Performance Enhancing Drugs: Drug Use In Sports

Drug Use in Sports
Many wonder how drugs can influence an athlete's performance in sports. Over the past few years, it has become more known and more common for athletes to use drugs to enhance their performance abilities. It has been becoming more common for athletes to overdose on drugs whether it being intentional or accidental. Many athletes who use performance enhancing drugs do not know the consequences or the damage the drugs can do to their body. Most athletes that use performance enhancing drugs are high school students. They believe that because their favorite professional athletes is using the enhancers that they are able to also. Athletes should be drug tested before every game to help reduce the use of drugs.
Len Bias, a departed

basketball player, did not know the effects of cocaine. It was his first time taking the drug. The cocaine caused Bias to have multiple seizures and go into cardiac arrest. When his body was autopsied they found six point five milligrams of cocaine in his system. Nobody knows what made him want to take the drugs, but many believe he did it to get rid of the pain he was having in his body from playing basketball. Taking a drug, such as cocaine, is common with athletes. They work out, get beat up on the court/field, and are in pain all the time. Taking drugs is just their easy way of getting rid of all the pain. Pain can be taken away in different, safer ways. Some athletes just choose the one that works faster and better for an easy escape.
More and more the news has stories about professional athletes being found dead or almost dead in their home from overdosing. Athletes have accidentally and sometimes intentionally taken too much of a drug and do not react well to it. But who would? Many people think that a bad reaction can only happen to certain who have a physical disability. But that is not true. Anyone can have a heart attack, seizure, or liver failure from using drugs. It is easy to overdose on drugs one has even taken before and know how they react to them. Many people believe that if they have taken the drug before, it is impossible to overdose on that drug. This is also not true. It does not matter how many times an individual has taken a drug, they are not immune to the drug’s symptoms and they will harm the individual.
Performance Enhancing Drugs can cause major, permanent damage to an individual’s body. An athlete that uses anabolic steroids may experience baldness, infertility, increase of body hair, severe acne, hear problem, drug dependence, liver failure, and tumors. Human growth hormone(HGH) is supposed to be used to treat anemia for people with kidney disease. HGH increases the amount of red blood cells making more oxygen move into the muscles. HGH can cause joint pain, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and in some cases diabetes. Creatine is the most common performance enhancing drugs that athletes use because it is not considered to be illegal. Athletes who take creatine usually take it with an illegal performance enhancing drug. Creatine is used to improve endurance and reduce fatigue while doing physical activity. It can cause stomach cramp, nausea and muscle cramps. If used in high doses it can cause kidney and liver failure. Most athletes take the creatine because it can help them gain weight.
High school athletes that are trying to make it to the next level are using creatine to get bigger faster.

Stimulants are another common type of enhancing drug. Stimulants can improve endurance, reduce fatigue and increase alertness. Stimulants put everyone at a greater risks of have a heat stroke, become dehydrated, and not be able to sleep at night. An individual taking stimulants are putting themselves at risk for a heart attack, stroke, hallucinations, and extreme weight loss. These are only a small fraction of the amount of performance enhancing drugs there with only a few of their risks. Is putting your life at risk worth it for a few years of fame?
Professional athletes using performance enhancing drugs, are influencing adolescent athletes to do the same. Studies done by psychologist in the past have shown that twenty percent of high school athletes who use performance enhancing drugs, do so because their favorite player does. Young athletes are starting to believe that to be the best, they have to use the best. They believe that if they use the same enhancers as professional athletes than they will be able to make it to the next

level.
Performance enhancers are becoming more and more common at the high school age. When a group of psychologist did a survey at a school, almost everyone in the school knew someone who uses or used some type of performance enhancing drugs. Young athletes are at a greater risk of health problems. They are not fully developed yet so they have a greater risk of having heart and liver problems. A high school athlete using a performance enhancer may experience severe acne, emotional swings and aggressive behavior. Women who use the enhancers may experience an increase in body hair and a deeper voice. Men taking the enhancers may experience baldness. Is losing your good looks worth the five seconds of fame?
Athletes should be drug tested before every game/match.

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

drugs?
Paul Byrd, a former Cleveland Indians baseball player, was accused of taking Human Growth Hormone(HGH) from 2002 to 2005. Byrd bought nearly twenty five thousand dollars worth of HGH. He told the press that he never took HGH without a doctor being present, but when found out that he bought the twenty five thousand dollars worth of HGH along with syringes, suspicions arises. Byrd was won many games in his playing time, beating the New York Yankees and the Metts. A two thousand dollars shipment was sent to Byrd’s hotel room on July 22, 2004. At the time Byrd was taking HGH it was not officially banned from the MLB so nothing could have been done. Except on January 13, 2005, the drug was banned. One week before the drug was banned, Byrd made his last purchase of the drugs. After further research, the researchers discovered that the the prescription drugs were not prescribed by a physician, they were prescribed by a dentist in Florida. The dentist's license was actually suspended in 2003 due to fraud and incompetence. Byrd never admitted to taking HGH and he never denied they use either, but he did deny the use of steroids, which he was never accused of using.
“Human growth hormone is a powerful medicine used to treat dwarfism in children and AIDS wasting disease. It is illegal to use the drug without a valid prescription and a doctor's supervision. It also is illegal for doctors to prescribe growth hormone for uses not specifically approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.” HGH is very much like steroids. It causes an individual to grow muscle mass at a faster rate without all the pain. Many athletes choose to take HGH is because it cannot be detected in a urine test. It can only be found using a blood test, which is only used at the Olympic level. HGH is the “go to” drug for professional athletes because it cannot be found in tests so the only way anyone could find out is if the checked payment records.