Are Performance Enhancing Drugs The Answer Essay

Are Performance Enhancing Drugs The Answer? Essay, Research Paper “The overwhelming majority of athletes I know would do anything, and take anything, short of killing themselves to improve athletic performance” (Donohoe, Johnson 1). This statement is made by a once Olympic hammer-throw champion in 1973. It hardly portrays the importance that substance abuse has with regard to athletes and sports. If you are one of the many athletes in the United States, you have no doubt in your mind that this is an ongoing problem in the wide world of sports. If you live breathe, and bleed sports, than you know the importance of winning. You, in your mind, know that losing is not an option. You will not stand for it and for that, go to great lengths to be the best, even if chemicals and

drugs are the answer. People have gotten banned from the spot, seriously hurt and even died due to drugs that they have used to enhance their performance. Although people may not realize it, there are many consequences to using performance enhancing drugs. “In some sports, it has been suggested that it may be impossible to ‘get to the top’ without the use of these illegal substances, but many think that they can come close without being affected by side effects and long-term effects on health, they are wrong. (Donohoe, Johnson 1). Performance enhancing drugs are not the answer and it is not worth loosing your life or career over a sport. “Doping” is now a common term that people use to describe the use of a substance of the purpose of enhancing performance. (Donohoe,

Johnson 2) “Doping has been defined as the administration to, or the use by, a competing athlete of any substance foreign to the body or of any physiological substance taken in abnormal quantity or by an abnormal route of entry in to the body, with the sole intention of increasing performance in an artificial and unfair manner.” (Donohoe, Johnson 3). Using stimulants and other drugs to increase performance is not anything new. The ideas has been around for hundreds of years. “Roman gladiators and knights in medieval jousts used stimulants after sustaining injury in order to continue the combat.” In these cases, it is known that these gladiators uses herbs and dried figs and even when as far as using the rear hooves of an Abyssinian ass, ground up, boiled in oil, and

flavored with rose petals and rose hips to improve performance. (Donohoe, Johnson 2) There are many types of advanced chemicals that may be use in this day and age to effect performance such as painkillers, stimulants, and anabolic steroids to name a few. A big problem in the sports world with regards to performance enhancing drugs are painkillers. Every sport is affected by these so-called needed drugs. There are cases where boxers are massaged with an ointment mixture containing cocaine to provide some sort of anesthesia during fights. (Donohoe, Johnson 4) There are many drugs blunt the bodies ability to feel pain and since sports demand a person to train longer, harder, and earlier in life, these drugs are always in demand. Pain is a reaction of the body to warn us that we

need to take it easy. (Nelson 84) Most athletes take analgesic to ease the discomfort and enable them to continue. (Donohoe, Johnson 94). Football is a sport where these drugs are over used. In this sport, a person is put in dangerous situations that have the ability to seriously hurt an athlete. If an athlete is given a painkiller due to one of these situations, the athlete continues, not knowing that more injury can come result if the problem persists. Since the athlete does not feel the pain, than he is ready to win the game. You may not realize it, but everyone has some form of painkillers at their disposal. Aprain is a form of painkiller the people use for mild pain and aches and also may be very hurtful if abused. Morphine and codeine are other types of drugs used by