Have you ever sensed that you should be performing better at an activity than you already are? Many athletes are challenged by the same situation and lean toward taking drugs that are banned by their specific sports league as a result. Consequences are as extreme as being suspended from the sports league that the athlete participates in and facing time in jail. Performance-enhancing drug (PED) use is a huge problem faced by sports leagues all around the globe and there has yet to be a solution that effectively establishes the legality of performance-enhancing drugs in sports. There are valid arguments as to why performance enhancing drugs should and should not be allowed in sports. Throughout my essay I will argue why performance-enhancing drugs should be prohibited in the global sports world because it is a form of cheating, it creates an unfair atmosphere, they are tremendously unhealthy for the human body, and it creates a poor image for the sports fans.

Cheating has become much more common in professional sports over recent years. Forms of cheating vary from teams stealing their opponent’s plays, to gambling and bribes, to cheating with video, to even just ‘playing dirty’. The most common form of cheating has become performance enhancing drugs. It has become more popular recently because it is much easier now. Steroids for example are accessible for all athletes if they really wanted them today. Steroids are the most common type of performance enhancer. In Robert Moreschi’s article, “Types of Cheating in Sports”, he states “the most prevalent kind of cheating as of 2011 is the use of performance-enhancing drugs such as steroids.” Many professional athletic careers have been destroyed due to performance-enhancing drug (steroids) use such as Lance Armstrong, Alex Rodriguez, and Barry Bonds’.  The drugs themselves didn’t ruin the player’s careers, so what did? Was it the player’s health or other factors?

To begin, the dream of playing a professional sport begins at a very young age. Every professional athlete’s dream of playing the sport they love began somewhere. There has been a huge increase in the number of youth athletes over the past two to three decades. “It is estimated that more than 30 million children and adolescents are participating in organized sports today (Christopher Dandoy).” With the huge increase in youth athletics comes an increase in competition because people want to succeed in the sports they love. With the increase in competition comes people willing to try out new things to make themselves more competitive to their opponents and with this comes people willing to try performance-enhancing drugs. This is the start to bad habits that are very hard to overcome and be liberated. Players usually continue these habits because they realize that they have an extremely low risk of getting in trouble at the young age they are at.  Drug testing usually isn’t conducted until a player reaches the NCAA level. At this level the testing is nowhere as extreme as at the professional level.

As easy as it seems, drug testing in sports is rather difficult and as time goes on it will only become more difficult because there are more loopholes around the testing system being created every day. In succession to an athlete choosing to start doping is the extremely low risk of being caught. Athletes are able to find substances that are not banned by their sport leagues but have the same effects as drugs that are banned because they are considered performance-enhancers. Another example of a loophole around the drug testing system are Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUE). A TUE is “an agreement between an athlete and the WADA (World Anti-Doping Association) that allows the athlete to use a prohibited substance solely for the purpose of treating a legitimate medical condition (Ehecatl Rivera-Pinedo).” They are handed out like candy to a kindergarten class but to professional athletes. “The number of MLB players requesting therapeutic use exemptions for attention deficit disorder (ADD) increased from 28 in 2006 to 103 in 2007, the year after the MLB banned amphetamines (Drug Use in Sports).” A player could claim they have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and they could very likely be given a TUE. Therapeutic Use Exemptions became very popular around the time of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. According to an article from CNN, 234 TUE’s were approved by the Australian Sports Drug Medical Advisory Committee for use of banned substances in the year leading up to the Olympics. Clearly this number should be reduced because too many are being given to athletes for their so called ‘medical’ issues. 

Nonetheless drug testing an athlete is not done the way it should be in sports. In some sports athletes are either told well in advance when their test will be. Also, tests are not conducted frequently enough to catch a player that is illegally doping because it gives them time to get their body as clean as possible before the test. In this case players are likely never going to be caught because some of the types of steroid being taken by athletes are out of their system one day after consuming the substance. Therefore, testing for PED’s should become stricter so the number of cheaters will shrink. There are multiple ways to make testing’s stricter. There could be multiple additions made such as increased security to enforce total protocol, conducting drug tests more frequently, and increasing the range of drugs that are tested for. Funding for drug tests could be covered through charity events run by leagues such as the NBA, NFL, or MLB. 

Another remarkably large reason performance-enhancing drugs should be prohibited in professional sports is because doping creates a terrible image of an athlete to a fan. Fans wait all year just to watch their favorite player perform. Take for instance Barry Bonds, a professional baseball player who played in the MLB for 22 years and hit the most homeruns in MLB history. His career was with the Pittsburgh Pirates and the San Francisco Giants.  He was accused of doping throughout his career but wasn’t found guilty of steroid use until his career concluded. One could see why a player would choose to illegally dope because there is a lot of money on the line and a second could be the difference between winning and losing. There are still debates to this day stating Bonds should be stripped of his homerun king title. Not only is this shattering to Bonds’ career but say to a teenager who grew up admiring Barry Bonds as their favorite baseball player. After they hear about this they are likely going to think their hero is a criminal and let the memories that they have of them fade over the years. However, if great players such as Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, and Lance Armstrong are participating in illegal doping then why should it not be considered legal? Well these players likely achieved the level of play that they finished their careers at because of the steroids and other drugs they were taking at the time. They could have been taking these drugs for their entire careers but they only got caught at the end so that is the only legitimate time frame that cheating was present. 

There is an argument as to why performance-enhancing drugs should be legal in sports. The argument is players should be able to participate in this activity whether they choose to or not is up to them but they still have the option. They believe this would create a fair atmosphere because it allows the players to make the decision if they want to participate in doping or not. It would give them the idea that their competitors are doping so why shouldn’t they? Well, they shouldn’t participate in doping because youth make their decisions based on their peers and role models. “Twenty percent of high school students said that their decision to use anabolic steroids was influenced by professional athletes and nearly fifty percent said that the professional athletes influenced their friends’ decisions to use anabolic steroids (Drug Use in Sports).” Therefore, there is a strong correlation between youth following in the footsteps of their hero’s on the field, court, track, or other scene of athletic competition. In what other ways do professional athletes consuming illegal substances affect youth athletes?

A significant reason why steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs should remain banned in pro sports are the health risks that go along with taking these drugs. “The negative effects these drugs can have on one’s body make USADA’s mission paramount as to why no athlete should ever have to consider performance enhancing drug use to succeed in sport (Effects of PEDs).” Yes, performance-enhancers will help an athlete get bigger, faster, and stronger but in the long run “more serious effects include heart and liver damage, and an increased risk of blood clots (Join Together Staff).” The risks of the newer drugs being taken are not even known and won’t be known until they are studied in the future. Mixing drugs and sports affect your bodies breathing, heart rate, muscles, concentration, senses, and behavior all in abnormal ways. However, athletes are willing to be able to be better than their opponents by putting substances in their body that they have no clue how their body will react to it. Acts like these make it unethical and therefore should be forbidden. Professional athletes have more medical support and much easier access to trainers than the open public does. This poses much greater threats to the public because pro athletes make it seem completely normal to try PED’s, creating a terrible image for the public.

Consequences an athlete is faced with when caught illegally doping varies significantly between unique sports leagues. The consequences of doping can include fines, publication of your rule violation, a ban from all sporting events in the future, a disqualification of the season or year that you are in, and stripping of statistics, records, or awards. In addition to these possible outcomes, the player/athlete is likely to get some sort of media attention that will destroy their reputation in the long run. First time offenders generally don’t face consequences to the same extreme as second or third time offenders. These are the consequences that make the player feel more stressed because it leaves more pressure on their family and friends. Lance Armstrong stated “I have been dealing with claims that I cheated and had an unfair advantage in winning my seven Tours since 1999. The toll this has taken on my family and my work for our foundation and on men leads me to where I am today – finished with this nonsense (Armstrong)” in a press conference related to how he was accused of taking PED’s. As stressful as an athlete’s life can be, adding drug charges makes it much more stressful as well as taking a huge financial toll on Armstrong. As a result, he was stripped of all his titles and banned from cycling for life. 

  The Russian Doping Scandal of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi was arguably one of the largest doping scandals in sports history. It was one in which the government was found ordering their athletes to consume performance-enhancers in various ways such as by drinking cocktails to make them perform better. The cheating as ordered by the government and therefore the entire population of Russian athletes got punished. The evidence showed that the performance-enhancers were mixed in with cocktails and the urine samples were attempted to be covered up but failed. As a result, Russian athletes would not be allowed to participate in the 2016 summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Russian executives recently are cooperating with officials for the first time since being accused of these acts. “The officials however continue to reject the accusation that the doping program was state sponsored (Ruiz).” (Ruiz)This was a huge step in the fight against performance enhancing drugs because it showed that the testing process does work. If Russian athletes would have been able to get away with this, they would have a huge advantage compared to other athletes around the world – another example of why performance-enhancing drugs should remain illegal in the sports world. 

My research question of are PED’s good for the human body and should they be accepted in professional sports is arguable because some critics say that athletes should be able to do whatever they would like with their body and others say it is a form of cheating. Personally, I believe they should not be allowed in sports solely because it is unfair to the other athletes. On top of that, it is not right to be able to take drugs to make you better at a sport. Clearly the athlete is capable of being a “professional” so why do they have to take drugs to make themselves feel like they are doing something right. The regulations on these drugs should be enforced more heavily than they are now and all drugs should be banned from professional sports.

In conclusion, performance-enhancing drugs should not be tolerated in any sporting even for multiple reasons. First, because it not only creates a terrible reputation for the player that was accused of doing the drug but for the player’s coaches and teammates as well. This has been seen through various examples such as Also, when a player takes such substances it creates an unfair atmosphere for the player and the player’s opponent. The last main reasons why performance-enhancing drugs should not be accepted in the professional sports world is because a huge form of cheating which needs to be stopped and the human body takes a huge toll on itself when these drugs are put into it. There are arguments that support why performance enhancing drugs should be legal in sports but the reasons are not as well supported as the other side of the argument. Take for example Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, and Lance Armstrong for example. Performance enhancing drugs destroyed their careers which resulted in them being stripped of their titles. 
