# Should performance enhancing substances be allowed in professional sports? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 21, 2010, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294 "2010-05-21T19:55:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![cmosdes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cmosdes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmosdes)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294/21 "2010-05-21T22:20:38Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Hence, separate roid leagues. If anything the presence of a separate legal roid league would tend to draw roid users out of the normal leagues due to there being an alternative where they can strut their stuff without fear of being caught. I disagree with this. Someone who thinks they can use PEDs and get away with it would have an advantage in a non-roid league and would probably try to play there. It really wouldn’t be any different than what you have today. If a players thinks they can compete without roids, they probably wouldn’t use them. If they think they need the roids, they use them since the stakes are so high. This wouldn’t change with a roid vs. non-roid league. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294/22 "2010-05-21T22:28:35Z")
> [@cmosdes](#): > > I disagree with this. Someone who thinks they can use PEDs and get away with it would have an advantage in a non-roid league and would probably try to play there. It really wouldn’t be any different than what you have today. If a players thinks they can compete without roids, they probably wouldn’t use them. If they think they need the roids, they use them since the stakes are so high. This wouldn’t change with a roid vs. non-roid league. My thoughts exactly. The “non-roid” leagues would look like the promised land to roiders. Very few athletes would move over to the roid leagues and they’d fail, and we’d be right back where we started. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294/23 "2010-05-21T22:29:39Z")
> [@cmosdes](#): > > I disagree with this. Someone who thinks they can use PEDs and get away with it would have an advantage in a non-roid league and would probably try to play there. It really wouldn’t be any different than what you have today. If a players thinks they can compete without roids, they probably wouldn’t use them. If they think they need the roids, they use them since the stakes are so high. This wouldn’t change with a roid vs. non-roid league. You may have a point, though I think there would be _some_ deterrent effect at least - I mean, the players in the roid league have to come from _somewhere_, which would pull some of the the most temptible players out of the regular league. It also crosses my mind that if there’s a batch of legal roids out there that are optimized for sport use, then they’d likely be the ones used by cheaters, and it may be easier to test for a few specific known substances than for all steroids in general, increasing the effectiveness of the screening in the regular league - though I could be completely wrong about all that. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294/24 "2010-05-22T00:21:02Z")
> [@cmosdes](#): > > If you allow PEDs in professional sports, how do you stop it from showing up in the “minor” leagues? Slippery slope. In time pressure builds to allow the minors in on the drug action. Ditto college sports, then high school and so on. Of course, this might increase the Darwin Award nominee pool so those who partake don’t pass along their genes and perpetuate that level of mentality that drugs of this kind/use are good for you. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294/25 "2010-05-22T02:10:13Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I am in favor of allowing any and all performance-enhancing substances, genetic modifications, training regimens, and pretty anything else for those interested in entertaining me more fully (although I confess the only actual “sport” I watch is golf, which can apparently be played well by fat, hard-drinking, hard-partying “athletes,” so I’m not sure it counts as a “sport”). > > There is no practical way to draw a distinction between what is “fair” and what is not fair, with perhaps the exception that the performance enhancing method cannot include an external appliance such as an mechanical limb. > > Mother nature is unfair. We are not all given the same genes. Life is unfair. We are not all born to the same circumstance and opportunity. There’s no unfairness in trying to equalize opportunity, is there? > > The purpose of professional sports is to entertain, and athletes already ruin their bodies and futures in exchange for glory and money. That is their choice, and it seems to me they should be allowed to make it. > > I am cognizant of a single drawback in my libertarian world: permitting performance-enhancing drugs for adults will promote an ever-younger population to use such agents, and I am opposed to allowing children to use potentially dangerous substances. However I am not convinced that the whole career-train for talented young children is not net harmful anyway, so this does not seem to me to be a deal-breaker. For every successful NBA player, a thousand are left on the wanna-be sidelines whose devotion to basketball was wasted and whose time would have been better spent on an education. So if we are going to argue against performance drugs because it might ruin children, we have to look equally critically against athletic emphasis in general ruining children. > > There is a secondary gain, usually not mentioned, to making performance-enhancing drugs legal: we can get better at using them and make them even safer to use. It’s my general impression that they are probably already safer than most people realize; if they were all that dangerous I suspect most modern high-performance athletes in almost every field would be dropping like flies, along with the wealthy and connected who use similar sorts of chemicals to retard aging. I tend to agree. > [@begbert2](#): > > When you add in performance enhancing equipment or suppliments of various kinds, you change the game. This is nothing new. Athletes have been looking for performance enhancers as long as there have been competitions. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294/26 "2010-05-22T19:54:45Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > For the sake of argument, why should the athlete’s safety be of concern to anyone but the athlete and his/her management? The athlete would, presumably, understand the risks of the enhancement–perhaps there is a sworn statement to that effect outlining the specific known risks–and the management would be ill-advised to expose their investment to risks which would likely result in the loss of their asset. It’s already been mentioned but I’ll add my opinion. As soon as you make PEDs legal then it puts pressure on almost all the other athletes to use them as well just to keep up. If the PEDs are safe then it’s hardly different from putting pressure on athletes to work out in the off-season. I’m not convinced they are safe. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294/27 "2010-05-24T02:53:00Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > As soon as you make PEDs legal then it puts pressure on almost all the other athletes to use them as well just to keep up. Right. And then you end up with a kind of artificial “skill inflation” where 115 home runs a year is nothing, and you need 150 to be noticed. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294/28 "2010-05-25T18:01:45Z")
I want to say no to PED in sports, I really do. But what is the difference between the allowed pharmaceuticals and the banned ones, in the end? I got through high school waterpoloby throwing down ibuprofen whenever I had a strain of any kind. Without it I probably would have missed some training sessions. People get cortisone shots to allow them to play and train with pain and injuries that would otherwise sideline them. These drugs have side effects too. They are damaging when taken to excess. They permit us to do things athletically we could not otherwise do. From what I hear, pitchers would take steroids to recover faster - how is that different? ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294/29 "2010-05-25T18:31:41Z")
> [@villa](#): > > But what is the difference between the allowed pharmaceuticals and the banned ones, in the end? The degree of risk and the nature of the side-effects. > [@](#): > > These drugs have side effects too. They are damaging when taken to excess. Again, it’s a question of the degree of risk and the nature of the side-effects. You’d have to consume massive amounts of ibuprofen before it poses a major health risk, for example. > [@](#): > > They permit us to do things athletically we could not otherwise do. From what I hear, pitchers would take steroids to recover faster - how is that different? Presumably, this was all done under medical supervision and with the proper prescriptions. If not, then these folks were also engaged in the illicit use of pharmaceuticals. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294/30 "2010-05-25T18:31:54Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Plus, and I never, ever have said this before, but would someone please think of the children!?! Do you want your kid watching Barry Bonds Jr. hit 2,000 HRs Yes I do. I also want them to watch his decline with brain cancer/etc. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294/31 "2010-05-25T18:56:46Z")
Personally, I have no issue with performance enhancing drugs, provided that they are taken from an informed position. That is, I think if someone takes a PED thinking it will make them better without understanding the risks involved, it’s not really wrong, it’s just dumb. However, I think sports are a different kind of issue, because inherently all athletes already have some kind of advantage by being born with a gift for speed, strength, and agility that is often well above any conception of what would qualify as normal. What makes competition “fair” is the rules by which we agree to play. As an example, if it was found that the pitchers mound in one stadium was an inch higher, or the sidelides in one stadium were a few inches wider, or whatever, we would all decry that they were cheaters, but if the rules were changed such that the mound was higher or the fields were wider, it would be fine. This is where PEDs come in, in that we have rules that ban them, so using them is explicitly unfair. The problem with allowing them is that, it essentially forces everyone to take them. Assume they have similar effects on similarly healthy people with similar training regimens, then the all you’re really doing is beefing up the athletes we’re already seeing. But it’s not going to make them more athletic, as in they won’t throw more accurate pitches/passes, make more amazing catches/shots, etc. they’ll just throw a 97 MPH fastball when they used to throw 94 MPH, or hit a ball 320 ft when they would have hit it 295 ft. But now that all the athletes are openly taking these PEDs, rather than having what I hope is just a small handful of atheletes taking these risks that risk their health, we’ll now have ALL of them taking greater health risks. This not only means ultimately shorter and less healthy lives for an already shortened lifespan of a professional athlete, but now some people who might have otherwise been great may decline to play professionally because they decline those risks. So, in short, I think it’s completely reasonable for the various professional athletic associations to ban it because for a pretty darn small difference in entertainment, which is the product they sell, they’re putting their resources into a lot more risk. It’s just not a sound investment, not to mention the humanitarian reasons. However, I am sick of the federal government getting involved in it. As I started off with, I don’t have a problem with people choosing to use PEDs, but it should be up to the PTB in the various sports to enforce their own rules. If they want to allow it, fine; if not, also fine. Just leave it up to them. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294/32 "2010-05-25T19:21:41Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > The degree of risk and the nature of the side-effects. It cannot be just about that. Does blood doping have any risks? All you are doing is adding your own red blood cells back into your blood stream. Playing on cortizone, especially when young, is really dangerous from what I hear as you don’t have the alarm signal of the pain to stop you overexerting a damaged body part. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294/33 "2010-05-25T20:28:20Z")
> [@villa](#): > > It cannot be just about that. Does blood doping have any risks? All you are doing is adding your own red blood cells back into your blood stream. I can’t speak about blood doping, so I’m not going to touch that issue. At any rate, even if there are other considerations, the point remains that some drugs are more dangerous that others. That alone explains why some drugs are legal and others are not. > [@](#): > > Playing on cortizone, especially when young, is really dangerous from what I hear as you don’t have the alarm signal of the pain to stop you overexerting a damaged body part. Which is exactly why cortizone cannot be purchased over the counter. As I said, steroids can be administered under medical supervision and with the proper prescriptions. The same is true of cortizone shots. Can somebody abuse the use of cortizone? Certainly. The point remains, however, that it’s a question of the degree of risk. You can’t just say “Oh, all drugs entail some risk” and use this rationale to justify the use of any and all performance enhancing medications. That’s like saying that since anybody can get into an accident, every person should be allowed to drive. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294/34 "2010-05-25T20:38:32Z")
In the long run, yes I think some should be allowed because in the long run I expect enhancement by drugs, bioengineering and cybernetics to become mainstream. It would be neither fair to the athletes nor good for sports if the athletes were all required by law to be weaker, slower and sicker than the spectators. I do think that only safe enhancements should be allowed though, otherwise you’ll just end up with sports dominated by people who die in their thirties because no one unwilling to go that far can compete. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294/35 "2010-05-25T21:01:55Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > I can’t speak about blood doping, so I’m not going to touch that issue. At any rate, even if there are other considerations, the point remains that some drugs are more dangerous that others. That alone explains why some drugs are legal and others are not. But blood doping is banned. And cortizone isn’t. > [@JThunder](#): > > Which is exactly why cortizone cannot be purchased over the counter. As I said, steroids can be administered under medical supervision and with the proper prescriptions. The same is true of cortizone shots. > > Can somebody abuse the use of cortizone? Certainly. The point remains, however, that it’s a question of the degree of risk. You can’t just say “Oh, all drugs entail some risk” and use this rationale to justify the use of any and all performance enhancing medications. That’s like saying that since anybody can get into an accident, every person should be allowed to drive. We seem to be talking a little past each other on this. My point is that both steroids and cortizone are dangerous drugs, and give a person an edge they woudl not otherwise have. Your answer seems to be that the cortizone is done as part of a medical regime. Well, why not extend that to steroids. The cortizone is taken to allow the person to train when they otherwise could not. I’m not talking here about steroids for other things (such as glaucoma for example). But why not place steroids in the same category as cortizone and allow them to be taken under medical supervision for improvement purposes? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294/36 "2010-05-25T21:12:43Z")
In mixed martial arts (MMA) competitions in Japan there wasn’t any drug testing (Pride, for example, was basically run by the Yakuza). Competitors got [outlandishly outsized and muscular](http://www.mmaconvert.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/alistair_overeem_timeline.jpg). In America, there was testing and suspensions over positive results. I’m sure competitors took (and still do take) steriods, but it hasn’t really got to the same absurd level as it did in Japan. Funny thing is, the guys who were at the top of the game in Japan were still pretty much at the top of the game when they move to America, even though there was a tendency for those fighters to drop a couple of weight classes. And the fights in America are every bit as exciting as the fights in Japan. Make the playing field even and you’ll see exciting competitions; drugs really aren’t necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294/37 "2010-05-25T22:49:31Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > Funny thing is, the guys who were at the top of the game in Japan were still pretty much at the top of the game when they move to America What? Crocop, Wanderlei Silva, Shogun\*, Paulo Filho, Sokoudjou, Gomi, et al all did horrible in the transition from Japan. Ironically, the guy who made the transition best - A. Silva - wasn’t thought all that highly of in Pride. The next best is probably Rampage who also wasn’t considered top of the heap in Pride. \*(ok, redeemed himself, but not before getting humiliated by [run] Forrest [run] Griffin and having a close call with Mark “older-than-Bob-Dole-and-worse-cardio-than-Oprah-in-the-fat-part-of-her-cycle” Coleman.) ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294/38 "2010-05-25T22:52:50Z")
It is nothing to do with the health of the athletes that PED’s are banned. It is because allowing them would open the doors to legitimise mental performance enhancing drugs and other recreational drugs the establishment has no current control over. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294/39 "2010-05-25T23:13:29Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > What? > > Crocop, Wanderlei Silva, Shogun\*, Paulo Filho, Sokoudjou, Gomi, et al all did horrible in the transition from Japan. > > Ironically, the guy who made the transition best - A. Silva - wasn’t thought all that highly of in Pride. > > The next best is probably Rampage who also wasn’t considered top of the heap in Pride. The UFC is a pretty rarefied league; just competing there means you’re one of the best in the world. Note that the former HW champ (Nog), current LHW champ (Shogun), and current middleweight champ (A. Silva) were all former Pride fighters. That’s a damn good showing, especially given that the former Pride fighters are all pretty old now (other than Couture, are any UFC champs from that era still in contention?), are competing under different rule sets, and are dealing with a cage v. a ring. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294/40 "2010-05-25T23:14:31Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > It is nothing to do with the health of the athletes that PED’s are banned. > > It is because allowing them would open the doors to legitimise mental performance enhancing drugs and other recreational drugs the establishment has no current control over. A challenge for you: name one “mental performance enhancing drug” that a) exists, and b) is banned. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-performance-enhancing-substances-be-allowed-in-professional-sports/540294.md?page=3)