I was watching John Stossel one night when he asked a controversial question. Why not allow athletes to use performance enhancing drugs? It is so hard to catch them, and they seem so rampant. Why not bow to reality?
On the flip side, we see people here on the boards debating altitude tents, caffeine, and all the rest. Aren't we just splitting hairs here? What is the difference between EPO, blood doping, or sleeping in an altitude tent?
The one thing I think is missing from this debate is a concrete answer to this question. Why do we ban PEDs in the first place?
The answer to that question is simple. PEDs jeopardize health, and an athlete should not have to risk his or her health or his or her life in order to compete. This is why we should let altitude tents and Starbucks alone but crack down on EPO and steroids.
Critics of this will say that EPO is safe and that the fear concerning steroids is overblown hysteria. These things won't kill you. Lyle Alzado was just an unlucky idiot who saw a correlation but not a causation between steroids and his cancer.
My answer is that which does not kill you makes you stranger. Steroids will not kill you, but it will shrivel your nads and make you look like a beast. They turn women into men. And EPO abuse creates such stupidity as cyclists sleeping with HRM's to keep the sludge they call blood from coagulating in their veins while they sleep. Harmless drugs become harmful when abused, and in a competitive environment, they will be abused. The track and the playing field will only become chemical laboratories where some freak show sh*t will simply nauseate us.
The governing bodies of sports have a vested interest in seeing that this freak show does not come about. If PEDs were allowed, it would result in widescale abuse and catastrophic health effects to athletes. Athletes who chose not to use these substances would have no chance in the sport they love.
We can laugh when a baseball player is caught with a corked bat or pitcher has some Vaseline in his glove. We can't laugh when these same people are injecting HGH and anabolics into each other's butts in the locker room. Yes, steroids made people watch baseball. Now, people could care less about baseball because of the steroids.
As for altitude tents, they are harmless to health. No one has died using these things. The same thing goes with caffeine. Outlawing all performance enhancing substances would be stupid because we might as put food and water in the list. The issue isn't whether or not they enhance performance. It is whether or not they will harm your health.
The problem for sports is catching the cheats, but there has been a positive result of the efforts. Clean athletes still have a chance, and the dirty athletes use far less because they don't want to get caught. In this, we can see a possible way to catch these cheaters. Measure hematocrit and testicle size and suspend them for their own safety. Focus less on the rules and more on the health of the athletes.
Anything that can be done in this area makes sports better because it makes it safer. You shouldn't have to become a Frankenstein to compete. Sorry, John Stossel. I have to disagree with you on this one.
Out.