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Consequences of being caught taking performance enhancing drugs
What are the consequences of using steroids for athletes
Consequences of being caught taking performance enhancing drugs
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Anabolic steroids also have long-term consequences legally. Anabolic steroids are classified as controlled substances under U.S. federal law and the laws of many states (Collins). Since the non-medical possession or sale of anabolic steroids is illegal, strength athletes must not only consider the possible health risks but also the potential legal consequences of involvement (Collins). Many athletes who take or sell anabolics have no clue as to what might happen if they were to be caught by law enforcement. According to Rick Collins, in 1991 Congress placed anabolic steroids into schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act. Under this legislation steroids are defined as, “any drug or hormonal substance, chemically and pharmacologically related to Testosterone that promotes muscle growth” (Collins). There is a maximum of 1 year in prison and a $1,000 fine for using or buying steroid. The penalty for trafficking for a 1st offense is a maximum of 5 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine. The penalty for a 2nd offense for trafficking the punishment above doubles (Collins).
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Anabolic steroids have become an epidemic amongst athletes since the 1950's when a Swiss company by the name of Ciba Pharmaceuticals introduced what was to become the most popular anabolic drug for athletes called methandrostenolone. “By this time, the era of the steroid athlete was well underway and world records were being shattered and re-shattered with remarkable regularity.” (Oklobdzija & Weyrauch, 1989, para 3) From then on, there have been many cases throughout professional sports where athletes are reported or caught using anabolic steroids.
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.
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...
Steroids are used daily in America in body building, medicine, and food production. There are three main types of steroids, Corticosteroids, Anabolic steroids, and hormone steroids. Corticosteroids are the kind of steroids doctors prescribe to patients when they are sick or have some kind of medical issue. These steroids reduce overactive immune responses and reduce swelling. Anabolic steroids are used for building muscle. They also contain a lot of testosterone. Testosterone is naturally produced by one's body but too much can cause a vast variety of problems. Hormone steroids are the steroids people put in animals (DeNoon).
The use of steroids in our society today is very common, that is with prescription. But that is not the kind of steroids I am talking about, I am talking about Anabolic Steroids. Anabolic steroids are a very sensitive issue in the world of sports today. Even though the side effects are life threatening, men and woman alike continue to submit their bodies to this illegal drug. Anabolic steroids are taken either through pills or injected directly into the blood stream with a needle. In 1994, 1,084,000 Americans, or 0.5 percent of the adult population, said that they had use anabolic steroids, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Household Survey on Drug Abuse. Under Federal Law it is illegal to possess or distribute anabolic steroids for nonmedical uses. However, heavy demand has generated a black market with estimated sales of up to $400 million a year, according to a NIDA Research Report, Anabolic Steroids: A Threat to Body and Mind (NIDA July/August1997).
Anabolic steroids are a group of muscle building chemicals, which are synthetic versions of the male hormone, testosterone. Developed in the 1930’s, they were prescribed to aid in muscle tissue repair by those who had undergone surgery or had degenerative diseases. Now the patients do not only use them but also athletes. Starting in the 1940’s steroids were introduced into sports. Steroids were one of the main reasons that Russia’s 1952 Olympic weightlifting team came out with pile of medals. With these results other nations thought their competitors should have the same advantage, and the use of steroids spread like wildfire.(NIDA pg 2) But now steroids are illegal to use if not prescribed by a physician, and have been banned by nearly all-athletic organizations, both professional and amateur.
Abstract: Since the beginning of sports competition, athletes have always looked for some kind of 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.
Steroids where originally made back in World War I as an aid for soldiers who suffered from any sort of weaknesses to being stronger. Steroids have been a known substance for increased performance in anything physical for the past 100 years now. Steroids have been looked upon and even banned all the way back in the 1910s in the Olympic games. The Anabolic Steriod Act was passed in 1990 which placed steroids in the same class as other illgal drugs such as amphetamines, methamphetamines, opium and morphine. It was then finally banned in Baseball on June 7, 1991. “Major League Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent said, The possession, sale or use of any illegal drug or controlled substance by Major League players or personnel is strictly prohibited... This prohibition applies to all illegal drugs and controlled substances, including steroids” (Farrey). And ever since the banning of steroids, its usage has still been high and everything is done in order to stop it.
Bad effects of steroids Each day, professional and amateur athletes and body builders thrive to achieve their goals and dreams of winning gold medals or representing their country worldwide. The sports or games in which they participate require physical strength, athleticism and stamina, and due to the tough competition they face, some of these athletes decide to take performance enhancing drugs, an act called doping. The most famous of these drugs are anabolic steroids, which are, as defined by the Controlled Substances Act issued by the Food and Drugs Administration under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, any drug or hormonal substance chemically and pharmacologically related to testosterone that promotes muscle growth. Patients with medical prescriptions are allowed to take steroids to treat some diseases, such as delayed puberty. However, the use of anabolic steroids should be stopped because it comes with high risk on the level of physical and mental health.
The penalty for trafficking anabolic steroids is up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000, and this is only if it’s your first-offense (DeNoon 1). Second-offense trafficking can result in double the penalty (DeNoon 1). Anabolic steroids are (non-prescribed) steroids used for increasing human growth hormone (HGH) levels within the body. These types of steroids were first created in the 1930s and were originally used to treat children suffering from delayed growth. Should steroids be allowed for open use to the public? According to multiple sources, no, steroids should be limited to doctor prescription only. Steroids are not safe if they are available to the public for a multitude of reasons; side-effects can be deadly in the form of many different types of sicknesses, positive effects are small and only occur in a small area, negative effects vary in terms of physical appearance, reasons why people illegally use steroids are unjust, and there are several ways in preventing anabolic steroid use.
Anabolic steroids are drugs containing, or hormone-like substances, that are used to increase strength and promote muscle growth. They were first developed in the 1930s in Europe to treat undernourished patients and to promote healing after surgery. Competitive weightlifters began using steroids in the 1950s as a way to increase their athletic performance. Use gradually spread throughout the world among athletes in other has been estimated that at least one in 15 male high school seniors in the United States--more than a half-million boys--has used steroids. Some are athletes attempting to increase their strength and size; others are simply youths attempting to speed up their growth to keep pace with their peers. In some countries, anabolic steroids are available over the counter. In the United States, a doctor's prescription is necessary.
Athletes are always searching for ways to enhance their performance. Recently, beginning in the 1950s, that search has included the use of illegal substances like steroids and growth hormones. Illegal substances have been used widely by athletes in hopes of achieving the desired Olympic gold medal or multi-million dollar contract. Some nations, for example the late East Germany in the 1970s and 1980s, have mandated the use of steroids by their athletes. The downside of using those illegal substances is that because they are illegal, getting caught using them can lead to losing that coveted gold medal, a lifetime ban from sports, and a total loss of honor and dignity.
Steroids became an option to athletes in the Olympics and other major sporting events during the 1950’s. But this use of steroids among athletes only became widely apparent when Canadian sprint runner Ben Johnson tested positive for steroid use after winning the gold medal for the one hundred-meter dash during the 1988 Olympics (Francis, 45). Now a skinny fifteen-year-old can just walk down to the local gym and find people who either sell or know how to get in contact with those who sell the drug that will make him envious of his friends. Steroids are an attractive drug. While steroids seem harmless to the unaware user, they can have a risky effect. Most of the time whether the users are new or experienced, they do not know the dangerous consequences steroids can have on their bodies and their minds. Though steroids cause a relatively insignificant number of deaths in our society, the banning of steroids is justified because steroids have a lot of side effects not known to the uninformed user.
There are several types of steroids. Steroids are in your body to help your body with stress and puberty; there are medical steroids and these are taken for pain, asthma, or a skin problem but, these aren’t the steroids that athletes are using to get ahead of the opponent. Athletes take anabolic steroids and they are artificially produced hormones. They are taken in forms of pills, injections, or powders. Steroids are illegal if you don’t have a prescription in your possession.
Another dangerous substance is anabolic steroids. People use anabolic steroids as an illegal way to enhance their testosterone levels within their body as well as increase their muscle mass. Every time someone uses anabolic steroids it is considered abuse because using anabolic steroids is never recommended to you by any officials. Side effects of the drug can result in paranoid jealousy, extreme irritability, delusions, and impaired judgment from a large ego. (Steroids) Long term effects include euphoria, confusion, sleeping disorders, pathological anxiety, paranoia, and hallucinations.