Why not allow doping?

A lot of solid posts, thank you all in the discussion. The reason I posted this was not because I am advocating for the professionals to dope, but because doping already seems so rampant at that level that there's a part of me that would feel better if the whole community was open about it instead. I DO NOT condone doping right now at any level because it is illegal and I never will at a level below professional. (I realize this is quite a dilemma/slippery slope, but hey, we're all flawed.)

What really bothers me about doping is that there is a bit of a dark Dr. Josef Mengele aspect to it. A lot of top athletes come from poor countries or from poor parts of wealthy countries. They are clearly motivated by the opportunity to escape poverty and are willing to subject themselves to incredibly painful training regimes to accomplish their goals. Now, add to this some creepy doping doctor and sports look a bit more like a sick science experiment exploiting poor people just looking for a better life than a competition that gives opportunities to everyone to be their best. And ultimately, the doping will become the center of the sport and the athlete will just be the "chassis" for the doping doctor's work. No one would care about the athlete. They would just be interested in the combination of drugs used to get the win. It would sort of be like how boat design has become the dominant factor in America's cup racing and the skill of the captain and crew are far less relevant.

well...... wrote:

Steroids, HGH, EPO, and others carry large and potentially fatal health risks. If they were to become legal, one would *need* to use them to compete, thus seriously risking one's health simply for our entertainment. There is no inherent value in having everyone run faster because they're all taking PEDs. A 10K race would not be improved at all by having *everyone* finish, say, 30 seconds faster because they were all on PEDs. Paavo Nurmi's 10,000M win in 1928 at 30:18 would still be a thrill to watch today.

Paavo Nurmi probably isn't a guy you want to bring up when making this argument - see

, for example.

Just to be clear, at the moment, doping is not "illegal" per se in large parts of the worlds except for a few European countries.

You are bringing up good points, but to what extent it is possible or feasible to control drug use in sports is another issue. If you take all the funding away and we return to purely amateur competition, or if you make the penalty excessively large you still cannot achieve 0% illegal drug use.

Regarding your specific points (which, again, are good points on the theoretical level, but not from a practical point of view):

1) Not sure why you single out sports in your argument. Would you care about the safety of an alpinist, someone on hunger strike, a surfer on the beach who voluntarily put themselves into potentially harmful situations that have a high likelihood of death? How about a runner that runs 200 miles per week, or does intervals every day until they cannot walk? Should we not let everyone decide where they want to draw the line you are talking about? I surely would not want you to decide for me where that line is.

2) Same as point 1. Why do you care about someone else harming themselves using drugs? If it's an adult, it's on them. If it is someone under aged, it's on the parents, or the state if an orphan. For some reason it does not "feel" right for you or WADA or some other organization to tell an athlete what they can or cannot do to their bodies. They don't care if I attempt to bench press 2000 lbs do they? I mean, it is definitely harmful if that falls on my sternum.

3) This has always been the case drugs or no drugs. Being among the top countries on the Olympic medal table = successful country and/ or lot of $ spent on sports. That's why the most developed countries don't do very well relative to the most developed ones.

4) This type of destructions has already happened / is happening. Doping is already the thing fueling most performances so we have got nothing left. And to end on a philosophical point like you did. What is doping anyway? An adrenaline shot is doping, but drinking black tea purely for performance gains is not, right? What about the caffeine extract of 4 black tea bags? 5? 17? 234? How about icing - what if I use 1 ice bag, is that ok? What if I use 5? 8? 24? Cryosauna?

If the line is whatever amount of the "stuff" does not cause bodily harm then why not regulate how much and how fast athletes should train? Ban barefoot running for people born outside of east Africa.

You get the point.

Where do you draw the line between doping and why? Unless we (the global sports community) can come up with one answer to this question, it will remain impossible to get rid of the doping problem.

least developed countries [...] relative to the most developed

between doping and not doping

Precious Roy wrote:

What really bothers me about doping is that there is a bit of a dark Dr. Josef Mengele aspect to it.

That's exactly what it is. Uncontrolled human experimentation. The consequences of which fall onto the athlete, not the sick people running the experiments.

The sad case of Tammy Thomas, USA Cycling permitted her steroid use.

Note also by permitting doping, the black market for the drugs that work becomes much, much bigger. Along with black markets comes violence and corruption. Not that the IOC needs any help being more corrupt.

I feel like this argument has been talked to death. Yes doping is a major problem in our sport and needs to be addressed better, however just allowing doping is not a way to "level the playing field." All this talk about doping ruins the fun in running.

Thanks JPNATUREVALLEY365 for making me feel bad about my sport.

Dumb dumb argument.

Just because we can't control something doesn't mean we legalize it.

My #1 argument is it will ruin women's sports as we know it.

Do you want to force women to become men as that's what women are when they are roided up?

Do we really want ann kournikova to have a mustache?

I don't think we're close to that point, at least when it comes to elite male middle-distance runners.

A few simple facts:

1) The men's 1500m WR is 3:26.00

2) 104 men have broken 3:32.00 for 1500m.

3) 3:32.00 for 1500m is less than 3% slower than 3:26.00 for 1500m.

A few simple claims I'll make based on those facts:

1) it's possible for a man to break 3:32.00 for 1500m without violating current anti-PED rules.

2) PEDs currently in use improve elite male middle distance performance by less than 3%.

3) The situation will look very different when it becomes possible to genetically modify elite human male athletes in ways that lead to, say, 10% improvements. [Last I knew, The Onion's claims about Meb in

hadn't been confirmed by other media outlets.]

Current PED use is extremely minimal compared to what would be possible with legalization. As soon as you legalize, everyone will push the limits. That is when it becomes a display of Dr. Mengele-esque proportions. Western doctors will be performing experiments on athletes to see what drugs can produce the best result without having an athlete drop dead at the finish line. Right now, a microdosing program is the best that can be accomplished without triggering a positive test result. In the 90s, it was a very clumsy program of EPO. Now, imagine putting an athlete on maximum doses of steroids, HGH, EPO and whatever crazy race day amphetamine you can come up with. The world records would quickly become the minimum standards for qualifying for championship competition.

Yes, you can legalize with limits, but you will just have cheaters again and solve nothing. It is either all in or all out. When you are all in, the sport is mostly about the drugs and very little about the athlete.

Precious Roy wrote:

Current PED use is extremely minimal compared to what would be possible with legalization.

Proof please.

Seppelt's work showed the world that doping is widespread in T&F/running. We know doping is widespread in cycling too.

This is the winning post because it's main focus is treating athletes like adults that can make decisions for themselves.

Doping could be dangerous. It could be dangerous to long-term and/or short- term health and yet, most people have no problems watching football players concuss each other until they can't think straight. But you know what? We allow people to make the choice of whether they want to participate in the sport or not.

All doping and drug legalization talk is a view of individual freedom.

As far as the economics of doping, prices are sure to drop if they are legalized. There won't be a black market and companies are likely to start competing to sell products.

Doping already is "allowed." Did any of you watch the last two Olympic 100 meter finals? The women's 1500 at the most recent World Champs? "Legalizing it" won't change much; you'd find that performances and records would stay as they already are.

Current PED use is extremely minimal compared to what would be possible with legalization.

It's possible that current PED use is minimial compared to what would optimize performance, but there seems to be a strong belief on this message board that PED use during the 1990s was much more aggressive.. And all the current PEDs can do is optimize the levels of substances that already occur in the body. None of the stuff being used now can transform an elite human male athlete into something qualitatively different.

Suppose elite male athlete X hits a peak hematocrit of 44% absent blood transfusions or EPO use. In theory I could experiment on athlete X with EPO and find the hematocrit level that optimizes his performance. That could turn out to be 47%, it could turn out to be 52%, but once I find that optimum level, all EPO can do for athlete X is keep him optimized.

In other words, when it comes to EPO, anabolic steroids, HGH, IGF [or for that matter, iron, ibuprofen, protein, training miles, training intensity, sleep], going past the optimum level is going to hurt, not help.

pathfinder wrote:

All doping and drug legalization talk is a view of individual freedom.

.

Yeah, people think this, and complain about "big brother" telling them what to do, from the relative safety of a country where "big brother" does regulate food and drugs. Everyone thinks they know better largely based on arrogance and ignorance. "Let me decide for myself" - yeah, ok.

Steroids, EPO, growth hormone, etc. are all regulated for a reason, no different from thousands of other drugs (and food safety etc.). How about, for example, we just let large pharmaceutical corporations sell whatever drugs they want and then let people decide for themselves if they should take it or not? Everybody, through their own personal trial and error, can decide for themselves if a drug is bad for them and how much is bad for them. See how well that works out.

freedom wrote:

Everyone thinks they know better largely based on arrogance and ignorance.

Funny. That's also the argument of the people that want to tell you what to do. They know better.

freedom wrote:

Steroids, EPO, growth hormone, etc. are all regulated for a reason, no different from thousands of other drugs (and food safety etc.).

Yes, they can be regulated and legal at the same time. Or is that too much for you to wrap your brain around?

freedom wrote:

How about, for example, we just let large pharmaceutical corporations sell whatever drugs they want and then let people decide for themselves if they should take it or not? Everybody, through their own personal trial and error, can decide for themselves if a drug is bad for them and how much is bad for them. See how well that works out.

I don't remember saying that. You sound a little too emotional for this issue.

Here is what I propose: all athletes regardless of they wish to use PED's sign a waiver indicating that they understand the risks of doping and take full legal/health responsibilities upon themselves. All doses of PED's will be administered by doctors and supervised by IAAF officials. Since we know the exact amount going into the athlete, if any more drugs are taken by the athlete, we will know from tests and a punishment will be handed down. You can choose to compete with or without PED's, but if you use PED's at any point, you must notify the IAAF and go through their process.

I would compare this in some capacity to one of the arguments for pro choice regarding abortions, it's not that we don't think abortions are immoral (because we do), it's that people will do them anyways and if they are illegal more people get harmed, which is what happened with sketchy abortion clinics. The same applies with doping, I think it is wrong, but people will do it anyways, we have the moral responsibility to at least see that they don't hurt themselves even more by overdosing, giving it to kids.

Doping will only be allowed in pro athletes, anyone under 18 cannot use PED's (essentially anyone who goes pro under 18 can't dope), doping rules for high school and college stay the same and any races/competitions have a right to deny the entry of PED users based on that fact alone.

rojo wrote:

Dumb dumb argument.

Just because we can't control something doesn't mean we legalize it.

My #1 argument is it will ruin women's sports as we know it.

Do you want to force women to become men as that's what women are when they are roided up?

Do we really want ann kournikova to have a mustache?

This is sexist. Men and women are equal athletically already.... oh wait...

Kudos to OP for starting a controversial thread. I was thinking one was needed, and here it is.

OK, so let me correct JP about one of the main bases of the original post. The most widely discussed drugs here are not illegal. There may be some drugs that are illegal in a certain state (although I doubt it since anything that makes you healthier will get federal approval so that the medical industry will use it and the manufacturer will sell it) that will improve performance, but Lance et al haven't been busted for them. This is why there is never (I do mean never) a criminal charge that the DA of a particular county uses to put an athlete in jail. Lance was hassled by the AGs office for defrauding the USPS, which is the federal government, but not for possession of anything illegal. My stepdad was anemic late in his life and was being treated by doctors but no cops became involved and he wasn't busted for EPO or any of the cocktail of drugs that raise red blood cell count, dangerously low in his case. This is because these drugs are not illegal. Some of them are prescription-only, and therfore are controlled substances. Possession of a prescription drug in a non- prescription container is a crime (albeit the weakest of drug charges) but Barry Bonds could have avoided even this by simply having an MD prescibe as do cyclists. So OP, 'it is illegal' is false.

Another point missed by many posters is that although the Texas Criminal Code doesn't prohibit these things, the IAAF does - in competitions the IAAF operates. Other event organizors do not prohibit nor trest for drugs. It actually is allowed in competitions from HS to NCAA to whatever road race (this includes the biggest - how many of you ran New York this year and never signed anything agreeing not to juice nor participated in a test?). I raced this last weekend in a 50th annual race with over a thousand participants. This event has USATF certified course lengths and prize money but does not prohibit the use of any drug including one like cocaine that actually are illegal. Nowhere was this topic mentioned on the entry form, website, signage around the start/finish, etc. It simply is not against their rules. Some IAAF member federations ban the same stuff the IAAF does just out of conscience or whatever. USATF is one of them. The Russian federation is not. So, here's the list of events banning PEDs: IAAF WC, WXC, W indoor. Olympic Games (IOC let's IAAF, UCI, etc operate portions of the games and import rules). USATF championships of various surfaces. A few other National champs such as UK. Not on this list: Wiscosin state HS champs (and Tennessee, and Alaska, etc, etc). NCAA champs. Foot Locker. NXN. Payton Jordan. Anything in Van Cortland Park. Turlock Turkey Trot. In most event (including any I have been in - I've never been tested) it is the juice is legal now and always has been.