Why in your view are banned supstances wrong to take?

I think it's wrong because it isnt real human greatness.

What about those "Vitamins" that they always advertise in runners world, the ones with the story about the two partners who were equal, one comes back from a business trip and is awesome

There IS the other side of the coin though. Take the case of Sudafed, which could get you a 2 year ban until a couple of years ago--just plain silly, in my mind, when you can get kicked out of the Olympics because you have a cold (it's happened) but you could take epo and get away with it (because there wasn't a test the worked).

When an athlete gets "busted" for something like cold medicine and it gets into the press, you usually don't hear that it's cold medicine--only that some track and field runner got busted for "drugs," and that's one of the reasons why track isn't as popular as it used to be. Athletes that cheat hurt the whole sport when it becomes public, but officials with brainless bureaucratic policies hurt the sport just as much.

I would also ask everyone to think about who is influencing these athletes?

Ok here is my story which I hope expresses my point:

For the record I had some pretty serious surgery and have never 100% recovered. The reason? I bought into an NCAA system that believed it was more important for me to be an all-american and be the "tough" captain. I remember telling both my trainer and my coach 5 weeks before NCAA XC that my ankle was really bothering me. Now if I had of been smart and not bought into the whole "captain" role... I would've stopped running and healed up for track. Instead I ran conference, regionals... and finally NCAA's. I could barely walk without pain in the end.

My reward? My coach didn't even give me the time of day or talk to me meaningfully one last time before I graduated. Partly because once he figured out I wouldnt be running for the team in the spring he moved onto his next recruit and next fast kid on the team. Would I do it again? Heck no! If anything this contributed to the end of my racing career and also left me bitter for 1 year before I started to think about it differently.

My cheesy conclusion:

I am 100% sure there are some athletes who buy into the whole country pride and money thing (agents, dirty doctors). Sometimes it will take atleast a couple of years removed before you can realize the stupid moves you are making. Atleast I just have a weak ankle... it be a lot worse had I doped and my heart was fried now!

So if you don't have a problem with doping, please, do realize something.

With age does come some type of wisdom. You begin to realize when you raced it wasn't about the plaques, watches, etc... and more about the teamates, experiences and sense of pride from working hard towards a goal.

However if kids begin dopring before they realize this. I fear a lot of people will be waking up 10 years down the road sick, with bad livers, etc. Kicking themselves because they made dumb decisions and followed to ideals of people who are "pro-drugs".

You make some very good points. Think about it: Drugs basically came into Track with the Eastern Bloc (am I correct?).

They did it to prove their system (of government) was superior to ours.

1) They did not care about the health of their athletes, just the medal count.

2) The athletes did not have a choice

When the sport became professional there was more motive for non-Eastern Bloc athletes to use.

I am not saying that there were no steroids in the "West" before professionalism, but I bet it was less than it is now.

Something that bothers me is how whenever a record is set the person is accused of doping. This makes track less popular. But, a baseball player fails a drug test, get 10 DAYS!!!! and people will still go to baseball games.

Actually...the reason why drugs like Sudafed for cold medicine are banned are not because the drugs themselves are performance-enhancing...but because they cover up the real drugs.

No, in the days before WADA, pseudoephedrine (Sudafed) was listed in a class of drugs related to epinephrine, which is a stimulant. It appears that they banned the whole class--without any actual science on the individual drugs--and without considering the effect of one particular ban (this one) on a wide number of athletes.

Fortunately, WADA came to their senses and de-banned pseudoephedrine and caffeine, which they cannot easily control (too pervasive) anyway. These are, of course, not dangerous to athletes in normal doses.

Interesting side note. It looks like the IAAF is maybe considering a life time ban to first time offenders of doping.

How much room for error is ther on these tests? Imagine testing positive KNOWING you were innocent? Is it possible? Remember Butch Reynolds? I believe he was innocent. They messed up circling numbers on papers and the person admitted it. Still Reynolds career was ruined.

Why can't the cheats just do sport for sport's sake?

far too expensive to maintain a round of the quality stuff. this cost causes disperity in who can do or access necessary volumes.

Sports competition is about who is best at the sport. If PE drugs were legal/allowed, then it would become a competition of who is best at drugs.

Personally, I don't care about who is the best at doing drugs, I care about who is the best at doing the sport.