When Lance Armstrong was banned from competing in professional races for life for doping, all of his achievements all the way back to 1998 were nullified. If the Tour de France officials were to give his medal for the 2005 Tour to the next person in line who did not dope or use illegal substances, the winner would be Jens Voigt, a German racer who came in 28th place. It seems that everyone in professional sports dopes; it has become the norm. Fifty years ago, if a baseball player could constantly hit the balls out of the park, everyone thought of him as a hard-working athlete. Now, people would claim he used steroids without taking one look at him. It could be argued that society is to blame. Fans of sports need something new all the time. Whether it is something as big as a biker who overcame cancer to win the Tour de France seven consecutive times, or something as little as an underdog comeback in a regular season game. When it comes to spectating these events, fans have made it clear: entertainment is the priority. That is how the silly in game novelties like “Kiss Cam” and “Dance Cam” originated.  Doping and steroid use is another way to make the game exciting. Should recreational use of performance enhancing drugs be allowed for athletes?

Before anyone voices, or even forms, an opinion about the subject at hand, it is necessary to research and educate yourself on steroids as much as possible; the more someone knows, the easier he can make an opinion. Because steroids are so taboo, there are a lot of people who know very little about what they actually are or what they do. First, here is a debunked rumor: “steroids give you stomach ulcers.” A reputable source by Guslandi and Tittobello named Steroid Ulcers: a myth revisited debunks the misconception that use of steroids will lead to stomach ulcers, and demonstrates that that phenomenon is dependent upon the coexisting use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. This implies that the use of steroids has its benefits and often the qualms people cite against it are unfounded, and the benefits of steroids perhaps outweigh the negatives.

Now, to what steroids actually are. Simply put, anabolic steroids promote muscle growth. Not only does that make it easier to get your summer body ready in less time, it also allows your muscles to grow larger than biology might otherwise allow. When used legally, this is a great aid for victims of diseases that eat away at your muscles, and is also an amazing solution for people who need surgery (liver/kidney failure, etc.) but might be too weak in their sickness to survive going onto the table. Ever since the 1970s, substance abuse was found in many sports, calling for a way to screen people and ban them from playing (this is when the anti-doping administration began requiring athletes to present their urine for substance testing). Since then, the technology has only gotten better, and we are able to find perpetrators even long after they are gone – Lance Armstrong’s case is the perfect example. However, the athletes cheating are also improving on their own. They are finding different ways to dope and different substances to abuse. One article written for the Economist does a good job in showing a specific drug that was not previously known that had been used by athletes competing under the USA Track and Field; the article discusses how its use not only compromises the level playing field that is ensured by a world of sports without drugging, but also a lack of trust of the athletes who did choose to take a new drug. While a level playing field would be nice in theory, it is nearly impossible to practice that in real life events. The playing field cannot ever be level. It has been taught from such an early age that everyone is unique, and that everyone excels at some things and fails at others. Some people have an abundance of wealth; they can afford the highest quality trainers and equipment, as well as all the (legal) nutritional supplements available. Some people were born into a family who might not be as wealthy, but has connections to get onto a team at a good school and eventually maybe onto a professional team as well. Another athlete might not have been born with the greatest athleticism, but received an amazing work ethic – being able to carry themselves through with all the hard work they put into chasing their dream of being an athlete. And some people were simply born better; they were born with an incredible athletic prowess. They hardly work, eat unhealthy food, yet still are able to be their class’s top athlete. Hell, biology is even working against some people. There is a “limit” to how big each and every person’s muscles can get, regardless of how much you work out, how much Muscle MilkTM you drink, or how many Fiber One Protein Power BarsTM you can shovel down your throat. Any number of combined traits can go into a single person. The playing field is not level… so there are three options available. First, keep the ban on anabolic steroids, but also ban every other protein based substance and high quality training device. Keep the athletes in an enclosed community and monitor their food, drink, sleep, and training. This will keep the playing fields as barebones as possible – the only edge they have on each other is the random ones assigned at birth via genetics (not much we are able to do about that one). The second option is to keep things exactly the same. The ban on steroids persists, but everyone is free to train legally however they would like. The argument “steroids are banned to keep the playing fields level” would need to be thrown out of course. There also would still be an arms race between the drug peddlers and the officials keeping them out of the game, but at least there would be no enabling of dangerous drugs and methods of cheating. The final option is to remove the abolition of steroids. This option follows the same logic as an argument about the legalization of any drug: it can be monitored for safety, it can raise revenue (particularly helpful for the women’s sports who make less than that of the men’s), and it actually levels the playing field more than any other option. If two athletes are competing, and there is about a 10 pound difference between the maximum muscle growth given to the two of them at birth, how can those 10 pounds be watered down so that the differences in pure strength and speed are lessened? Everything must be increased (e.g. if one athlete can lift 100 pounds while his opponent can only lift 90 pounds - that difference is 10 percent. If they both take steroids and now the first athlete can lift 200 while the second only can lift 190, the 10 pounds only make up 5 percent, making them worth less than before. In summation, an X pound difference at 100 pounds is twice that of an X pound difference at 200 pounds, so the logical way to reduce the gap in athletes is to pump them full of ‘roids). 

To look even deeper to answer the question of making doping legal we have to ask a very basic question. Why do people use steroids? This might come across as a silly question, but to cover all the bases, it is important to look through all the lenses, including motive. It should not be surprising to know that the main reason people (should) take steroids is for health benefits. For example, a study was conducted to see if the addition of antivirals to steroids would help give victims of Idiopathic Facial Paralysis (also known as Bell’s Palsy) more strength in their facial muscles. Because Bell’s Palsy is a reaction where muscles weaken in the face (causing part or half of one’s face to droop), it was the perfect candidate for a steroid trial. Even though this trial, the addition of antivirals to steroids, did not assist in the recovery of the patients, “In this meta-analysis, antivirals did not provide an added benefit in achieving at least partial facial muscle recovery compared with steroids alone in patients with Bell’s Palsy” (Quant 685), it is a good example of the real intention for steroids (medicinal). Okay, so the question should be asked a little more carefully: why do people use steroids recreationally? This answer might be a little more unexpected: self-image. Rebecca Evans, the social services and public health minister of Wales, spoke out on the issue, saying steroids were “not just a problem in sport – it is a wider societal issue…” and goes on to say, “[t]here are a worrying number of young people, especially men, purchasing and taking illicit substances for image reasons and some then participating in community sport” (Steroid Use for Image Reasons 'worrying', Says Minister).  In fact, even when we only look at athletes uses steroids to gain an advantage while playing sports, much of the use is at a lower level. While the media and researchers focus on professional athletes, banned substances are also often “used by US cyclists at lower levels of the sport, necessitating a broader view of the patterns and motivations of substance use within the sport” (Henning). The more information is presented about steroids and doping, the more obvious it is that abusing the drugs has very little to do with fame and fortune for professional athletes. Jeff Mitchell, a psychologist who has published pieces in human studies, makes a note of this in his work, “Living a Lie: Self-Deception, Habit, and Social Roles.” Mitchell is focused primarily on the use of steroids as an unfair advantage in what is an otherwise skills based playing field, and looks at the psychology behind that choice. Ultimately, he is not in favor of the use of drugs, but more so for the mental and interpersonal consequences and not as much for the psychological medial concerns most often cited. Mitchell himself is an intellectual man and in the argument of “nature vs. nurture” seems to fall on the team of the latter, which could offer some bias, as he seems to value the choices made by humans perhaps more strongly than his colleagues would. He offers an argument that addresses the consequences and effects of steroid use beyond the normal physical ones, and therefore is incredibly valuable in making a decision on its legality. The original source is not specific to the world of athletes; but Jeff Mitchell’s central argument is about self-deception, which certainly ties into the reasoning behind why athletes decide to use steroids and dope. In fact, while making his arguments, the examples he gives are almost exclusively about steroid use and the great lengths athletes go to rationalize their decision. So much so, in fact, that after the steroid induced death of shot-putter Reichenbach (the first man in the Olympic games to be banned for substance abuse), his fans barely knew about his problem, “even after Reichenbach's death, his fellow-travelers at the gym he had run were still maintaining that the deceased had only used steroids sparingly, and was undoubtedly the deceased had only used steroids sparingly, and was undoubtedly the victim of mononucleosis infection which had attacked his heart” (Mitchell 154).  He cites John Dewey’s Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology for his insight in human behavior. This book is clearly more about the psychology of humans in general, but still relates to the reasons why athletes decide to dope. It mentions the perceived supremacy that we as humans have for ourselves, and how it is wrong to create conditions to give ourselves a leg up, “To take advantage of conditions after they have come into existence is one thing; to create them for the sake of an advantage to accrue is quite another thing” (Dewey 3).

On the other side of the spectrum lies Frank Frisch, a Chapman University professor in California. Frisch argues in his Tedx Talk at Chapman University that the use of steroids allows humans to reach fuller potential and achieve more impressive feats, which is ultimately what many other medications do. He also considers them a natural drug and is therefore on the side that they should be legalized, at least partially. Dr. Frisch is a professor of biology and is an expert in anatomy and physiology, and therefore is qualified to give his opinion as he certainly has reasonable information backing his ideas.

When it comes to the issue of legalization of steroids, there are many options besides the simple black and white of illegal versus legal. In present day America, indeed, there is a range of situations wherein steroids are legally used and often encouraged, like the case of Bell’s Palsy. There are also areas where it is illegal, like a teen using it to bulk up and attract more mates, and times when it is seen as more of a taboo or restriction for the sake of equalizing, like in sports. The fact that one drug has so many uses and such a range of situations wherein its use is so differently regulated forces one to wonder if it should be completely legalized, or if it should be legalized more than it is now. There are certainly those on either side of the debate who have medically supported arguments, but the issue is that many lives have been augmented and many hurt by steroids. Given much of the evidence collected, it seems the most reasonable and beneficial to society that steroids be legalized but held in a state of control. This state of control perhaps ought to be a more lenient one than that currently in place, and perhaps the use of steroids could make its way into such sporting events as running, where science implies humans have already evolved to compete at their peak without the use of performance enhancing drugs. In a world where marijuana, especially medical marijuana, is becoming increasingly accepted, it seems as though medical steroids, although ones less controlled than at present, might be on the horizon and with good reason. Since this is an argument located somewhere in the middle of the extreme spectrum of “no one should access steroids” to “it should be available in the checkout counter next to the Chapstick in little travel sized tubes,” there are several sources for either side of the debate in order to give a broader view of the pros and cons. There are also more specialized articles that address the specifics wherein steroids certainly ought to be used and certainly ought to be banned, and in this way the middle ground will be struck.
