Steroids Should Be Banned

“Doping.” In modern day, it is almost universally regarded as a bad thing; It is regarded as a “cop-out.” Everyone says it's what athletes do when they can't muster up the motivation and willpower to build and maintain their bodies themselves. But how has it gained such a bad connotation? Historically, the use performance enhancing drugs has been around since the days of the Romans and Greeks. They used them because they valued victory even over their own lives. Are modern athletes not allowed to be able to have that same conviction? Or is that not even the question at all? Is it simply that we want to protect our athletes from themselves and make sure that they set an example for all the people who see them as role models? Even now, when the use of performance enhancing drugs is banned in

The use of PEDs is a trade-off, a choice between health and victory. It should be an athletes personal choice as to which one they value more. “If each of us ought to be free to assume that we think are worth taking, shouldn't athletes have the same freedom as anyone else... if athletes prefer the gains in performance allegedly provided by steroids along with the increased risk of harm... what gives anyone the right to interfere with their choice? After all, if we should not forbid smokers from risking their health by smoking, why should we prohibit track stars or weightlifters from taking risks with their health in pursuit of their goals” (Simon). There are many things that are greater risks to one's health than steroid use that continue to be allowed to be used and yet somehow steroids have been the ones that have been banned. Wouldn't it be worse to find out that an athlete smokes or is an alcoholic because those things are risks that offer no advantage to the athlete at