Why Performance Enhancing Drugs Should Be Banned in All Levels of Sport

Performance-enhancing drugs have existed within sports for centuries, which have inevitably resulted in impacts on the health of athletes and on the sporting industry. Sport has been directly linked to the use of performance-enhancing agents since the original Olympic Games in Greece, which was a spectacle that took place between the years 776 to 393 BC. Performance-enhancing drugs (PED’s) have become a public issue since their ban in most sports but have continued to be used prevalently, impacting the sporting industry, the physical health and the psychological well-being of athletes who use performance-enhancing drugs. Performance-enhancing drugs have resulted in higher levels of performance by athletes, increasing the entertainment factor in professional levels but has also damaged the ethics of sport. Physical health changes are experienced by users that are both positive and negative, with some changes being permanent and irreversible. From a psychological point of view, the effects of performance-enhancing drugs may be viewed as appropriate in very limited types of situations, however, the consequences of long-term use have been found to be detrimental to the mental health of users. Performance-enhancing substances have been used in sport to improve an athlete’s strength and speed, which increases their overall performance but is consequently harming the essence of sport and are dangerous to the physical and mental health of users and therefore must be banned in all levels of sport. 

Performance-enhancing drugs are used in sport to improve an athletes performance. As elite athletes utilise performance-enhancing drugs, the entertainment factor in watching live sporting events would increase, as it would result in athletes unlocking a new level of potential. There are also cases in which the non-use of performance-enhancing drugs by athletes could mean they are refraining from competing seriously. An extremely competitive sport such as professional bodybuilding requires constant muscle growth by athletes. An athlete that participates in professional bodybuilding has almost no choice but to resort to performance-enhancing substances if they wish to participate competitively. It has been stated that add all citations, “Many involved in bodybuilding competitions believe they cannot compete without using steroids in order to reach what they describe as their potential”. Therefore, in this case, performance-enhancing drugs may be perceived to be necessary. Allowing elite athletes to utilise performance-enhancing drugs could dramatically increase the entertainment in live sporting events such as rugby, basketball, boxing and football. Fost (2005) suggests that the concept that performance-enhancing drugs provide an unfair advantage presents no coherent evidence or argument to support it. He further states, “What is more fair, the use of a team of sports specialists or a simple pill? What is the difference between training at altitude and taking erythropoietin to achieve a similar effect?”. Legalising PED’s in sports may increase the entertainment factor. however, it would result in sports losing its spirit of fairness and becoming a competition to access the best substances; as well as providing negative role models to children and teenagers. For centuries the spirit of sport has evolved around “ethics, fair play and honesty,” (Murofushi, 2014) and legalising steroid use would eradicate these values in sport. Since its introduction in elite level sport, the former president of the world anti-doping agency , Richard Pound, believes that PED’s have been used not to provide fairness to the user, but to provide a physically unfair advantage with the hopes of its use being unknown. Exposure of its unfair nature was first recognised when “the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) became the first ever organisation to prohibit the use of performance-enhancing drugs”. The prohibition made first by the IAAF in 1928 and other organisations afterwards was to ensure that sport would remain as a challenge of talent and skill, along with tests of dedication and character of the athlete. If organisations decide to legalise performance-enhancing drug use, “sporting events would increasingly become tests of rivals’ access to good pharmaceutical technology,” (Dixon, 2008) rather than skill or ability in the sport. If usage of performance-enhancing substances become more prevalent in sporting leagues, the fans and viewers of professional sport would perceive the role of skill replaced by substances and therefore would lose interest in the sport, financially harming sporting leagues and competitions. It is widely accepted that young athletes emulate the elite professionals. Richard Schwab believes that steroid use by professional athletes will result in young athletes assuming that PED’s are safe to use and that it is a part becoming an elite athlete. in order to maintain the classic values of sport and to ensure young athletes do not perceive drug use as normal behaviour, performance-enhancing drug use in sport must be banned.

Performance-enhancing drugs result in physical changes to the body, athletes utilise performance-enhancing drugs to obtain the positive benefits while they may be unaware of the large number of negative effects on their physical health. Performance-enhancing substances provide physical benefits to the user but also introduce risks to physical well-being. Athletes use PED’s in order to utilise its effect of increasing exercise capacity, allowing athletes to withstand excessively large amounts of resistance training as well as cardiovascular exercise resulting in increased lung capacity, overall strength, muscle mass and density. Athletes also utilise the effects of performance-enhancing substances to combat injuries and accelerate the healing process of injuries. In 2004, a group of scientists who remained anonymous selected 12 websites and posted an anonymous survey targeted at PED users. The survey results showed that over 75% of the participants of the survey were non-professional athletes (Evans and Parkinson, 2006). This indicates that the main purpose behind steroid use is for aesthetic benefits. Most people who exercise regularly for prolonged periods of time struggle to achieve the body aesthetics they desire due to genetic disadvantages. Research has shown that muscles require a minimum of 24 hours of resting recovery time in order for the muscle to recuperate to full health. Performance-enhancing drugs allow athletes to shorten this ‘recovery time’ and begin there next exercise regime almost immediately, meaning it will allow professional and amateur athletes to achieve the athletic performance or body they want in a shorter time span. This would grant time to focus on other important aspects of life such as the progress of their studies or their respected career ambitions. However, although the chemicals in PED’s result in changes to the body such as quicker recovery from exercise in the muscle cells, further effects of these substances indicate a large amount of side effects and short term and permanent, irreversible long-term impacts on physical health. The anonymous survey further revealed that, “99.2% or 496/500 participants reported subjective side effects” and “70% (355/500) experienced at least three or more of these complications”. The research has clearly shown that using steroids introduces a large probability of experiencing at least one immediate negative side effect and a very large amount of short-term impacts on health. Short-term physical impacts on men involve changes in glucose concentration, sex hormones, liver enzymes as well as reduced sperm count, impotence and testicular shrinkage in men. As for women, menstrual disorders and the development of male characteristics are commonly experienced after short term use. After a prolonged period of using performance-enhancing substances, both men and women are susceptible to liver toxicity and liver cancer. the range of negative health impacts is alarmingly large. The most disturbing effects are not limited to blood clots, fluid retention, high blood pressure, swelling, trembling, reduced sexual function in both men and women and infertility. In addition to these, long-term usage on performance-enhancing drugs may result in baldness, gynecomastia, prostate cancer and cardiovascular diseases (NIDA, 2019). Therefore, from all the possible repercussions linked to performance-enhancing drug use, it is very clear that the negative impacts heavily outweigh the positive changes that PED’s make to the human body. Thus, it is in the best interest for the physical health of professional athletes competing at the highest levels as well as amateur athletes to prohibit performance-enhancing drug use in sport.

Athletes who utilise performance-enhancing drugs feel more self-confident, and have higher self-perception and self-value compared to non-users, but are also at risk of becoming victims to psychological health disorders. An athlete’s perceived levels of self-confidence and self-esteem increases while using performance-enhancing drugs and experiences a magnification of positive emotions while on the cycle of PED’s. Performance-enhancing drug use increases a person’s levels of energy and motivation, self-esteem and social confidence. It may be useful for an athlete who has reached a slump in their performance, or an ordinary individual who participates in recreational sport to utilise the positive mental effects of performance-enhancing drugs to recover from poor self-esteem or the lack of social or athletic confidence. However performance-enhancing substances provide boosts to positive psychological emotions and function, research has indicated that performance-enhancing drugs are strongly linked to mental disorders. Performance-enhancing drugs use leads to high risk of post usage anxiety and depression, which can lead to engaging in different illicit substances or harmful behaviours. The two most common psychological disorders that PED users suffer from are depression and anxiety, which are suffered in different ways depending on the user. Athletes have various concerns for performance-enhancing drug use, the most notable reason is concern for physical appearance, followed by concern for occupational performance or athletic performance physical appearance is the biggest reason and influence for PED use amongst athletes. “AAS users who experience physical appearance concerns also experience elevated rates of co-morbid psychological dysfunction, eating disorders and muscle dysmorphia”, both of which are mental disorders. Performance-enhancing substance users have a higher probability of attempting and committing suicide and participating in violent or risky behaviour such as violence and murder. In order to guarantee the safety of the psychological health of professional athletes and recreational athletes, all performance-enhancing substances must be banned in sport and awareness of the negative impacts on mental health must be raised to educate potential users of its devastating effects on mental health.

Conclusion

Performance-enhancing drugs have been used in sporting industry to provide an unfair advantage to its users, has tarnished the reputations of sporting leagues, and disregarded the classic values of sport. To preserve the safety of professional athletes and recreational athletes, performance-enhancing drugs should be banned in all sports.