Wouldn't you want the best product if you were paying for it?  The general market of goods and services is a never ending evolution to provide the best product for the customer, so why are professional sports leagues, a major part of American life, not allowed to take part in this evolution.  As the market for professional sports increased, rules, equipment and training techniques advanced in order to provide the greatest entertainment for the paying fans watching the events.  But, a critical supplement applicable to every athlete, performance enhancement drugs, was deemed illegal.  Performance enhancement drugs or PED's have been in use since the beginning of professional sports and have been in major media headlines for decades.  An on going battle between professional sports leagues and the athletes surrounding the use of PED's has always ended with more and more substances being banned and more athletes fined, suspended and even a banned.  Why are these substances illegal?  Performance enhancing drugs should be allowed in professional sports leagues because it creates a safer environment for the athletes while creating a fair playing field and keeps the youth's role models in a good light.

If PED's were legalized, mass amounts of change would hit sports.  One of those changes would be the type of environment that professional athletes who use illegal substances are in.  The current setting that an athlete goes through in order to obtain PED's is secret, black market like and unregulated.  As Doctor Savulesu points out in his journal Why We Should Allow Performance Enhancement Drugs in Sports, "What matters is health and fitness to compete. Rather than testing for drugs, we should focus more on health and fitness to compete" (Savulesu) the athlete's health is not in the focus of the league's agenda.  Athletes are walking through backdoors in darkness and hiding medical conditions in order to get that extra boost ahead of the competition.  Certain steroids are used to help injuries and preexisting medical conditions.  This is also explained by Doctor Savulesu, "For many athletes, sport is not safe enough without drugs. If they suffer from asthma, high blood pressure, or cardiac arrhythmia, sport places their bodies under unique stresses, which raise the likelihood of a chronic or catastrophic harm." (Savulesu).  

With the legalization of PED's in sports, athletes would no longer have to risk unwarranted injury and can perform to the best of their ability without being persecuted for taking a substance that is needed.  Another positive safety feature with the permitted use of performance enhancement drugs would be incentivizing better doctors to focus on the field.  If PED's are decriminalized in professional sports, qualified doctors would rush to the greatly increased market of steroids. Research to make more effective drugs for the athletes would greatly increase, safer drugs for competitors would be developed.  The current state at which PED's are in is not healthy for athletes and with the legalization of them, athletes would have better qualified doctors administering the drugs and the focus would switch from testing for illegal substances to the health of the athlete, which is the most important subject in sports.

Another positive of PED's becoming legal would be the complete level playing field.  Athletes will always try and do what it takes to be better than the others to earn a larger pay check.  Performance enhancement drugs rose in sports when the pay for the performance outweighed the cost of getting caught.  Due to the large amounts of money athletes are receiving, cheating will never be erased from professional sports, especially with the current drug testing policies.  Andy Dolich talks about multiple drug testing protocols in major sports leagues in his article Drug Testing Policies: NFl, NBA, NHL, Olympics and explores the foolishness of punishments and testing that goes on.  Drug testing for illegal supplements is painfully inadequate, letting athletes slip through the cracks.  If performance enhancement drugs were legal to use for professional athletes, no one would slip through the cracks and gain that added advantage over others.  If no one is obtaining that added advantage, then all athletes are placed on a level playing field.  In the current state athletes who abide by the rules are the ones who are being penalized.  It is not right for an athlete to fall behind his/her fellow competitors due to them following the rules.  As stated before, athletes will find a way around rules in order to make the large amount of money that is available but, if there were no rules than everyone would have an equal chance to earn that paycheck so highly sought.   

With super star athletes being criminalized for using performance enhancing drugs, our nation's youth is being mistreated.  One of the largest stages to express an image in America is on the fields of professional sports.  If countless role models are being tarnished it will negatively effect the youth of America.  Colin Latiner touches this topic in his journal Steroids and Drug Enhancements in Sports: The Real Problem and The Real Solution when he states "Given the significant role that sports play in America, they "sometimes serve as a model of the larger society."' Ensuring that model is a positive one becomes an increasingly important goal as sports develop, change and grow within our culture." (Latiner).  As a society we should not target and criminalize a majority of the Nation's role models for substances that help them with their job.  Having a role model, hero, someone to look up to plays a huge role in a young person's life, especially in a single parent household.  By eliminating the criminal aspect of performance enhancement drugs, the youth of America will benefit.

While on the surface performance enhancement drugs seem perfect, but they aren't something you would want to take.  The health risks for these supplements are astronomical.  Many of these PED's cause long term damage to vital organs.  This is due to athletes taking unregulated amounts and wrong quantities to test the limits of their bodies.  Every year more PED's are being produced for ways to bypass testing and to make the athlete perform better.

It is argued that PED's takes the sport out of sports.  Athletes are using an added supplement in order to perform.  That does not reflect well on the athletes' morals and he/she is not performing, the steroids are helping.

How would PED's become legal?  I believe that PED's should only be used in professional sports.  College and high school athletics should still test and ban these substances. A maturing body should not be taking supplements.  I also believe that the Olympics should stay PED free due to the nature of the Olympics.  Professional sports are a money maker.  Athletes, teams, managers, team owners and league officials all have goals in mind in their sports.  To win a championship and to make money are the two popular goals for everyone involved with professional sports.  The Olympics is a test of armature skill and should stay as such.  Sport leagues that do legalize PED's should keep a close check on their athletes and where they are obtaining these drugs.  Rules and regulations should be put in place to keep the athletes' health in check.

