In today's society there is an urgency to always try and be on top. Whether it's women, starving themselves and going under the knife just to try and look like the airbrushed models that are considered to be the idea of perfection, or big businesses, poorly treating workers in an effort to increase their profit margins and outsell their competitors. Perhaps the most prominent place we see this issue is in the professional sports world. Athletes are constantly pushing the limits to try and beat their competitors. Injecting themselves with needles and putting substances into their bodies without giving the possible health or participation penalties a second thought.  Steroids, whether we like to recognize it or not, have become something that athletes in almost every sport rely on.  The use of performance enhancing drugs should be permitted in professional athletics in order to make the regulation of these substances easier, take pressure off of athletes, and for the financial benefit of everyone associated with the sports industry. 

There are currently many legal substances that have similar effects as prohibited anabolic steroids. Creatine is an example of a popular over the counter supplement used by athletes. It is a compound formed in protein metabolism. Chad Kerksick, Ph.D., assistant professor of exercise physiology at the University of Oklahoma, explains that when used "it pulls water into your muscle cells, which increases protein synthesis" (Risher). By increasing levels levels of protein, your body in return has higher levels of energy which allows for longer and more intense workouts to be completed. Studies have found that "creatine use can increase maximum power and performance in high-intensity anaerobic repetitive work by up to 15 percent" (Nordqvist). Although creatine and similar supplements do help improve athletes' abilities, there is a distinct difference between them and the steroids prohibited in professional sports. Testosterone and human growth hormone, both contributing to muscle growth, are the objects of distinction between what is and is not permitted in athletics. Supplements induce the body to create more hormones on its own whereas anabolic steroids are the synthetic versions of the actual hormones (Supps in Flux). Anabolic steroids, the main form of prohibited substances, have much greater health risks than over the counter supplements that can be purchased at nutritional stores. According to the New York State Department of Health, using steroids can cause serious health problems such as high blood pressure and heart disease; liver damage and cancers. They also affect your psychological well being and can result in mood swings, depression, and violent behavior. The unfortunate story of Taylor Hooton, reported by the New York Times, is a prime example of just how extreme the repercussions of using these substances can be. Hooton was a high school baseball player who was told by his coach that he needed to get bigger for the upcoming season. "Taylor used steroids, became depressed, and hanged himself from his bedroom door on July 15, 2003" (Grossfeld). The negative effects of steroids are definitely concerning, but legalizing these substances can allow doctors to monitor side effects closely and regulate drug use more effectively. Regulation is very important because anything taken in excess can be harmful to your body. Alcohol for example; when small amounts are consumed there are little to no side effects. However, when large amounts are consumed it can lead to vomiting, seizures, loss of consciousness, and even death. Food is another example many may not think to consider. When dieting properly your body is healthy, but when there is an excess of certain things in your diet such as high sugar and calorie intake your body develops issues. Diabetes is a health condition that can develop from your diet. According to the American Diabetes Association, research has shown that drinking sugary drinks is linked to diabetes which causes more deaths a year than breast cancer and AIDS combined. Performance enhancing drugs are similar to anything you expose your body to. They have potential side effects, but when taken in moderation the risks are much lower.  In addition, there are many other aspects of sports that are just as risky, if not more. In football, concussions have much greater repercussions than the potential side effects of steroid use. "NFL Concussions Fast Facts", an article published by CNN, highlighted that in March, Jeff Miller, the NFL's senior vice president of health and safety policy, publicly acknowledged a connection between football and CTE. This was the first time a senior official did so. CTE stands for Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy and is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in athletes (and others) with a history of repetitive brain trauma.  According to Boston University's CTE center,  the brain degeneration is associated with memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, and, eventually, progressive dementia.  Mike Webster, a former Pittburgh Steelers center, committed suicide at the age of 50 is an example just what this disease can do.  Dr. Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist and co-founder of the Brain Injury Research Institute, identified chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in the brain of Webster (NFL Concussions Fast Facts). Athletes put their physical and mental health on the line to play sports, if they decide they would like to use substances that help them heal quicker or improve their skill level, it should be their choice. However, if they choose not to they will still have no issue competing. In an anonymous poll of 143 MLB players it was estimated  that only 9.4% of current players in MLB are taking some type of PED (Skillin). Even if some players are using steroids, those not have no problem keeping up. The 2015 MLB most valuable player, Bryce Harper, is a prime example. Harper has never failed a drug test and was seen wearing a shirt that read "PED Free" at spring training (Newport). While some players are currently using PED's in the MLB, those not using are competing at just as high of a level. 

Steroid use has been around since sports were created. Although in much less risky forms, such as caffeine, the use of different performance enhancing drugs has evolved over time. Preventing the use of steroids is virtually inevitable. Athletes in every sport use steroids of one form or another. Most recently, professional players have turned to designer drugs, "these being substances specifically synthesized to escape drug tester" (Cashmore). Although it is a known fact that these types of drugs are being utilized, sports leagues continue to funnel money into drug testing budgets. In 2014, the MLB began using an expensive type of drug test called the Carbon Isotope Mass Spectrometry (IRMS) which analyzes player's urine. According to an article published by USA Today, these tests cost four hundred dollars each. Every player is required to take one and in the 2014 season MLB.com reported that there were a total of 853 players between the rosters of all thirty teams. Money is funneled into drug testing not only at a national level, but at a global level as well. The World Anti-Doping Agency has a budget of 30 million dollars per year (Cashmore) and even has claimed that they are underfunded. This money is being utilized to no avail. In fact in cycling, '"more than a third of the top finishers of the Tour de France have admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs in their careers or have been officially linked to doping"' (Honan). Infamous athletes such as Lance Armstrong have tricked drug tests throughout their whole careers. Armstrong was only caught because one of his teammates broke the silence over his drug use. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency reported on the many ways in which Armstrong and his teammates tricked the drug tests. The first being doping in micro doses, a process where they "They would dope regularly, but use small amounts, or "micro-doses" which they would take at night so as not to fail a test in the morning" (Honan).  Another method used by the cycling team was masking, a process where additional drugs are taken in order to stabilize the pH of blood or urine to normal levels. Armstrong's go to drug was EPO, a blood booster that would dilute or thin his blood without being detected on tests (Honan).  Along with cycling, baseball has also been infiltrated with steroid use. Some of the world's best players have been guilty of using. "In fact, of the 22 MVP awarded between 1995 and 2005, eight of the eleven American League winners were implicated for using PEDs, and six of the eleven National League winners were indicted on PED use" (Pantuosco). Since science is evolving, and athletes are continually becoming savvier at evading drug tests, prohibiting performance enhancing drugs serves no purpose. Allowing them will insure that athletes are informed of the effects and taking safe and studied substances.  

Athletes' decisions to risk their health and resort the use of these substances often stem from the pressures put on them by society. Celebrities, athletes, and normal people alike are held to an unrealistic standard of perfection where anything else is considered to be not good enough. This makes it hard to blame athletes for doping in a society where we encourage them to continue to push their limits and condemn them if their performance does not continue to improve. After all, spectators pay to see the best performing teams. The Super Bowl is a prime example. According to the international business times, 114.4 million Americans watched the 2015 Super Bowl on TV, a game where the two best teams in the league compete against each other. Another demonstration of this is the Harris Poll, which according to ESPN Senior Writer Darren Rovell,  has been asking adult fans, ages 18 and over, about their favorite sport since 1985. In 2014, the poll revealed that the NFL, the MLB, and college football were America's favorite sports in that order. Notice that the professional sports were favored over the lower level. If spectators enjoy higher levels of competition, it is quite hypocritical to be shaming athletes for giving them what they ask for. 

The issue then becomes about why spectators often condemn athletes when they find out they have been using steroids. Megs Gendreau, published an article in the academic journal ""Ethical Theory & Moral Practice" that compares this issue to scandals involving politicians. She references the infamous Eliot Spitzer, a governor in 2007 who had to resign the following year after it was publicized that he made visits to a prostitute as a married man. She goes on to add that "Although Spitzer was compelled to leave his job, we do not question whether he indeed won the election, nor do we contemplate whether he "deserved" to play the role of governor" (Gendreau 519). This correlates with how we look at athletes who have been caught using steroids. Often times their skill level is not in question, since with or without steroids we recognize that they have abilities that most of us will never have. However, their morals are what are put into the spotlight for questioning.  Gendeau explains that "the moral disdain we experience at the news that an athlete has been doping reflects a concern that the person in question is simply not who we thought she was" (Gendreau 520). As she highlights throughout her article, it seems as though the public's issue is not the athletes use of steroids, but the fact that they deceit us while doing so. Legalizing the use of steroids would eliminate the moral issue of dishonesty that often times leads fans to reproach professional athletes.Many players have opened up about the pressures put on them by fans and their staff. Landon Donovan, now retired from Major League Soccer, revealed the mental toll being a professional athlete has. The New York Times article, "Do Fans Put Too Much Pressure on Their Favorite Professional Athletes?" tells how Donovan has sought counseling and struggled with depression. It also quotes Donovan, who says "Coaches see us this way, fans see us this way, the media sees us this way, owners see us this way  --  they want us to live, breathe, eat and die the sport ... Every game they want you to go out and do everything you can to make the fans feel good, make the coach feel successful, make the owners successful." Constantly being viewed as a pawn has a negative effect on players' mentalities and puts a large weight on their shoulders that they are forced to carry. This was most recently exemplified by UFC fighter Rhonda Rousey when she made headlines for revealing that the pressure of defeat was almost too much to handle. In an interview with Ellen Degeneres, "Rousey said she had suicidal thoughts after being knocked out for the first loss of her UFC career" (Durkee).                                                                                                                            ...  ...  ...  ... ..Our society creates an environment where it is about everyone else involved in the sporting world, except for the athlete. Another instance is professional cyclist Tyler Hamilton, who detailed the pain that lying caused for him while using performance enhancing drugs. However, "He could either take erythropoietin, inject himself with testosterone and have bags of his blood replaced before and during a race or he would not be able to make a living as a professional cyclist" (Silverman). This is the case for many professional athletes. Being paid based on performance heightens athlete's urgency to increase their level of play, so that they can make a living like everyone else. A study done on the MLB revealed that players who use performance enhancing drugs make an average of 2 million dollars per season. On an even larger scale, using career data accumulated through the 2005 season, "steroid use was found to increase the average players slugging average from .428 to .460 which led to an approximately 700,000 dollar increase in the average steroid-using players salary, a 29 percent increase" (Pantuosco). Performance enhancing drugs make it easier for athletes to do their job well, thus helping them earn a living while relieving some of the problematic stress that comes with their occupation up to others standards. 

Not only do players profit from steroid use, but franchise owners do as well. In 1998, during the home run race between Mark McGuire (who admitted to using steroids) and Sammy Sosa who were both trying to shatter what was the current record, owner's watched their franchise value increase from an average of 111 million dollars in 1994 to $286 million in 2001. If the use of steroids satisfies spectators, helps players earn and maintain a stable income, and increases revenue for owners and professional leagues it is needless to say that their use should be permitted. 

The controversy over the legalization of steroids in professional sports brings to surface underlying issues of our society as a whole. Athletes are just one example of how we continue to continue to raise the bar for what is considered good enough or acceptable. Having such high standards will continue to lead to moral dilemmas. When it is not sports players being put in the spotlight, conversation will be about students, cheating or using drugs such as adderall to complete their assignments at exceptional levels, or ,parents, genetically designing their children to have the physical characteristics that they so desire.  The notion that there is always room for improvement can be a positive outlook, but it can also be a very toxic one. Greed is another factor that comes into play with the legalization debate. Players, owners, and coaches alike see their bank accounts grow as a result of steroid use and heightened performance. Players are willing to put their bodies on the line and coaches and owners are willing to look the other way. 

Sports, like many aspects of our lives has become all about profit.  We see this exemplified in sports stadiums such as the Dallas Cowboys AT&T Stadium. A recently built a stadium equipped with huge viewing screens and a retractable roof. This can also be seen at universities, where millions of dollars are spent to have to best recreation centers and most high tech buildings that allure students to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend the school. Overall, legalizing steroids will take some of the pressure of athletes to continue to improve performance. Although they make sporting events a more lucrative platform, having them permitted and regulated by doctors will take the conversation away from the use of steroids. Hopefully this will transfer the focus away from PEDS and back to what professional sports should be all about: an enjoyable pastime without a large cloud of controversy hanging over them and dampening the players and fans experience.

