Sports are one of the most popular past times to watch, not just for the American public, but all around the world. Everyone loves to play sports, but they especially love to watch professionals impress the world with their ability. With millions of people watching sporting events throughout the year, athletes have a lot of pressure on them to perform well. Athletes cope with this pressure different ways, some choosing positive actions and some choosing negative. Many of the athletes use the pressure to motivate them to practice harder and become better players, but some travel down the wrong path and choose to take different types of drugs to deal with the pressure and other problems they might be having. Athletes aren't the only people to choose to do this, but where some athletes separate themselves from the public, is when they start using drugs that help improve their ability, most commonly known as performance enhancing drugs. Performance enhancing drugs are drugs or substances that help improve the ability of one person in one way or another. These drugs are illegal, but athletes still take them, hoping they never get caught. Since performance enhancing drugs are still relevant to athletes today, fans and other supporters are losing their love for sports; because some athletes aren't playing solely on God given ability, they're using drugs or other forms of steroids (PED) to improve their ability. Instead of who is working the hardest to improve, it's becoming who can take the best drugs and who can get away with it? The improvement of an athlete's ability is a major issue as you can see, but one of the most talked about issues pertaining to performance enhancing drugs, is all the health problems and consequences that the performance enhancing drugs can cause. Performance enhancing drugs can be damaging to the integrity of sports, but the issue most people are worried about pertaining to the drugs is all the health risks and consequences that the drugs cause.

Most people would say it is ridiculous to take drugs, especially drugs that improve one's ability and that are illegal. That is easy to say when you're sitting back on your couch enjoying a sporting event. Athletes make their job look very easy and almost effortless, but it's not from a lack of hard work, most of the time. Almost all athletes from any sport put in countless hours improving their ability and improving their health. Playing a sport professionally is what they do for a living, so they must put in a lot of hard work to be good at what they do. This doesn't come easy for a lot of people, and with all the pressures of performing well, some athletes resort to taking drugs to help them out. The performance drugs they take, will give them the ability to work harder and will give them the drive to want to improve, and in some cases, the drugs athletes choose to take improve their ability with out any work put in. 

There are many different reasons why athletes take performance enhancing drugs including: they want to get better quickly, it might be the only way they can make it to the professional level, they want to be able to provide for their family so they choose the path of playing a professional sport, but need the drugs to get there, and last but not least, they think they can get away with taking the drugs ("Steroids & HGH in Sports - Inside the NFL - Charles Barkley, Warren Sapp, Collinsworth."). "Even if athletes are being tested for PEDs, the prospect of international fame, immense wealth, and the desire to achieve life-long dreams may outweigh the deterrence capacity of the anti-doping polices" (Silverberg). As for me and most likely a lot of other people, I would never take any kind of drug. I would especially never take any kind of drug that improved my ability for a couple different reasons. For one, it is cheating and illegal in almost every sport, and also because it is so harmful for my body, and there are a lot of health risks that come with taking performance enhancing drugs. As a college athlete, I understand the pressure to perform well and I know the pressure would be so much greater when it means your future. Knowing this, there is still no reason to take performance enhancing drugs anytime, especially when they are illegal, but it is important to note why some athletes choose to resort to this sort of thing.

It's not everyday on the news that you see an athlete being busted for using performance enhancing drugs. It is usually a rare occasion that it happens and it's usually big news when it does, especially when it is a popular athlete such as Lance Armstrong or Barry Bonds. It doesn't mean that it's not happening all the time though. A lot of the time they don't get caught or they some how get around the test and don't have to take it. For the case of argument, and to be fair to athletes, most athletes don't take performance enhancing drugs, so they don't have to worry about getting caught or accused of using them. Even though most don't take performance enhancing drugs, there is always a group that does, that may or may not get caught. Seeing that there are always some athletes taking part in the performance enhancing drugs, raises the question that is there ever a way to stop and control athletes from taking these drugs? In a perfect world, there would be zero athletes taking performance enhancing drugs, and all sporting events would be based on God given ability and hard work put in by the athlete. This is impossible though, because there will always be people who want to get an advantage any way they can or they want to cope with all the pressure they have, so they look to performance enhancing drugs as their solution. "If you and I could live 100 years longer, they're still going to be doing this" (Brennan). It will also be impossible because athletes are going to always be trying the newest and greatest thing or drug. Once the World Anti Doping Association bands one drug and finds a way to stop it, the athletes will be on to the next thing that scientists have figured out that will help improve your ability. "It will be gene doping, or whatever comes next, but where there is a ton of money involved, to think athletes are not going to try to get an edge, well of course they are" (Brennan). " ... one only need to look at the latest headlines from the sports page to see the problem is far from being eradicated as players become more savvy at gaming the system" (Gottlieb 636).

The war on drugs in sports is far from being completely gone, but changes will be and are being made to help protect the athletes from health problems and from sports losing their loyal fans, from athletes making the playing fields uneven and unfair.  The WADA is an organization trying to do this by implementing rules and regulation for doctors and athletes. "WADA and associated anti-doping organizations such as the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) strive to ensure that there is a 'level playing field' in high-performance sports and to optimize the safety and welfare of athletes" (Hughes). These associations are there for the athletes and trying to protect them from the harm of performance enhancing drugs. It's like what people say about the law and law enforcement, they are there to help you and protect you and not to hurt you. This is the same with the World Anti Doping Association and other associations alike. It can seem like these organizations are out to get you and catch you for doing bad things, but all they want to do is protect the integrity of sports, trying their best to keep the playing fields level, and the most important thing they are doing is making sure that athletes understand the health risks that performance enhancing drugs can cause, and they want to make sure the athletes who partake in these illegal actions get the proper treatment from whom ever. "WADA and national anti-doping organizations attempt to strike a balance between providing equity and fairness in sport, and ensuring that athletes have access to appropriate treatment for legitimate medical conditions" (Hughes).

One specific example of athletes using performance enhancing drugs is blood doping. "Blood doping has been defined as the misuse of substances or certain techniques to optimize oxygen delivery to muscles with the aim to increase performance in sports activities" (Oliveira, Bairros, Yonamine). The reason blood doping is so popular amongst athletes is the easy availability, very consistent and efficient in improving performance, and it is hard for drug tests to detect it. In one article I read it said, "Recent analyses of biochemical data from 2,737 elite track and field athletes revealed incidents of blood doping in an average of 14% of athletes" (Brand, Heck, Ziegler). I chose this example for a couple different reasons. One is to show that if the athletes are smart enough they can sometimes get away with taking performance enhancing drugs without being caught. (One reason why the WADA and other associations need to crack down on their testing.) The second reason and most important reason is to show the significant health risks that drugs like this can be associated with. Since we are talking about blood doping, usually performed by a blood transfusion, there are many infectious diseases that an athlete can acquire. These diseases include: hepatitis, HIV, malaria, CMV, and Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (Oliveira, Bairros, Yonamine). These are diseases that will change your life forever, and athletes need to be aware of these consequences before they take performance enhancing drugs. Of course, some athletes are aware of these possibilities and still choose to take the drugs or do blood doping at any cost to improve their abilities. This is where doctors and associations such as the WADA, need to step in and scare the athletes from taking/ doing these drugs. The doctors need to do all they can to prevent athletes from taking these drugs, because the health risks are far greater and important to look out for than improving one's ability. I know the athletes probably don't care about the side affects or consequences, but they need to and they need to know that taking performance enhancing drugs can change their life forever and even kill them if they are not careful.

"Our position maintains that the current WADA policy of zero tolerance will neither extinguish doping in sport nor protect the health and well-being of athletes" (Smith, Stewart). To help better protect athletes, the WADA needs to enforce the rules strictly but be open and helpful to those who are caught taking performance enhancing drugs. Just like colleges require students to take alcohol and sexual assault classes online before they come, the WADA needs to require all professional athletes to take a drug class online. This will better educate them about what some consequences are and what the health risks entail. While the integrity of sports is a big issue, the health of athletes is even bigger, because we are talking about a person who could be facing health issues for the rest of their life. It is important to realize that sports need to level the playing field by banning performance enhancing drugs, but the biggest strides need to be taken in protecting the health of athletes and taking action when a player does take these kinds of drugs. If a player is caught for taking performance enhancing drugs, they should be required to see a doctor and have an examination to make sure they have not contracted some disease, and to make sure that he or she is still healthy. This will help prevent long term problems, and if he or she does have something wrong, the doctor can catch it at an early stage and perform the proper procedure.

Another big issue about performance enhancing drugs is that sports might be losing their integrity because of it. Using performance enhancing drugs is considered cheating and is banned from almost all sports.  While fans love to see 500 ft. homeruns and guys that can run a 4.0 second 40, no one likes a cheater. In professional, sports there is no way to have a level playing field because you have people that work harder than others, and some people are just more gifted and are better in general. There's no getting around that, but what the WADA and sports associations can do is stop athletes from using drugs that are considered performance enhancing. Sports should be about athletic ability and hard work, not who can figure out the science to make  a better athlete without putting any of his or her own work in to it. "Its force is that PEDs diminish the role of athletic excellence in determining victory by introducing a determinant of success that has no relevance to athletic excellence. In particular, PEDs appear to supplant skill with pharmaceutical technology" (Dixon). Sports need to get back to the basics, which is athletic ability based on hard work, talent, and dedication to the process of getting better. "Sporting events would increasingly become tests of rivals' access to good pharmaceutical technology and knowledge and their bodies ability to use these chemicals efficiently" (Dixon). Athletes need to realize that playing sports is doing what you love and working hard to getting better. There should be no short cuts trying to become the best player in the world at what you do. You should have to work for it and not let a needle or some drug get you to the top. The prize is even sweeter when you know you have worked your tail off tirelessly for hours upon hours trying to get to the top. 

When thinking about a level playing field we have to realize that does not mean that everyone has the same ability and same talents. Some people were born with raw talent and some people weren't. Every athlete is unique as a person, so the playing field will never be "level" to an extent. "While erythropoietin (EPO) (a drug which increases the oxygen-carrying capacity of blood) may be a banned substance, those who can afford to train at high altitude or sleep in an altitude chamber can obtain a lesser but similar benefit" (Smith, Stewart). This example even shows how a drug could be used to level the playing field even more. Once again it's not about making everyone's ability the same, because that will never happen, but its about everyone abiding by the rules and following the ones set in place. The playing field is the playing field not matter how level, if everyone is following the rules. It becomes unfair when you have people cheating and taking drugs that improve their ability. As long as everyone is playing by the rules of the game then the playing field will be level. You are going to have variation in ability but common ground between all athletes is following the rules and abiding by the laws of the game. 

Getting rid of performance enhancing drugs would be a dream come true for everybody, but in today's day and age that is almost impossible. People are too clever and sneaky. Athletes can get away with a lot so the best thing to do is lay down the rules as strictly as possible and hope that people follow and abide by them. "By teams taking a more forceful stance, MLB can finally achieve its asserted goal of liberating its sports from an epidemic of PED's" (Gottlieb 637). This is ambitious, but being forceful and strict could lead to less people taking performance enhancing drugs. The hope is to limit the number of people who take performance enhancing drugs, but in reality there are always going to be people who break the rules. Since this is the case, the WADA and other associations need to act upon this with a program that will protect athletes from having health risks. They need to make sure people who have taken performance enhancing drugs get the right treatments, but most importantly they need to educate upcoming professional athletes of all the health issues and risks that performance enhancing drugs can cause. If they can do this, the sports world will become a better and safer place. 

Sports are one of the most popular things to watch for the public all over the world. Protecting sports from PED's will ensure that the popularity of sports remains where it is at such a high level. It is important for the public to remain interested because that is what drives professional sports. Fan bases are a huge part of athlete's success, and it's important to keep the respect of that by following the rules of the game. Performance enhancing drugs are no good for anyone because they cause health risk to the athletes, and cause the public to lose interest in sports. Preventing PED's to be taken by athletes will even the playing field, keep athletes healthier, and the public support of sports will rise to an all time high. 

