Millions of people tune into the Carolina Panthers game each week to watch one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, Cam Newton, play. On the outside we see this beast of a man who can never get injured and is inferior to the others. But what do we miss behind closed doors? Of course it’s always nice to believe nothing illegal is actually happening, we can never find out for sure until random reports break out about PED use, which is the most common or stimulants and hormone injections which is a close second. Doping and unnecessary methods of healing players is ultimately wrong because it hurts the athlete from a health standpoint, it enhances individual performance and also violates the spirit of the sport.
So what is doping? Doping basically means athletes taking illegal substances to make their performance better. So the athlete just wants to play better, what’s the big deal? The big deal is the health risk that these players put on their bodies every time they take these banned substances. The most common are androgenic agents like anabolic steroids (Bowman). These allow athletes to train harder and build more muscle. But they can lead to increased aggression and kidney damage (Bowman). On top of that, other side effects include baldness, low sperm count in men and increased facial hair along with a deepening voice in women. As of right now you’re probably thinking, “low risk, high reward” right? That’s also wrong because these stimulants that players take hide fatigue by increasing your heart rate and blood flow and in extreme cases, it can lead to heart failure for the athlete.
As far as rushing players back to the field quicker, there’s also drugs for that, and believe it or not, the team physicians and doctors actually give these drugs to the players to get them back onto the field faster. These drugs are called narcotic analgesics and cannabinoids. They are specifically used to mask pain that is usually caused by injury and in the long run these drugs normally make the players injury worse. The least common type of doping is called blood doping (“Getting Back in the Game: Treating Injuries with Human Growth Hormone”). Blood doping is where blood is removed from the body and injected back in to boost oxygen levels (“Getting Back in the Game: Treating Injuries with Human Growth Hormone”). This practice is banned and it can lead to kidney and heart failure.
But why are athletes still using these illegal drugs if there’s all these health risks? The money. When athletes are injured (particularly high profile athletes), they can lose out on a huge amount of money. Moreover, their sponsors and teams can be at risk of losing and/or wasting potentially millions of dollars. We’ve seen this happen time and time again, but nothing greater than that of Derrick Rose.
Derrick Rose is an NBA MVP player who has been in the news over the past few years suffering from various major injuries. According to Forbes, in 2014 he was ranked the 9th highest paid athlete in the world with a combined income (salary and endorsements) of just over $34 million, yet he missed 103 games in that season and the one preceding it (Fairchild). Owners and sponsors are not getting value and a return on their investment on players sitting in the press box, while fans of the teams pay a great deal of money to go to the games and are often unable to see their favorite players (Fairchild). A lot of people agree that HGH should be allowed in sports because players like Derrick Rose have trained their whole lives to getting into the NBA and doing well that it sucks for him to almost lose everything he had because of a few unfortunate knee injuries.
Another prolonging debate between sports and doping is the unfair advantage brought to the game by the so called drug. Athletes don’t take the drug to level the playing field, they take it to gain an advantage. If doping was actually allowed, then these players would start to take more than just their common 10 grams or 10 cc’s (“Drugs in Sports”). In the long run, we would have a bunch of genetic mutant gladiators running around. Make sure you realize that the sole reason for using HGH and other illegal substances in sports is just for the sole reason of players wanting to be the best that they can be (“Drugs in Sports”).
Lance Armstrong was accused of using performance enhancement drugs for a long period of time. He admitted using testosterone, erythropoietin, cortisone, human growth hormones and more. He was stripped of all seven Tour de France titles and his Olympic bronze medal he won in 2000. Marion Jones, the fastest runner in the world, admitted using clean steroids. (Steroids that can't be detected on a drug test.) She then lied twice saying she never used performance enhancement drugs. She later plead guilty and was stripped of all titles she won in the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000 (“Drugs in Sports”). She served six months in jail and was banned from competing in the Olympics for two years. When athletes use performance enhancement drugs, it cheats the other fair playing competitors. If an athlete wins a title, and then is later caught cheating from using drugs, the second place competitor should then be awarded first place.
There’s also been cases where an unfair advantage has been found a little hazy. Three weeks prior to the 2012 summer Olympics in London, many wondered whether Oscar Pistorius should be able to compete due to an unfair advantage. The unfair advantage was Oscar’s two prosthetic legs, that other competitors said gave him an extra bounce in his step. The question seems outrageous. How could a man with prosthetic leg have an unfair advantage over natural athletes? This is where we should draw the line and put it in writing as to what unfair advantages actually are.
David Fairchild, PhD and Professor of Philosophy at Indiana University puts it best when he says, “The use of performance enhancers is cheating because it violates constitutive rules of the activity. Since such use is cheating, it is wrong and we should expect the disqualification of competitors who are caught doping. This conclusion is established through a simple and straightforward argument. Cheating is the deliberate, knowing, and voluntary violation of certain constitutive rules in order to gain a competitive advantage. Since the violation is knowing, the attempt to gain an advantage is illegitimate and unethical, and the advantage sought is thus unfair. The knowing and voluntary use of proscribed substances is an attempt to gain such an unfair advantage. Some specified performance enhancers, anabolic steroids for example, are listed as proscribed substances in certain sports. The deliberate use of steroids is thus an illegitimate attempt to gain an unfair advantage. We conclude that their use is cheating.” (Fairchild)
Why should the average person care about illegal use of drugs in sports? Because it affects you too. There are minor-leaguers, gym rats and high school athletes hoping to follow in the footsteps of their favorite players (Kuriloff). No present study tracks the economic costs specifically associated with steroid abuse. “Unfortunately, WADA does not hold such information,” said Marie-Claude Asselin, a spokeswoman for the World Anti-Doping Agency. But comparing several pieces of existing government research provides a decidedly nonscientific sketch of what society's up against (Kuriloff). The National Survey on Drug Use and Health estimates 19.5 million Americans use illicit drugs each month. A study by the National Office of Drug Control Policy, conducted between 1992 and 1998, found that such illegal drug use cost the United States more than $143 billion each year for expenses related to health care, law enforcement, lost productivity and treatment, among other things (Kuriloff). Experts estimate that there are between 1 million and 3 million illegal steroid users roaming America's gyms and locker rooms, and that their share of the bill, even using conservative figures, stands at $7.4 billion annually.
Health care is another reason why we should car. Illegal drug abuse in general cost the health care system about $15 billion per year, a figure that takes into account everything from the price of hospital stays to rising insurance expenses (Kuriloff). Steroid abuse might not cause more health problems per user than, say, cocaine and heroin addiction, but the deaths of admitted steroid users such as Ken Caminiti suggest the consequences might be just as dire (Kuriloff).
If there are all these problems, why are athletes still using drugs? The money. Muscle mass and strength are two big components of anabolic steroids and they are both pretty much a necessity when it comes to sports. Time and time again, we the people have seen these ridiculous contracts given to the best players on the planet. Just recently Miami Marlins star Giancarlo Stanton agreed to a $325-million-dollar deal to hit fourth and play right field for the next decade. Not saying he has or hasn’t taken steroids, that isn’t a sure thing yet, but the money he’s going to make is for sure a real thing. That lengthy contract with the huge price tag on its head is what all players want, and some will go to the full extent as to breaking league rules to get it.
Free agent Jhonny Peralta has signed a 4-year, $52 million contract with the St. Louis Cardinals according to Jim Bowden of ESPN (Gaines). Peralta's new contract shows there is little deterrent to cheating in baseball as he becomes the latest baseball player to cash-in with a huge contract after being suspended for using performance-enhancing drugs. Peralta was suspended 50 games last season as part of Major League Baseball's investigation into the Biogenesis clinic. His suspension costed him approximately $1.8 million and no he will make an average of $13 million a year (Gaines). The good news is that other players are not happy which could lead to changes in the drug program and stiffer penalties.
David Aardsma, a pitcher tweeted “Apparently getting suspended for PED’s (steroids) means you get a raise. What’s stopping anyone from doing it? #weneedtomakeachange.” It’s apparent that steroid use is a problem in many sports but it is a sign of hope that some players are on the train to help stop it before it becomes too late.
To conclude, doping and unorthodox methods of rushing players back to the field is unjustifiable and should be deemed illegal. Doping and unnecessary methods of healing players is ultimately wrong because it hurts the athlete from a health standpoint, it enhances individual performance and also violates the spirit of the sport. Through my paper I’ve made multiple points as to why we need to come to an end with these drugs and come to our senses that they are actually worse for us than most people actually think. I showed both sides of the table to see both ways to look at the topic and I believe that we need to get rid of these unjust practices and makes the sports that we love to watch and partake in fair again.