Illegal drug use has a harmful effect on our nation’s economy and overall health, but in the sports arena, the question is raised about who is responsible for regulating drug use, and whether professional leagues have a responsibility to help in regulating drug use among participating athletes. Because drug use has harmful side effects, because using drugs to enhance performance is unfair, and because professional athletes have the potential to influence young people's decisions professional sport leagues should better regulate drug use among the athletes that represent their league.
Although banned by professional sports leagues, the use of anabolic steroids may be the most common drug used by professional athletes. Anabolic steroids are used to enhance performance but have serious and sometimes life threatening side effects. Common side effects of anabolic steroid use are male feminization and female masculinization, clotting disorders, liver damage, and heart attacks and strokes. When taken by adolescents, steroid use causes stunting of the growth. Steroid use also has psychological side effects too, including depression, anxiety, and severe aggression, sometimes referred to as “roid rage.” Steroid use isn’t the only drug concern in professional sports. Lomas Brown, a former offensive tackle who spent 18 seasons in the National Football League, claims that at least fifty percent of professional athletes smoke marijuana. Side effects of marijuana use include memory problems, anxiety, loss of muscle activity, increased heart rate, breathing problems, and an increased risk of cancer.
Professional leagues have a responsibility for promoting good health among their athletes and should adopt practices which cause athletes to steer a...
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...eir current athletes to high standards and not tolerate drug use.
Recently, Major League Baseball began a crackdown on the usage of performance enhancing drugs. This has resulted in new rules in the Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program, administered by the MLB and the MLB Players union. The program requires the most drug tests of any professional sport, more than doubling the number of tests this year from previous years. The new rules increase the length of suspensions for use of performance enhancing drugs. I believe the increased testing and longer suspensions will cause more athletes to avoid drug use, which will help protect athletes from the harmful effects of drugs, help maintain the integrity of professional athletics, and help deter young athletes from experimenting with drugs. The MLB has set a good example for other professional leagues to follow.
Players since the beginning of baseball have used some type of drug to enhance their game such as in 1889 Pud Galvin ingested monkey testosterone and Grover Cleveland Alexander used banned alcohol to enhance his game (Chafets). This should prove that baseball will never fully stop the use of PEDs, they can only cover up the ones that have. As Zev Chafets puts it “Chemical enhancement won’t kill the game; it is the cover-up that could be fatal” (Chafets). This cover up will ultimately hurt the game of baseball so the league should give the players the opportunity to use the PEDs, and if they choose not to then that is their decision ...
Taylor, Hopkins. Substance abuse issues to Offending Athletes. Miami: Beachwood Press, pages 35-37. 2009. Print.
In American high schools across the country, many people buy, sell, and use drugs. In addition, these people influence everyone around them. On these campuses, some of the people influenced by this illegal activity are sports players. One of the sports most affected is baseball. Doping in baseball is wrong because it ruins baseball's reputation, it negatively influences the athlete's health, and the drugs are bad for young people who hold up athletes as role models.
Baseball has always been known as “America’s Favorite Pastime”. Over the past decade, the game America knows and loves has been exposed as a game full of cheaters. Major League Baseball(MLB) has had over one hundred players test positive for performance-enhancing substances over the past fifteen years. Performance-enhancing substances increase a player’s ability to produce better stats to help his salary. The past fifteen years of baseball have contained dirty play by some of the best players to ever play the sport. Kids all over America look at these athletes as role models. The money hungry players proceed to send a terrible message to fans of the game by taking drugs to succeed. After commissioner Bud Selig cracked down on steroid use in 2005, several baseball player’s legacies have been ruined due to steroid allegations. Players are even being charged with perjury by lying to congress over steroid use to protect their reputation. Steroids in baseball need to stop immediately before the game is ruined. Steroids are not fair to the players who play the game the way it’s supposed to be played, without syringes. Steroids are ruining the fairness of the game of baseball and the credibility of the athletes participating. These days, if someone hits fifty home runs in a season, everyone thinks they are on the “juice”. “The Steroid Era” and Bud Selig have ruined baseball’s image as a clean and fair game.
The current discipline is not enough to quell the steroid problem in the MLB; especially since the MLB’s policy is different compared to other pro sports without PED problems. The National Hockey League (NHL), instituted their performance enhancing drug policy in 2005, the last major pro sport to do so. Yet, the NHL took a strong stance right away. The first positive leads to a 20 game suspension, or about ¼ the season. The next positive results in a 60 game suspension, or about ¾ of a season, and similar to the MLB, a third positive leads to a lifetime ban (NHL). The distinguishing factor between the two policies is that in the NHL if you test positive, you automatically are enrolled into their League Substance Abuse/Behavioral Health Program for evaluation, education and possible treatment (NHL). The NHL created this program to help avoid second time offenders. By educating the athletes on the effects of drugs, and treating addiction when necessary, the players are graced with an expansive support network and receive substantial help. The National Basketball Association (NBA), has a similar support network and substance abuse program for those caught using PEDs. Any player that enters the program must accept anything ordered by the medical director. If the NBA player does not comply with the program requirements it can lead to dismissal from the NBA, even if it was the player’s first positive test (NBA). By forcing the players to be educated about the health effects, they come to understand that consequences outweigh the advantages. The MLB needs to introduce a PED prevention program, which rookies are required to attend, and where players would learn about the adverse effects of drug use. Maybe then, the amount of positive tests could diminish to the levels seen in the NHL and NBA. Since the NHL’s policy was established in 2005 only 3 players have been caught using PEDs
We face the issue that players are not motivated to try hard, have an alternative option that puts a reoccurring substance in their body. Young adolescents should focus more on getting bodies into shape and ready for the sport they are pursuing. While upcoming stars should be making a name for them showing that without drugs can play my best and be the best too. But performance enhancing drugs have played a major role in sports, especially baseball. The usage of the drug has players performing over the top of others who work equally and mentally as hard. Enacting the new system will catch the players who are cheating in game of baseball with a blood test that checks if a player is enhancing their performance in the...
The problems with performance enhancing drugs are that they give the user unfair advantages over other athletes and come with many health risks such as baldness. Steroid use can result in very substantial legal consequences and can ruin the user’s reputation. There are many alternatives to steroids but not all of them are safe. Different organizations have different rules on steroids, but in most cases, the user can get suspended, fined, or even both. Various types of steroids can have various short-term or long-term side effects. There are several types of steroids, the most popular ones being anabolic steroids. Historically, steroids have been around for many years, but the debate surrounding them started recently, more specifically a few decades ago. An important term to know is anabolic steroids which are made to work with the user’s muscle mass. Another term to know is clarified by Ida Walker, author of the book, Steroids: Pumped Up and Dangerous, published by Mason Crest Publishers in 2008, defines, peliosis hepatis is a rare condition in which cysts filled with blood form in the liver, if the cysts were to pop then internal bleeding would occur. A positive argument about steroids is stated by Adrianne Blue, author of the essay, “Performance Enhancing Drugs Should Be Legal,” published in the book Athletes and Drug Use, published in 2009, disputes, “Blue concludes that legalizing performance- enhancing drugs can protect athletes from dangerously abusing them.” The utilization of performance enhancing drugs has left a giant scar on sports and has compromised the achievements of many athletes; therefore, they are transforming the sports world into a drug filled world.
Since at least the 1980’s performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) have been a major challenge in the world of Major League Baseball, and past trends indicate they will continue to pose an ongoing problem. A number of the most prominent and accomplished professional baseball players, such as Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi, Roger Clemens, are also the most famous examples of baseball players who have broken longstanding records, attracted countless numbers of fans, and allegedly have taken performance-enhancing drugs. Athletes who have been caught using steroids in order to increase and better their performance rates have been suspended, fined and traded from the teams on which they once played. Despite the punitive actions taken against them by the League and lawmakers, players continue to use performance-enhancing drugs and likely will continue to do so, because the associated athletic effects will draw more fans and bring more money to the individual player and franchise.
The era in sports from the late 90s and into the 2000s has often been nicknamed “The Steroid Age” due to the raging use of anabolic steroids and other PEDs (performance enhancing drugs) by professional athletes. The usage of drugs in sports has never been more prevalent during this time, and many people are making it their goal to put an end to the abuse. Influential athletes such as Lance Armstrong, Alex Rodriguez, and Roger Clemens, who were once held as the highest role models to the American people, now watch as their legacies are tarnished by accusations of drug use. The American population, and lovers of sports everywhere, have followed in astonishment through recent years as many beloved athletes reveal their dark secrets. As organizations such as the USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency) and BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative) attempt to halt the use of PEDs, both the drug users and their high-end suppliers work diligently to avoid detection. The use of performance enhancing drugs in recent years has proven to be cancerous to the honesty and competition of modern sports. Although some strides have been made over the past few decades, the use of steroids is in full swing in Major League Baseball, The dangerous side effects of the drugs are often overlooked and many do not realize the message this sends to the youth. The support for halting the usage of PEDs is in need of attention or professional sports will face the loss of all progress made through the past two decades in its war on steroids.
For decades Major League Baseball has been trying to eliminate performance enhancing drugs, but last year 13 MLB players tested positive. The issue with MLB players seems to be that the punishments they receive is not affecting their decisions on using performance enhancing drugs. MLB players using performance enhancing drugs make themselves local heroes, when they are no-good cheaters who should be banned for life. People think that increased suspensions may reduce the number of players getting caught using performance enhancing drugs, but no punishment schedule seems likely to eradicate PEDs from the game (Tygart). “Those players who have violated the program have created scurrility for vast majority of our players who play the game the right way” (Skillin). MLB players who use performance enhancing drugs should have harsher punishments before playing the game again, in order to increase a safe environment around the game of baseball.
You’ve all seen them, the enormously large muscle-heads at the gym, the participates of the World’s Strongest Man Competition, the amazing offensive tackles, and the lightning fast runners. They were all unnaturally strong, and looked like gods. You tend to obsess over how beautiful their bodies are, how strong they are, or how fast they can run. All you can think about is reaching that level of athletic excellence, and nothing will hold you back. At times like these some people tend to take the quick fit to get closer to their idols, in the form of steroids. But what individuals tend not see is the horrible side effects that accompany the use of these anabolic steroids. These powerful drugs have both positive and negative results from their use. Along with increased strength and size, users of steroids suffer from a wide range of sicknesses such as cancer, shrinkage of testicles, bad acne, hair loss, damage organs, intense mood swings, and impotence.
Abstract: Since the beginning of sports competition, athletes have always looked for some kind of edge over their competitors. They will do whatever it takes to be one of the elite, and that includes injecting supplements into their bodies to make them bigger, stronger, and faster. Steroid use is probably one of the most common drug misuses in sports competition. Athletes found that with anabolic steroids, one could become a better athlete twice as fast. Not until 1975 was the drug first banned from Olympic competition because of the health risks it produced.
While the effects of steroids can seem desirable at first, there are serious side effects. Excessive use can cause a harmful imbalance in the body's normal hormonal balance and body chemistry. Heart attacks, water retention leading to high blood pressure and stroke, and liver and kidney tumors all are possible. Young people may develop and a halting of bone growth. Males may experience shrinking testicles, falling sperm counts, and enlarged prostates. Women frequently show signs of masculinity and may be at higher risk for certain types of and the possibility of birth defects in their children. The psychological effects of steroid use are also alarming: drastic mood swings, inability to sleep, and feelings of hostility. Steroids may also be psychologically addictive. Once started, users, particularly athletes, enjoy the physical "benefits" of increased size, strength, and endurance so much that they are reluctant to stop even when told about the risks. Major athletic competitions, including the Olympics, routinely screen athletes to prevent steroid use.
Many professional athletes have ruined their career from using steroid. A few MLB players are Jose Canseco, Rafael Palmeiro, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, and Roger Clemens. Some of the other athletes are Shawne Merriman a NFL player, Canadian Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson, Floyd Landis an American cyclist, Greek olympians Kostas Kenteris and Ekaterini Thanou, ...
Steroids became an option to athletes in the Olympics and other major sporting events during the 1950’s. But this use of steroids among athletes only became widely apparent when Canadian sprint runner Ben Johnson tested positive for steroid use after winning the gold medal for the one hundred-meter dash during the 1988 Olympics (Francis, 45). Now a skinny fifteen-year-old can just walk down to the local gym and find people who either sell or know how to get in contact with those who sell the drug that will make him envious of his friends. Steroids are an attractive drug. While steroids seem harmless to the unaware user, they can have a risky effect. Most of the time whether the users are new or experienced, they do not know the dangerous consequences steroids can have on their bodies and their minds. Though steroids cause a relatively insignificant number of deaths in our society, the banning of steroids is justified because steroids have a lot of side effects not known to the uninformed user.