Blog #10

Should performance enhancing drugs be allowed in professional athletics? The vast majority of people would say that these drugs should be prohibited.  I would like to try and argue the opposite.  Let it be known, however, that I do not personally use or encourage the use of these drugs.  I simply argue that others ought to be allowed to use them at their own discretion. 

Argument for allowed use of performance enhancing drug:

-Freedom of choice.  People are allowed to smoke cigarrettes even though it is dangerous to their health, why can’t people use steroids?

-Intense strenuous work outs can cause long term damage to joints and ligiments etc... yet athletes must submit to these routines in order to be able to compete with other athletes.  This is the same principle for steroids. The only way that steroids can become an unfair advantage is if it is prohibited and those disobediant athletes use them anyway without getting caught.  If they were not prohibited then the playing field would be leveled. 

-Remember how fun it was to watch Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Mcgwire? All three of these famous basball players were big hitters.  They broke records and generated extreme peaks in spectatorship for the MLB. Yet they are ignored in the history of baseball.  their names are not even mentioned in the most famous baseball history museums. 

Argument against performance enhancing drugs:

-The overall health of our athletes is already poor due to the stresses involved in competing at such high levels of competition.  Why would we shorten their lives further?  We already have super humans playing our sports why do we need gladiators? 

-Athletes do not take these drugs to level the playing field instead they take them to get an advantage on the other athletes.

-A good majority of athletes are healthy and their personalities are to be healthy.  If all the sudden they cannot compete without having to use steroids they would now be forced either to take steroids or lose. This is not fair by any means.

I have a lot more research to do obviously but that’s the basics!!