. There are three different types of steroids. Anabolic steroids are chemically derived from testosterone. They are seen in growth and thickening of the body’s non-reproductive tract tissues and have a decrease in body fat. Androgenic steroids effects are seen in growth of the male reproductive tract and development of male secondary sexual characteristics. Cortico steroids are man made and mimic the activity of cortisone. Cortisone is naturally produced in the body and deals with injuries. 2 Anabolic steroids, when combined with vigorous physical training, do enhance athletic performance by making users bigger, stronger, and faster—while also speeding up their recovery time after strenuous exercise. If steroids effectively enhance performance, what is wrong with allowing athletes to take advantage of modern medicine and pharmacology? After all, athletes frequently are given painkillers and are fitted with artificial devices designed to enable continued participation in a sport despite injury. (Mitten par.6) Professional and collegiate athletic commissioners should enforce athletic drug testing. Drug testing doesn’t seem like a big deal to athletes. Many put their careers on the line just to hit a homeru... ... middle of paper ... ...y’s society, the economic and intangible rewards for extraordinary athletic achievements and winning performances are substantial. Therefore, there is a significant incentive for athletes to maximize their on-field performance, which is the paramount objective of sports competition. Virtually all athletes use various artificial means to enhance their body’s natural performance while playing their respective sports. (Mitten Par.1) Although this is a steroid era, not all athletes use banned substances. 5 Taking or using banned drugs does more damage than just to the body. Athletes can lose their jobs, lose money, lose their fans, lose what they have accomplished, and could go to jail. “Performance enhancing drugs are not only prohibited because they violate the spirit of sport but because they can damage the health of athletes.” (Mackenzie-Wilson Par.3)
Professional athletes, throughout history, have been exalted for their outstanding abilities and achievements in sports. Unfortunately, many athletes have turned to anabolic steroids in order to give them an edge, a boost their athletic performance. Starting with the 1954 World Weightlifting Championships, where the Soviets unexpectedly dominated their lifting classes with the use of steroids, it has become increasingly popular among athletes to cheat with the help of this drug. Although the appeal to steroid use is evident when observing how it increases someone’s athletic abilities, many users fail to consider the detrimental side effects of the drug. Also, in my opinion, athletes should be expected to perform based upon their natural abilities, opposed to abilities enhanced by anabolic steroids. Ultimately, anabolic steroids should continue to be illegal in professional sports due to their major health risks and the unfair advantage they serve players.
In today’s society in athletics, muscle mass and strength seem more important than in years past. It is believed that many athletes use anabolic steroids to increase their muscle mass and also their strength. Anabolic steroids are a group of synthetic hormones that promote the storage of proteins and the growth of tissue, sometimes used by athletes to increase muscle size and strength. Before the mid 1970’s the use of anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) was used mainly by highly trained athletes especially those involved in weight training. Since then other athletes including those involved in recreational sports and non-competitive sports have started using the steroids. Steroids are also being used by many school age children especially those involved in sports in the schools. Everyone wants to be bigger, stronger, and faster and will do almost anything to gain this.
Every year high school, college, and professional athletes try to get just ?a little bigger,??a little stronger,? and to increase the amount of weights they lift by, ?just a few pounds.? To achieve these goals athletes often turn to anabolic steroids to aid them in achieving their goals. Anabolic steroids are a quick, but dangerous way to increase muscle mass, and they can carry many risks including some life threatening side affects. Years after taking steroids athletes can live to have serious heart problems, sterility, or possibly not even live, all because of foolish decisions they made in the past. These potentially fatal drugs are not widely known by young athletes at all, because they don?t know about the risks that can go along with them. In school, every student is taught about marijuana, cocaine,heroin, sex, liquor, and all those other health risks, but they?re never taught about ?roids? or ?juice.? (slang words for steroids) That should be changed, because it is known that student athletes often use steroids, not knowing the risks. Many times they take the risk because they hear about professional athletes taking steroids. But, despite their widespread use in sports, steroids can have more negative than positive effects on athletes of all types. Steroids are chemical substances that can be made naturally by the body or produced synthetically. There are many different types of steroids that are used for different things other than just athletes enhancing muscles. For example, there are types of steroids that can be used by women as birth control pills, and other types that are used for menopause treatment. The abuse of steroids is almost always found to be in the case of athletes, and that is the focus of this paper. ?All anabolic steroids are synthetic compounds whose molecular structure is similar to that of the natural male sex hormone testosterone. Testosterone affects development of the male body in two important ways: it has an anabolic effect - increases growth, especially of muscular and skeletal tissue - And an androgenic effect - increased development of male sexual characteristics. Anabolic steroids are constructed stythetically in such a way that they maximize the anabolic effect of testosterone while minimizing the androgenic effect.? The way that steroids work can easily be interpreted by a foo...
The exception to steroid use should be only when they are being prescribed by a doctor for medical conditions. One of the main purposes of keeping athletes from using these drugs is simply for their own health benefits. Over the years there have been multiple cases in which the abuse of these drugs has caused...
Performance-enhancement drugs are considered a violation to sporting ethics and are in contradiction of the law. Athletes use anabolic steroids to increase the mass and strength in their muscles. Studies show that, “In the 1800s, strychnine, cocaine, nitroglycerine as well as other antidotes, were used to sustain or improve an athlete’s performance” (“Steroids”). Not only do competitors’ consume these illegal drugs for performance reasons, but they also take them for pain
Abstract: Since the beginning of sports competition, athletes have always looked for some kind of an edge over their competitors. They will do whatever it takes to be one of the elite and that includes injecting supplements into their bodies to make them bigger, stronger, and faster. Steroid use is probably one of the most common drug misuses in sports competition. Athletes found that with anabolic steroids one could become a better athlete twice as fast. Not until 1975 was the drug first banned from Olympic competition because of the health risks it produced. Shortly thereafter, the rest of the sports world did not allow anabolic steroids as well. With the use of steroids no longer permitted athletes began to look for other alternatives. On the rise is two substances called creatine and androstenedione, both of which are sold over the counter. These two performance enhancers have only had minimal testing done on them, excluding the long-term effects, simply because they haven't been around long enough. Creatine and androstenedione have been said to produce results like steroids without the side effects. The truth is they do produce side effects and irregular muscle growth. By banning the use of performance enhancing drugs, just like steroids, sports competition will have a much healthier and fairer environment to participate in.
Americans today tend to believe that there are only a select few in sports who are users of steroids. However, according to Julian Savulescu, "20.3% of professional athletes said they have tried drugs or steroids to improve their performance in the game" (3). At this high percentage, about one in five athletes are considered "cheaters". Jacob Beck believes that "using steroids is not cheating if a whole generation of the best and most promising athletes have been doing it" (5). There is no reason to continue trying to catch steroid users when so many athletes take them. All major league sports are filled with steroid use to some extent. It is impossible to have a perfectly "clean" sport without eliminating a good percentage of its players. Since steroids already have a major presence in major league sports and there is no way to ever completely get rid of them, steroid use should be legalized. By legalizing steroids, athletes would no longer have to worry about unsafe or risky suppliers; with prescriptions from doctors, steroids would be safe for the athletes, and users would be less likely to abuse them. Also, the playing fields for all sports would be more equal than they have ever been in a long time. By creating an equal playing field, sport records would be more meaningful and there would be much fewer arguments for cheating or an unfair record. With an increase in muscle strength, there would be fewer injuries and more quality performances, which would make fans more inclined to go to a game knowing there was going to be a great display of strength and athleticism.
As time passes and education and science continue to evolve and change this world into something that many people never thought would be possible, there are many positives but there are also a lot of negatives that resulted (Helmenstine). As science continually comes out with new kinds of medication and performance enhancing drugs the sports world has to continue to expand with them. Every year hundreds of more drugs become part of our society and as they continue to become available, sports continue to struggle with keeping up. When steroids first became known to the world they really weren’t anything to worry about because the science was not what it is today. As a result, the performance enhancing drugs then did not provide athletes with the amount of strength they provide them with now. Steroids have been proven to be the m...
...issues.” (Monroe 84). With the many complications with the tradional drug testing method and how the athletes can prepare themselves for the test, many of the professional sports and collegiate sports have tested athletes immediately after they won a championship or anything.
Most serious athletes will tell you that the competitive drive to win can be fierce. Besides the satisfaction of personal accomplishment, athletes often pursue dreams of winning a medal for their country or securing a spot on a professional team or to make their family proud. In such an environment, the use of performance drugs has become increasingly common. But using performance drugs — aka, doping — isn't without risks. “Take the time to learn about the potential benefits, the health risks and the many unknowns regarding so-called performance drugs such as anabolic steroids, androstenedione, human growth hormone, erythropoietin, diuretics, creating and st...
“[Thirty percent] of college and professional athletes have used or currently use steroids, as do 10-20% of high school athletes” (“Anabolic Steroids”). These numbers are alarming, but there are two main reasons why this is occuring: people tend to belief steroids will improve their appearances, and athletes believe their athletic abilities will increase. However, most are not aware of the effects steroid use has on the body. Steroid use has dramatic effects on the user’s body and mind in many different ways.
If athletes were to be tested before every game, the use of performance enhancing drugs would be reduced drastically. This would cause younger athletes to stop using the drugs as often, make the games/matches more fair and equal, and it would cause the athletes to be healthier. Athletes ruin their lives and give themselves a bad reputation when they take performance enhancing drugs. When a professional athlete is caught using performance enhancers, they do not go undisciplined. For the first infraction, the player is suspended for the first game, for the second infraction, the player is suspended for one hundred games and for the third infraction, the player is banned from playing a professional sport for their lifetime. Is losing your professional career really worth it when you take the performance enhancing
All athletes of all sports on a professional level must be required to undergo drug testing for performance enhancing drugs prior to participating in any sporting event to ensure an equal level playing field for all competing athletes, no matter the sport.
..., Kjetil K. "Why We Shouldn’t Allow Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sport." Academia.edu. Academia.edu, 1 Apr. 2011. Web. 06 Jan. 2014. .
Many people believe that drug use in professional athletics is not a serious problem, however it is more widespread and serious than people think. In professional athletics the use of drugs is looked upon as somewhat of a serious problem, but is also very discrete and low key. Every once in a while one might see a prominent figure in a certain sport being reprimanded for the use of some outlawed drug, however this is just one of the many who happened to get caught. Athletes today seem to find no moral problem with using performance-enhancing drugs, or in other words cheating. Also many of them feel that because they are "stars" there should be no repercussions for their illegal activity.