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The consequences of athletes doing drugs
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Consequences of drug taking in sport
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Human beings have always had a strong competitive nature, and many people have a inclination towards achieving fame and glory. Professional sporting events measure the great spirit, unique natural talents, and competitive nature of humans as they attempt to heroically represent the entire race. Often times humans search for the ultimate advantage in sports to put themselves above and beyond the other athletes. Unfortunately, some athletes turn to unnatural agents to supplement their own natural talents. They often ignore the side effects of the drugs and more importantly ignore the damage they do to how they are perceived and how people view the game. Athletes who use performance enhancing drugs, also known as PEDs, create a monstrous persona, …show more content…
similar to Mr. Hyde in the novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by breaking the ethical boundaries within the world of professional sports. Ultimately the athlete’s reason to use performance enhancing drugs is not justifiable in any scenario; regardless of the ends they are trying to reach. Modern athletes should weigh the consequences of using PEDs similar to how Dr.
Jekyll should have weighed the consequences of becoming Hyde. Athletes who use PEDs are destroying fundamental human characteristics such as integrity and morality. They can be compared to Dr. Jekyll as he too sacrifices his human characteristics in his choice to become Hyde. Also according to the article written by Gregory Forcenfelter and Greg E. Bradley-Popovich, they state that AAS or anabolic androgenic steroids are a limiting factor in human character and honor. It also removes them from a human state; basically, the athlete goes beyond ethical human boundaries. In this case all PEDs could essentially fall under the same category (Focenfelter and Bradley-Popovich). This shows how athletes who use PEDs are eroding the honor and human character that is present within professional sports. They are essentially becoming less human because they are breaking essential human characteristics of morality and integrity. It is up to the athlete whether to use PEDs or not, unfortunately, like Dr. Jekyll, it is not a worthy sacrifice to become …show more content…
Hyde. Athletes should consider the modern moral and ethical implications that comes with the use of PEDs, much like Dr. Jekyll should have considered the monstrous lifestyle he partook in when he became Hyde. When athletes use PEDs they slowly become engulfed in an immoral lifestyle that is all consuming, and once they get away with using PEDs it becomes all too easy for them to continue down that path; consequently, it becomes acceptable for them to do so. Similarly Dr. Jekyll’s transformation into Hyde caused him to adopt a monstrous existence, one that he eventually became so engrossed in he could not control his transformation. Furthermore according to the article by Michael Austin he states that an athlete should chose to not use performance enhancing drugs based on modern moral and or ethical values. He also notes that in an era where the use of these substances is very common, the value of not using PEDs is very significant (52). Michael explains that there is greater significance or value in athletes who win without enhancement. Any athlete who uses PEDs is going against modern values that over time if they continue to use these drugs it becomes easier and more acceptable to break these precious values. There is great value in upholding the moral and ethical values established in professional sports. Athletes who break these should be ridiculed, otherwise their actions could be glorified. It could then become acceptable in the mind of the athlete to cheat because there is nothing stopping them from going down an immoral path. Finally, it should be noted that athletes are expected to uphold a particular moral and ethical standard within the professional world of sports. Therefore athletes who partake in the use of PEDs are causing a chain reaction within the world sports that is eroding these moral values. This is once again comparable to Dr. Jekyll who erodes his humanity as he goes on monstrous tirades. It quite apparent that both athletes and Dr. Jekyll have similar goals, both of want to create something unique, as wells as, something that glorifies them. And as stated by Thomas Murray in his article athletes who partake in the usage of PEDs are breaking their moral wholeness, and they are becoming corrupt in the process. Their victory is no longer genuine (107). This point reiterates the idea that the wholeness of the athletes integrity does not hold up once said athlete uses PEDs. The idea that athletes are becoming corrupt is obvious particularly when it comes to winning and losing. These athletes have distorted the line between authentic victory and non-authentic. Another article by Thomas Murray, he discusses the ethical problems athletes face when they consider using PEDs “Interviews with elite athletes and others concerned with sport made it clear that athletes felt great pressure to do everything they could to hone a keen competitive edge.” (Murray 95). This goes back to the competitive nature of the athlete and how they will do anything for the chance to win. There is much fear created by other athletes who use PEDs it puts immense amounts of pressure on other athletes, should they sacrifice their moral and or ethical integrity to keep a competitive edge or do they sacrifice the victory to keep their moral wholeness. Finally from the article by April Ashby she writes that steroids corrupt the ethics of the sports because athletes are put at a disadvantage. Ultimately athletes who maintain moral standards and honesty are going to be lacking to those who use steroids and thus this destroys the cohesion within sports. (Ashby Why Steroids have no Place in Sports). Ashby makes it clear that an athlete may no longer be able to compete with the others who are using PEDs. It remains to be seen how bad this reality is, that athletes who maintain moral and ethical wholeness cannot compete against athletes who use PEDs. As mentioned before these athlete’s desire to be the hero is comparable to Dr. Jekyll’s desire to make a breakthrough in science; unfortunately for both parties they ended up being the villain or simply Hyde. Human beings have always had a strong competitive nature, desire to emerge victorious, and heroically represent the entire race.
Throughout history humans created sporting events to properly measure the talents and effort put forth by our greatest athletes. Unfortunately a recent trend has been a spark for concern within the professional sporting world which can will only lead to more controversy. This trend is the use and attractiveness of performance enhancing drugs, otherwise known as PEDs. PEDs, while just an enhancement to natural talents, is an unwarranted unnatural agent that is eroding the cohesion within the professional sporting world. These athletes who are using PEDs are doing tremendous damage to their ethical and moral integrity, as well as, the sports integrity, at which they are in. They are creating monstrous persona’s which mirrors the actions of Dr. Jekyll form the novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The athlete’s means of becoming the greatest of all time, to reach new heights in their career, or simply to gain a competitive edge, is not justifiable in almost any
situation.
Rodrigo Villagomez, in the essay, “The Designer Player,” has an opposite view of steroids in professional sports as Peter F. Martin in the essay, “Destroyed.” He argues that the status of athletes is to be entertainers; therefore, they should use steroids. “Baseball is a multibillion-dollar entertainment industry” (Villagomez 586). Baseball is not just America’s pastime, it is more than that. Players are under pressure to be their best. To achieve their goals, they try out steroids. “Because of this pressure, more professional baseball players are turning to performance-enhancing drugs, specifically steroids, to aid them in their quest for greatness” (Villagomez 587). Athletes play a sport to win even if it means winning by using steroids.
In the first chapter of the book we are introduced to one of the main
Performance enhancing drugs have been a longstanding problem in sports. It not only deteriorates the honesty of the game, but also can have broader social affects that one may not even realize. The use of performance enhancing drugs is especially apparent in Major League Baseball. This problem can be traced back to the 1980’s when baseball was facing one of its first “dark periods”. During the 1980’s Major League Baseball was experiencing a home run drought. Home run totals were down as far as they had been since Babe Ruth, and fans were seemingly becoming bored with the sport. The lack of home runs was a growing concern for players whose salary relied on home run totals. Players needed to find a quick way to boost their power and performance in order to keep the sport alive and to keep bringing in their paychecks. This desire for fame and fortune introduced steroids into Major League Baseball in the 1990’s and 2000’s. Home run totals jumped tremendously during these decades and players were willing to risk being caught using illegal substances in order to shine above the rest. New idols and role models started to sprout up from these outstanding home run statistics and young children started to take notice. This all came tumbling down when these new idols and role models who were making the big bucks and hitting the ball out of the park tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. Here lie the affects of a growing social problem in sports. These famed athletes become walking advertisements and promotions for the use of performance enhancing drugs in sports. The influence professional athletes have over aspiring young athletes is very powerful and these roles models make it seem acceptable to use performance ...
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a classic story published in 1886 by Robert Louis Stevenson. It is about a man who transforms between two personae: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This novel focuses on Mr. Utterson, a lawyer and friend of Dr. Jekyll’s. The novel starts with John Utterson talking with his other friend who has just witnessed an odd situation. A man identified as Hyde run over a girl, only to pay off her family later with a check from Dr. Jekyll. This situation is made even stranger since Jekyll’s will has recently been changed. Mr. Hyde now stands to inherit everything. Mr. Utterson believing that the two men are separate people, thinks that the cruel Mr. Hyde is some how blackmailing Dr. Jekyll. Mr. Utterson questions Dr. Jekyll about Hyde, but Jekyll tells him to mind his own business. Unfortunately, Mr. Utterson cannot do that. A year later, Mr. Hyde attacks someone else: he beats a man with a cane, causing the man’s death. The police involve Mr. Utterson because he knew the victim. Mr. Utterson takes them to Mr. Hyde’s apartment, where they find the murder weapon, which is a gift that Mr. Utterson himself gave to Dr. Jekyll. Mr.
Children who have grown up in America have been brought up with baseball and have looked up to a sports figure as one of their heroes. Steroids and other PEDS have tarnished the American past time favorite game. These drugs have cause doubts and suspicion about the validity o...
“That in the agonized womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How, then, were they dissociated?” (Stevenson 57). This is our main character, Dr Jekyll’s, continuous inner monologue. He constantly wants to know why he’s the way he is and who the “polar twin” really is. Dr Jekyll switches between himself and Mr Hyde; one good and one evil. This can be supported numerously throughout the book. Two reasons to support this being that Dr. Jekyll shared the same handwriting as Mr Hyde; the other being that Hyde walked right over a child, harming the child, and continued walking without caring (“The man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming on the ground,” Stevenson 11.)
Since at least the 1980’s performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) have been a major challenge in the world of Major League Baseball, and past trends indicate they will continue to pose an ongoing problem. A number of the most prominent and accomplished professional baseball players, such as Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi, Roger Clemens, are also the most famous examples of baseball players who have broken longstanding records, attracted countless numbers of fans, and allegedly have taken performance-enhancing drugs. Athletes who have been caught using steroids in order to increase and better their performance rates have been suspended, fined and traded from the teams on which they once played. Despite the punitive actions taken against them by the League and lawmakers, players continue to use performance-enhancing drugs and likely will continue to do so, because the associated athletic effects will draw more fans and bring more money to the individual player and franchise.
The era in sports from the late 90s and into the 2000s has often been nicknamed “The Steroid Age” due to the raging use of anabolic steroids and other PEDs (performance enhancing drugs) by professional athletes. The usage of drugs in sports has never been more prevalent during this time, and many people are making it their goal to put an end to the abuse. Influential athletes such as Lance Armstrong, Alex Rodriguez, and Roger Clemens, who were once held as the highest role models to the American people, now watch as their legacies are tarnished by accusations of drug use. The American population, and lovers of sports everywhere, have followed in astonishment through recent years as many beloved athletes reveal their dark secrets. As organizations such as the USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency) and BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative) attempt to halt the use of PEDs, both the drug users and their high-end suppliers work diligently to avoid detection. The use of performance enhancing drugs in recent years has proven to be cancerous to the honesty and competition of modern sports. Although some strides have been made over the past few decades, the use of steroids is in full swing in Major League Baseball, The dangerous side effects of the drugs are often overlooked and many do not realize the message this sends to the youth. The support for halting the usage of PEDs is in need of attention or professional sports will face the loss of all progress made through the past two decades in its war on steroids.
The role of PEDs (performance enhancing drugs) in world of sports has been the center of much controversy and debate dating back to the beginning of the Olympics, that has captured a considerable amount of attention within the past century. The revelation of PED use by star athletes has been a repeating occurrence in the world of professional sports. These allegations quickly turn legacies into scandals, for what one person once stood for throughout their career is now quickly overshadowed by the insert of a needle. The question then is, what if they were made legal? what would the reaction be and how would it change each respective league if PEDs were now allowed on the playing field? The use of these supplements has found its place in sports in a very timely and real matter, with many in opposition towards the use because of the growing concerns surrounding them, health and morally. In a closer examination of the purpose of professional sports, it is clear that the use of PEDs only bolster its purpose: allowing professional athletes to push to reach the peak of human perfection resulting in increased performance and success in sports from an entertainment perspective.
Sports players are starting to resort to different ways to help them play better or to get stronger. And one of the big ways right now is the use of PEDs. They use them because they are weaker then there opponents. But even though they make you stronger and gives you an edge over on everyone else that is not using them they ruin lives and make people think of you differently as a person. Elite athletes use them to help them win and or play better, example Lance Armstrong who is a seven time Tour de France winner, who was caught “doping” so that he was stronger and had more stamina then his other opponents. Then Alex Rodriguez claimed that he used steroids to help recover from his hip surgery. But when really it was helping him continue to smash the ball even when he was trying to recover from his injury, but he continued to use them after he was better. And the clinic he and twenty seven other professional baseball players were getting them from. When he and Lance were caught they still denied it. They lost a lot of respect in the community because there great performances weren’t really there raw skills and years of training. "A potent cocktail of sophisticated PEDs stacked together to delive...
The similarities between Jekyll and Hyde and the use of PED’s can be seen through the science and technology behind it and the consequences that amounted from it. Jekyll created the potion that transformed him into Hyde, with the knowledge he attained from his years as a doctor. Centre for Addiction and Mental Health explains that, “Anabolic steroids manufactured by pharmaceutical companies are available legally only by prescription. Most steroids used by athletes are smuggled, stolen or made in clandestine laboratories. Veterinary drugs are often used”(camh.ca). This is how MLB players obtain their steroids, through laboratories. Both of these substances are made scientifically only by advanced knowledge attained by a lot of research and schooling. The other similarity is the consequences that Jekyll and the MLB players faced as a result of ta...
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.
People think that all drugs are bad. However, they can enhance their performance.They really really can enhance the entire performance in front of the coaches, fans, players, and the other teams out there in the world. The real question is, what is a drug? “A drug is a chemical substance that, when absorbed into the body, can alter normal bodily function. Many drugs have been banned in sport if they are deemed to provide an unfair advantage, pose a health risk, or are seen to violate the ‘spirit of sport’.The use of banned drugs by athletes is referred to as ‘doping’. The International Olympic Committee (IOC), and more recently, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) have been leading the way in the battle against drugs in sport.( University of Ulster). Why do athletes that are even role models take drugs? Most athletes take drugs to enhance their physical performance in an attempt to prevent them falling behind other competitors, even if it does mean damaging their health and ri...
Many Athletes are willing to do whatever it takes to become a professional. One of the easiest ways to enhance natural ability is through performance-enhancing drugs or, PEDs. PEDs are substances used by athletes to increase their performance. The use of PEDs in athletic competition can date back to ancient Greece. Athletes use PEDs to run faster, jump higher and recover at an increased pace. Many athletes are pressured into using PEDs by coaches or managers and are not thoroughly educated the harmful health issues that can come along with taking performance-enhancing drugs. A rising issue is if performance-enhancing drugs should be allowed in professional sports. I believe that in any professional sport, the use of performance-enhancing drugs by athletes should continue to be banned because this rule will help to keep athletes from abusing these harmful drugs.
Overall it is clear that the need to use performance enhancing drugs is outweighed by the consequences and issues caused by performance enhancing drugs. Sporting events such as the world cup, the Olympics or the World Series make young children feel inspired and encouraged about what they could achieve through dedication and hard work. I feel it is important for the sporting industry as well as the athletes to return respectability to the sport. By