This House would permit the use of

performance enhancing drugs in

professional sports
At least as far back as Ben Johnson's steroid scandal at the 1988 Olympics, the use of
performance-enhancing drugs in sports had entered the public psyche. Johnson's world record
sprint, his win, and then, the stripping of his gold medal made news around the world.
However, performance-enhancing drugs in sports do not begin with Johnson. A quick
overview of drugs in sports reveals the earlier use of questionable substances; some even
argue that drugs in sports date back to the earliest Olympic games.

An alarming number of sports today, baseball, football, track and field, and especially
cycling, have been shaken by doping scandals in recent years. Several Olympic champions
were stripped of their medals as a result of positive drugs tests. Although attention is often
focused upon athletics, almost all sports have a “drug problem” and devote considerable
energy to testing competitors regularly, banning those who fail them. An anonymous survey
conducted by the U.S. Anti-Doping agency revealed that about one tenth of all athletes admit
to having used drugs, even though illegal (2). Nonetheless, doubts remain as to the
effectiveness of these tests and the fairness of some of the resulting bans, and some argue the
whole approach is deeply flawed.

Performance-enhancing drugs include steroids (the male hormone testosterone), Human-

growth hormone (HGH), recombinant erythropoietin (r-EPO), an artificial hormone and other
drugs taken to build muscle-bulk during training, and stimulants or blood-doping taken to
improve performance in competition. Authorities tend to deal with this problem in different
ways, for example, for the Tour de France cycling competition all sportsmen were deemed
suspicious and ranked on a list from 1 to 10 (1), others impose random tests on athletes. The
market for performance enhancing drugs, such as EPO (erythropoietin) is big, in 2001 alone,
EPO--generated more than $5 billion for inventor Amgen (2). Question is what is the
appropriate measure to deal with performance enhancing drugs – is there a way to control
them and is there any sense in controlling them at all.

Most such drugs have some medical uses and are prescribed legally in certain non-athletic
contexts; it is unlikely that a Proposition would also wish to legalize “recreational” drugs
such as cocaine, heroin and amphetamines, although all of these could be regarded as
performance-enhancing in certain sporting contexts.

1. Velonews.com, L’Equipe publishes list of UCI’s doping suspicions from 2010 Tour
de France, 05/13/2011, http://velonews.competitor.com/2011/05/news/lequipe-
publishes-list-of-ucis-doping-suspicions-from-2010-tour-de-france_172784, accessed
05/17/2011
2. Matthew Herper, Performance Drugs Outrun Olympics, Forbes 02/15/02,
http://www.forbes.com/2002/02/15/0215ped.html, accessed 05/20/2011
Athletes should be free to take risks when training and competing

Point

Freedom of choice: If athletes wish to take drugs in search of improved performances, let
them do so. They harm nobody but themselves and should be treated as adults, capable of
making rational decisions upon the basis of widely-available information.

Even if there are adverse health effects in the long-term, this is also true of tobacco, alcohol
and boxing, which remain legal. We allow world class athletes to train for 23 hours a week
(on average), adjust their diets and endanger themselves by pushing the boundaries of their
body. We let them do it, because it is what they chose which is best for them. According to
the NFL Player Association the average life expectancy of an NFL player is 58 years of age
(1). Thus already we allow athletes to endanger their lives, give them the choice of a lifestyle.
Why not also extend this moral precedent to drugs?

1. Judd Bissiotto, 15 Surprising facts about world athletes,

http://strengthplanet.com/other/15-surprising-facts-about-world-class-athletes.htm, accessed
05/18/2011

Improve this

Counterpoint

Simple analogy: If a person were to kill himself for the sake of entertaining the crowd, this
act would still be considered illegal by the government and efforts to hinder and discourage it
would be created.

An appropriate example is the one of dangers of alcohol and tobacco, which were not known
until after they had become normalized in society. Once the dangers were known, the public
were so used to it, that they wouldn’t condone a ban by the State. If alcohol were introduced
tomorrow it would be banned, as shown by the attitude towards narcotics and steroid use has
shown. Governments have tried to reduce sales by having high levels of tax on tobacco and
alcohol anyway. Moreover many states are restricting choice in tobacco and alcohol by
introducing limited bans, such as on smoking in public places. The proposition cannot use the
fact that tobacco and alcohol are legal as a defense of the use of drugs. This should be seen as
an equally detrimental act and thus illegal.

There is no distinction between "natural" and synthetic methods of performance

enhancement

Point

The natural/unnatural distinction is untenable. Already athletes use all sorts of dietary
supplements, exercises, equipment, clothing, training regimes, medical treatments, etc. to
enhance their performance. There is nothing ‘natural’ about taking vitamin pills, wearing
whole-body Lycra suits, having surgery on ligaments, spending every day in a gym pumping
weights or running in shoes with spikes on the bottom. Diet, medicine, technology, and even
just coaching already give an artificial advantage to those athletes who can afford the best of
all these aids. Since there is no clear way to distinguish from legitimate and illegitimate
artificial aids to performance, they should all be allowed. So taking these drugs is no more
unnatural than what happens today.

A practical example of an unnatural aid is the Speedo worn in 2008 at the Beijing Olympics.
FINA, the world governing body of swimming was concerned about the extraordinary
statistics in Beijing where swimmers wearing the Speedo LZR Racer swimsuit won 90 per
cent of all available medals and broke 23 world records. Since Speedo launched the suit in
2008, 108 world records have fallen (until February 2009) (1).

1. Simon Hart, Swimwear giant Speedo hit back at 'unfair advantage' claims, 02/19/2009,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/swimming/4699498/Swimwear-giant-
Speedo-hit-back-at-unfair-advantage-claims.html,accessed 15/05/2011

Counterpoint

It is true that it is difficult to decide where to draw the line between legitimate and
illegitimate performance enhancement. However we should continue to draw a line
nonetheless. This line should be drawn at protecting athletes from harmful drugs and
preserving the spirit of fair play and unaided competition between human beings in their peak
of natural fitness.

The special diet and sport training equipment, which may seem very hard and exeptional,
have been designed based on serious scientific research proved and tested to fit with long-
term training of athletes. Hard practice to achieve the best performance with help of these
professional methods is completely a different from taking steroids and growth hormones for
immediate result

Controlling, rather than ignoring, performance enhancing substances will improve

competitive standards in sport

Point

The use of performance enhancing drugs is based on advances in science. When new drugs
and therapies are found, athletes turn to them and as a result are much of the time ahead of
the anti-doping organizations, which need to develop methods of athlete testing whenever a
new drug that is meant to be untraceable is created. In 2008 it was a big shock when Riccardo
Ricco (a cyclist) was caught using the performance-enhancing drug Mircera, which had been
considered undetectable for a number of years.

The fact is that a ban of performance enhancing drugs enables mainly athletes from wealthy
countries and teams that can afford the newest technology to go undetected, whilst others are
disadvantaged (1). So because it gives an unfair advantage to the wealthy one who can pay
for the undetectable drugs, we should legalize it.

1. Millard Baker, Riccardo Ricco Tests Positive

for Undetectable New Drug Mircera at 2008 Tour de France, 07/18/2008,

http://steroidreport.com/2008/07/18/riccardo-ricco-and-mircera-pegylated-epo/,
accessed 05/20/2011

Counterpoint

Rich athletes from wealthier countries will always have access to the latest, highest quality
performance enhancers. On the other side, athletes from poorer countries which do not have
the same medical and scientific advances will not be able to keep up. They will always be at a
disadvantage regardless of whether performance enhancing drugs are legal or not.

Improving safety standards in sport

Point

It does not take a lot for chemists to produce performance enhancing drugs, the Scientific
American reports: “Rogue scientists start with testosterone or its commercially available
analogues and then make minor structural modifications to yield similarly active derivatives.”
The underground chemists make no effort to test their creations for effectiveness or safety, of
course. Production of a simple new steroid compound would require "lab equipment costing
maybe $50,000 to $100,000,". Depending on the number of chemical reactions needed for
synthesis, "some of them could be made in a week or two. Others might take six months to a
year."(1) As a result of legalizing performance-enhancing drugs a backstreet industry can
become regulated as a result there will be much more control and testing to ensure the health
and safety of the athletes who take the drugs.

1. Steven Ashley, Doping by Design, Scientific American 01/12/2004,

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=doping-by-design, accessed 05/19/2011

Counterpoint

There will always be a black market for cheaper or for new untested drugs that will give an
athlete an edge before others have a chance to try it. Legalization is therefore unlikely to
result in large health benefits as the competitiveness of sport will always result in athletes
being willing to take a risk.

POINTS AGAINST

Drugs will undermine the central philosophy of sport

Point

The show and the celebration of human physical achievement is what makes sport enjoyable
to the public. The reason people enjoy sport is because it is a demonstration of what other
fellow human beings can achieve and what humans can achieve collectively, as a species.
A spectacle is designed to amaze. It doesn’t need to be human achievement to be amazing (no
one would call monster truck driving a sport). So, when humans start taking drugs to improve
performance, it is no longer a sport, it is a spectacle, because there is no human physical
achievement, but instead a chemical achievement.

It also becomes a celebration not of human physical achievement, but of human intellectual
achievement, of who can design the best drugs. Even with fancy running shoes, we are still
celebrating human achievement, which will not happen once you take it to the extreme of
allowing drug use.

This doesn’t benefit athletes in the long run. Athletes won’t be celebrated but scientists will!

Counterpoint

Sport is also about the spectacle for spectators.

Sport has become a branch of the entertainment business and the public demands “higher,
faster, stronger” from athletes. If drug-use allows world records to be continually broken, and
makes American Football players bigger and more exciting to watch, why deny the public
what they want, especially if the athletes want to give it to them?

The criterion that athletes should only be applying their ‘natural abilities’ runs into trouble.
The highly advanced training technologies, health programs, sports drinks, use of such things
as caffeine pills, and other energy boosters seem to defeat the notion that athletes are
currently applying only their 'natural abilities'. Performance enhancing drugs would not go
too far beyond the current circumstances for athletes.

Permitting the use of performace enhancers would have a coercive effect on athletes who
would otherwise avoid drug use

Point

Once some people choose to use drugs to enhance their performance, other athletes have their
freedom of choice infringed upon: if they want to succeed they have to take drugs too.
Athletes are very driven individuals, who would go to great lengths to achieve their goals.
The chance of a gold medal in two years’ time may out-weigh the risks of serious health
problems for the rest of their life. We should protect athletes from themselves and not allow
anyone to take performance-enhancing drugs. An example of the pressure is cycling. The
American Scientific magazine explains: “Game theory highlights why it is rational for
professional cyclists to dope: the drugs are extremely effective as well as difficult or
impossible to detect; the payoffs for success are high; and as more riders use them, a “clean”
rider may become so noncompetitive that he or she risks being cut from the team.” (1)

Michael Shermer, The Dopping Dillema, 03/31/2008,

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-doping-dilemma accessed 05/15/2011

Counterpoint

There is no such thing as a forced decision. Everyone has complete control over their own
body and their own decisions. Everyone has an absolute right to possession of one’s own
body. If you own your body then you can choose what to do with it, and any exchange, such
as money to an employer in exchange for use of your body (labour) is justified, because it
was a voluntary exchange and you still possess yourself. If you choose to take drugs, you
have not been forced into it no matter the peer pressure you may be under or that other having
taken the drugs may make you uncompetitive.

Protecting the health of athletes

Point

Laws should in general protect people from making uninformed decisions. Due to the
potential severe consequences the ban has to be upheld. An analogy with the seatbelt can be
used: the government forces people to use them, because of the possibility of severe injury in
case we do not use it.

The use of performance-enhancing drugs is the opposite – use can lead to severe health
problems.

Thus, if all people are treated as equals under law, then the law should equally protect
athletes as the law does other would- be drug users.

Equality before law also means athletes can’t be exempt from the moral standards we have
for others. Firstly due to value of life and secondly because many times athletes themselves
are not aware of the severe consequences of performance enhancing drugs.

BBC Drugs and Sports (GCSE

Bitesize): http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/pe/performance/1_performance_drugsi
nsport_rev1.shtml , accessed 05/15/2011

Counterpoint

Sport is dangerous. Today’s athletes decide to endanger their lives by participating in sports
all the time. They decide to participate in sports with the informed decision that they might
get hurt as it is part of the sport. Performance enhancing drugs are no different.

In the USA every year there are nearly 300,000 sports-related traumatic brain injuries (TBIs).
Athletes involved in sports such as football, hockey and boxing are at significant risk of TBI
due to the high level of contact inherent in these sports. Head injuries are also extremely
common in sports such as cycling, baseball, basketball and skateboarding. Many head
injuries acquired, playing these sports, lead to permanent brain damage or worse. Yet we do
not impose a law to ban athletes from participating in those sports. We trust their assessment
of risk (1).

All about Traumatic Brain Injuries: http://www.allabouttbi.com/sports-related-traumatic-

brain-injury/, accessed 05/15/2011
Protecting young and vulnerable athletes

Point

Even if performance-enhancing drugs were only legalized for adults, the definition of this
varies from country to country, something which would be problematic for sports that are
global. Teenage athletes train alongside adult ones and share the same coaches, so many
would succumb to the temptation and pressures to use drugs, if these were widely available
and effectively endorsed by legalization. Not only are such young athletes unable to make a
fully rational, informed choice about drug-taking, the health impacts upon growing bodies
would be even worse than for adult users. It would also send a positive message about drug
culture in general, making the use of “recreational drugs” with all their accompanying evils
more widespread

Counterpoint

The temptation of youth to try illegal substances is not just a problem in sports. In all
environments you will have age restrictions.

To say that we should uphold the ban for the sake of children is as if we would advocate a
ban of alcohol for everyone, because some teenagers like to socialize with adults who are
legally able to drink alcohol. There is always going to be an age restriction and it is the duty
of institutions, trainers and athletes to uphold it, so that later in life as adults, athletes can
make an informed decision.