rekrunner wrote:
It's not a question of "close". They don't seem analogous at all. To me, "WADA banned" is an essential difference. Some PED's are legal, so if you want to continue down this line, please be less ambiguous.
Sprintgeezer wrote:
Especially since the essential difference is only that PED's are generally considered to be those compounds on the banned substance list, while "vitamins and supplements" are compounds not on the list, or not in the quantities specified on the list, or not taken at a time prohibited by the list.
The problem with this line of argument is that it lacks any kind of moral grounding into why athletes should or shouldn't take substances. Here's mine: if you take a substance which is meant for a medical condition you do not have, then you have a crossed an ethical line.
This is best illustrated when the authorities change their mind about a substance, so if you are just blindly following the 'if WADA has banned it, it must be bad; if they haven't, it must be OK' line, then you essentially have no ethical position on doping.
Let's take an example. Here's the IOC medical commission commenting on a drug: "I think we need to be very precise that the position of the medical commission is that this is a banned substance". So according to you rekrunner, taking this drug would be doping, right? Well, it was.......but this was a quote from 2000 about our old friend Actovegin, drug of choice of Lance & the Postal Boys, Paula Radcliffe, Usain Bolt, Jama Aden and many, many more. Some people (Gabriella Szabo for example) got the book thrown at them for taking this drug (which is still banned in sport in the US and Canada and many other places by the way). But within a year the IOC (it was pre-WADA) had changed their mind on Actovegin and un-banned it.
So now it's OK, right? Well, I would say ethically no - and I would actually say no from a doping perspective as well. Ethically - because people are taking it for conditions they don't have, and from a doping perspective, because far too many people are taking it for it not to be big suspicions that it gives a performance benefit, despite (apparently) no testing proving this conclusively (there are plenty of suggestions that it helps with the effectiveness oxygen supply in conjunction with blood doping).
And then we have Meldonium. That was fine, right, because it wasn't on the doping list? Except then it was, and then it wasn't fine any more? No - the answer is that it was never fine. Athletes shouldn't be taking drugs to treat heart conditions in elderly people. And the % of people taking Meldonium was massive.
The sport is still screwed because of a total lack of transparency around doping, testing, supplements, TUEs etc. I applaud what the Integrity Unit is doing, but you still need i) a truth and reconciliation process ii) way more transparency around everything before things are going to really improve.