Performance enhancement drugs first came about hundred of years ago. They were first developed by the Incase of Peru in which they were to be used by soldiers to give them energy when fighting in battles. This source of energy came from burned leaves of coca trees. Today, 100 years later those same burned coca leaves are still used as a way of giving a person energy, but is now commonly known as cocaine. Many incidents related to PED’s have been recorded, but the first “recorded” drug related death in sports was in 1886 by a European cyclist. The cyclist was found to have a mixture of heroin and cocaine in his system. This athlete was very well known for his speed, which was why he was given the nickname speedball. Following that many more incidents have since been recorded. …show more content…
John Ziegler didn’t want Russia to be winning all these competition, so he started prescribing steroids for his weight lifting friends in the U.S. Under Dr. Zeigler’s company he formed a popular steroid in which is still used today called Dianabo, but is now known a methandrostenolone. Methandrostenolone, also known as metandienone, methandienone, or informally as dianabol, is an orally-effective anabolic steroid originally developed in Germany and released in the US in the early 1960s by Ciba Specialty Chemicals. Although Dr. Zeigler had a major impact on the athletes use of steroids, he soon realized the harm of these drugs and soon turned against them. Of course steroids aren’t the only performance enhancing drugs. Other popular PED’s include; amphetamines, testosterone, human growth hormone, illegal blood transfusions and erythropoietin. All above listed drugs are banned in all countries and all have a different effect on people. Although one thing these drugs do have in common is they can all have major negative health effects on human beings. All in all, athletes use of performance enhancement drugs is continuing to grow and if not taken control of will get out of
Alcohol, which is the nucleophile, attacks the acid, H2SO4, which is the catalyst, forming oxonium. However, the oxonium leaves due to the positive charge on oxygen, which makes it unstable. A stable secondary carbocation is formed. The electrons from the conjugate base attack the proton, henceforth, forming an alkene. Through this attack, the regeneration of the catalyst is formed with the product, 4-methylcyclohexene, before it oxidizes with KMnO4. In simpler terms, protonation of oxygen and the elimination of H+ with formation of alkene occurs.
The first case of performance enhancing drugs in sports came before the discovery of anabolic steroids and is believed to be that of a British road bicycle racer named Arthur Linton. At the age of twenty four, he died during a race between Bordeaux and Paris in 1886. Controversy then soon arose when he was believed to have taken a stimulant called trimethyl at the time of his death.
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.
The problems with performance enhancing drugs are that they give the user unfair advantages over other athletes and come with many health risks such as baldness. Steroid use can result in very substantial legal consequences and can ruin the user’s reputation. There are many alternatives to steroids but not all of them are safe. Different organizations have different rules on steroids, but in most cases, the user can get suspended, fined, or even both. Various types of steroids can have various short-term or long-term side effects. There are several types of steroids, the most popular ones being anabolic steroids. Historically, steroids have been around for many years, but the debate surrounding them started recently, more specifically a few decades ago. An important term to know is anabolic steroids which are made to work with the user’s muscle mass. Another term to know is clarified by Ida Walker, author of the book, Steroids: Pumped Up and Dangerous, published by Mason Crest Publishers in 2008, defines, peliosis hepatis is a rare condition in which cysts filled with blood form in the liver, if the cysts were to pop then internal bleeding would occur. A positive argument about steroids is stated by Adrianne Blue, author of the essay, “Performance Enhancing Drugs Should Be Legal,” published in the book Athletes and Drug Use, published in 2009, disputes, “Blue concludes that legalizing performance- enhancing drugs can protect athletes from dangerously abusing them.” The utilization of performance enhancing drugs has left a giant scar on sports and has compromised the achievements of many athletes; therefore, they are transforming the sports world into a drug filled world.
MacAuley, Domhnall. “Drugs in Sport.” BMJ: British Medical Journal, 313.7051, 7/27/96, 211. Online. EBSCOhost. 16 Nov. 1999. http://www.EBSCOhost.com.
Steroids have been around for a long time. “The first people to use anabolic steroids for athletic enhancement were the Russians who discovered the drug and had great success.” They stared to use the steroids in the 1950’s. The steroids they used had many side effects. When they started to use them, they had a high chance to die of heart disease and many other things. During the Olympics in 1950 and a little beyond the Russians were know as the best weight lifters in the world. No one knew that they used steroids. After a while, their secret was out and the Bulgarians started to use them.
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.
Today’s use of steroids is not just in Major League Baseball, the National Football League or in the Federation de Football Association (FIFA), but also in the Ultimate Fight Competition (UFC) and Mixed Martial Arts (MMA).
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.
Since drugs have become easier to get they have also become more popular with young people and competitors in sports. During the mid-nineteenth new drugs emerged from the laboratories athletes started to be experimented on. The French tried using caffeine to enhance their performances. While other Europeans were mixing cocaine and heroin to give them extra energy they called this drug “speedball”. In 1886 this deadly mix contributed to the first drug related death in sports by taking the life of a cross-country cyclist. Today the drugs have changed dramatically many athletes have done or are on anabolic steroids, amphetamines, depressants or what are known as “ brake drugs”.
Performance enhancing drugs are known to cause numerous diseases such as tumors, cancer, and can cause fertility problems. There are numerous cases of players dying or ruining their careers because they have gotten caught up in getting bigger and taking these drugs For instance in professional wrestling alone, 28 people have died because of PED’s (All of these people are died younger than 45 years old.) (wrestlinginc.com, 2010). There are hundreds of known PED’s. The most commonly used drug is steroids which gives you an increased risk of heart and liver disease. Players use this drug because it makes you have better endurance, it makes your blood flow faster and it makes you stronger. Another popular PED is Human Growth Hormone. This drug has been and still ...
Around that time, the athletes used things such as mushrooms, plants and herbs, and other mixtures to give them an edge on the competition (Baron 3). A great number of athletes that have been successful in their sports have later been caught for using performance-enhancing drugs throughout their career. Performance enhancing drugs are said to have an abundance of harmful effects. It is ultimately up to the athlete to make the choice to use them or not; however, it has become a new evolution in sports. These drugs have become a very controversial issue in the sports world today, and it need to be abolished.