

Banned substance, in almost all cases is a good idea. Why? Because for the most part when a substance is banned, it's banned because of the harmful effects that it has, these effects could be mental, it'd make you do something that you would never do, like rob a bank or worst, maybe its physical, like the substance damages your liver, kidney's or increases the chance of illness. This is a nutshell is how the law determines whether or not to ban a substance, and the NFL, NBA, MLB and other major professional sports leagues follow and use the same process to ban certain performance enhancers, like steroids. Steroids mentally cause "roid rage" which led to players abusing women, fighting teammates and sometimes hurting themselves. Physically it led to testosterone and estrogen issues, abnormal growth and many other side effects. It simply was horrible and as a result it got banned, but that set precedence for banning all "performance enhancing" drugs in sports., including HGH. HGH has been basically grouped with steroids, because they both can help players put on muscle, but they're not even close to the same drug. HGH unlike steroids can heal help players recover faster and come back stronger minimizing the risk of reinjure, and when administered by a trained professional it has almost zero side effects. HGH for recovery purposes should be allowed in major professional sports, because it actually is good for players. 

So lets just get the big question out of the way, what are the side effects of HGH? Well there hasn't been a lot of test, so the data isn't the best, and studies have been weak and inconclusive, because their status has always been banned. However, the only definitive negative side effect that has ever been sort of proven, is HGH can spur the growth of cancer or tumors already in your body, so basically if you already have cancer or a tumor, it can cause it develop quicker, but it does not cause cancer. So this is of course, if legal, a player, his family and the doctor would all make together, a team, who wants a player to recover faster, could not try to force a player into taking HGH if they are uncomfortable with it. But most research has actually proven that HGH, isn't harmful or have any of the terrifying side effects as steroids.

One of the arguments made for banning HGH, is players getting an unfair advantage, by using a performance enhancer. Well, first what I'm proposing is only using it for injury recovery, and second, performance enhancers are already used in sports, all the time, we just don't consider them traditional performance enhancers. Take laser eye surgery for example, it literally enhances your sight, potentially giving you better vison than opposing players which leads to your performance being enhanced. But why isn't that banned? Well simply because it isn't thought of as a performance enhancer, the only thing performance enhancers are associated with is substance. Like drugs such as HGH and Steroids and like outer body performance enhancers like stickum and pinetar. If you think about it pretty much every surgery could be considered performance enhancing. We need to break out of the train of thought, that performance enhancers are only limited to substance and that all performance enhancers are bad. 

How could HGH be administered? Well the policy I'm proposing isn't any athlete can go buy HGH, and start using it at there leisure to get extremely bulk, that would be cheating, unfair and could be abused and lead to real health problems. What I am suggesting is that if you are injured, and it is deemed that HGH could be helpful in your recovery, by a doctor, you may have it administered while you recover from an injury, while the rest of the league is tested for HGH and if it is found that you're using HGH illegally, then you'll be punished. This would minimize health risk associated with HGH, allow players to recover from injury faster and come back stronger than they would without the assistance of HGH.

Why are steroids compared to HGH? Well I've hit on this a few times, but simply because they both are drugs, that can be used to add muscle. But its odd that suddenly the fights, the domestic violence, the fits of rage, the liver damage, kidney damage, heart damage, testosterone problems, estrogen problems and abnormal growth are equated to HGH. But think about isn't simple Whey Protein shakes a performance enhancing drug that operates similarly to HGH and steroids? I really feel HGH is equated to steroids simply because they both are banned. 

You may be thinking, that it's possible sports leagues are just trying to keep there players safe, and would do the same thing with any potentially dangerous substance, and you'd be wrong. If you look at the substances used in sports and are allowed they include codeine, morphine and a number of other highly addictive pain killers. Why? I really don't have an answer, but it seems that they'd rather prolong a problem than fix it, because it can have a more immediate result. For example, if a player has ligament damage, they can be subscribed powerful painkillers and play through the injury, even though these painkillers have awful side effects, are highly addictive, usually not administered by medical professionals and playing through an injury can lead to further injury. While if you sat the player out, they would recover fully, come back stronger and not risk injury. So why do these leagues not just do that, maybe because they don't want players missing anytime. 

Really the question revolving around HGH is do you want to listen to other people or do your own research? If you listen to other people than you may think HGH is the same as steroids, leads to awful side effects and can create monsters of men. If you do your own research you'll find out other drugs just as bad are being used currently, performance enhancers are already being used, HGH is safe, is nothing like steroids and should be allowed. 

A good current example of a professional athlete who needed HGH is Peyton Manning. In 2012 Peyton Manning had, what looked to be a career ending neck injury. This injury was so severe he missed the entire season. His team, the Indianapolis Colts, decided to move on from him and released him to free agency. He signed with the Denver Broncos, recovered from his injury, extended his career by 5 years, made millions of dollars, broke a lot of passing yard records and won a Super Bowl. This is all great, and we usually would applaud something like this. The story of tragedy to recovery to redemption, is all something we want to relate to. However, last November, it was reported by Al-Jazeera America, that Peyton Manning had shipments of HGH, sent to his house. Now, obviously Peyton Manning has denied these allegations, but the fact is, whether true or false, these allegations have permanently damaged Peyton Manning's reputation. But should they have? 

I would argue, no, they shouldn't of. Manning potentially taking HGH to recover from a serious injury, is a perfectly ethical use of HGH. By using HGH, he extended his career, made money, better cemented his legacy, broke records and had a healthy recovery from a very serious injury, with no negative side effects. But this doesn't stop people from calling Manning a cheater, despite the fact he made a choice all most of us would have made. 

So is HGH something that should be legal and unregulated? No. HGH is something that can be used to keep our athletes healthier with some simple regulations. The Peyton Manning use of HGH is something that can be very effective, take it when injured to recover from injury, and then when you no longer need it stop. Also, HGH has less side effects than some of the painkillers allowed in sports.
