Why Doping Should Be Kept Illegal

Doping in sport is when athletes take performance enhancing drugs or food to give them an unjust, undeserved and distasteful advantage over the other competitors. Doping can be used to make you more alert, build muscle and give more energy. There are many different drugs which can be taken to enhance yourself and many different reasons why athletes choose to take them. Doping is wrong, unethical and shameful rightly so, it ruins lives.

Performance enhancing drugs have varied effects but the thing they have in common, are the negative consequences. It involves sticking a syringe of an unknown substance into a vein which could kill you at any time in the hope to improve your sporting ability, unfortunately no one has a crystal ball. The common side effects of these drugs are high blood pressure, irregular heart rate, heart attack, stroke, dangerously high body temperatures and intense anger or paranoia. These drugs take a toll on your body physically and mentally. The risks of the newer drugs aren’t even known and won’t be until the long-term effects are studied.

Athletes take PEDS in order to gain an advantage. If everyone else started to take these drugs then instead of taking small amounts they would start taking more and more. The vicious circle would keep getting bigger and the end result would be increasingly worthless. The use of PED’s is a deliberate act with the sole purpose of getting an unfair advantage. Added to that it is against the rules and laws governing sport.

In Lance Armstrong’s case he was found guilty of doping in cycling. This involved him being given fresh blood with nutrients in it to make him perform at a higher level and increase his stamina. A man who held 7 tour de France titles was overnight stripped of his titles and reduced to a laughing stock. His face was plastered over every media outlet and he has been labeled as a cheater forever more. This has discredited all of his sporting achievements, this is an example of how doping can go wrong and why it should not be allowed.

When used by elite athletes, drugs can improve performance to a much greater extent than any non-pharmaceutical measures known to sports science. Special diets, training regimes and scientific based exercise and recovery cannot equal the enhancing effects of drugs. The danger of developing unnatural human beings is a worrying possibility and more likely to happen if allowed. This situation reminds me of a car, when you fill a car's tank with the incorrect fuel such as water or coca cola it may run for a little bit longer but soon it will stop dead.

One athlete’s decision to use PEDS can a huge effect on the other competing athletes. High level athletes are at the level they are because they have a hunger to be the best in their field this can perpetuate the problem. By one athlete using drugs this could result in others feeling pressured to use substances just to perform the same level. This is just encouraging more people to take health risks and break rules which otherwise they wouldn’t have done.

The ‘spirit of sport’ is all about taking part, doing your best and ultimately enjoying it at the same time. It is about ethics, fair play and honesty. Respect for rules and respect for yourself and others. Sports require dedication and commitment as well as good health. Doping is the exact opposite of all these values. How can we maintain the spirit of sport if doping were to be allowed?

Young, school athletes are heavily influenced by professional athletes. They like to wear the numbered shirt of their favourite player, they copy similar training techniques and try to imitate their style of play. Professional athletes are the role models and young athletes are influenced by their drug use. When a professional athlete admits to using performance enhancing drugs, the message young athletes hear is that it is acceptable. They believe that drug use by their role model almost gives them permission to use PEDs and that this is what is required to become an elite athlete. Should this be allowed?

The use of PEDs reduces the need for skill and dedication in sport and instead replaces it with chemically induced strength and endurance. The public could lose interest in the sports where drugs are more widely used. This would cause financial harm in the first instance and could lead to the end of some professional leagues and competitions. Sporting events would increasingly become contests of who had the most effective drugs and the technology and knowledge to use them in the most effective way. People expect sport to be a test of an athlete’s own qualities and the use of PEDs would make any success worthless.

In conclusion, doping should be kept illegal because it causes many different health problems. Doping is a bad influence to aspiring athletes which are impressionable. Drugs damage sports reputation and less people want to view the sports when it is a case of whoever has the most access to drugs wins. Doping ruins the point and the spirit of sport. It creates unnatural people and discredits the world records because they wouldn't have been possible without the use of PEDs and pressures others to use doping to help them keep up with the other competitors. The drugs are nothing but bad news. There is one argument which pops up many times but is completely irrelevant and truly wrong. This argument is that doping should be allowed to have a separate doping category but this would make kids and people think drugs are ok and this could also lead to an increased use of narcotics. Doping is wrong and should not be allowed in any case.