Should Performance-Enhancing Drugs Be Accepted in Sports?

“[W]ith this year-long pause [due to the COVID-19 pandemic] to ponder the games, it’s worth considering this provocation: Perhaps the one thing that could breathe new life into these ancient games and make them feel more relevant is the exact opposite of what amateur sports are supposed to be free of: technological, chemical, and biological enhancers of performance…

With the potential cancellation of the Olympics barely making headlines, and with viewership already in significant decline, would allowing enhancement make the Olympics more relevant? Would opening the competition to anyone wearing a springy exoskeleton suit to propel them down the track 50 percent faster than human legs alone actually make the games even more compelling? What about altering their genetics to enhance a freakish amount of red blood cells to ferry more oxygen to their muscles? And importantly, would changes to the games still be able to capture what it is that we appreciate about competitive sports in the first place?

What is purity of sport, anyway?

…Allowing science into the picture raises the bar that already exists. To allow genetic and cybernetic enhancement would be to elevate our experience of the art of expressing what the human body is capable of when it merges with the technological prowess at our fingertips, and it also allows sports to evolve to mirror the human experience. If our lives are augmented, perhaps our sports entertainment should be as well.”

“In theory, banning doping prevents athletes from taking unfair shortcuts and keeps sports on a level playing field. In reality, these bans have done less to protect fairness and punish rule-breakers and more to discourage athletes from reaching the highest levels of success…

How many people would have cared about the Tour de France without Armstrong’s stunning feats? Before failing a drug test in 2006, Shawne Merriman was in highlight reel upon highlight reel during his 2005 season as the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year. Who can deny the excitement of 1998’s record-breaking MLB home run chase between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa? Recently busted Alex Rodriguez is a career .300 hitter with 647 career homeruns, a 14 time all-star, a 3 time AL MVP and a World Series Champion.

We can continue the trend of hand-wringing and hysteria, with one doping scandal after another, further embarrassing the field of professional athletics – or we can legalize and regulate performance-enhancing drugs to the benefit of sports and sports fans alike. Let’s do ourselves and our athletes a service by allowing them to perform at their best.”

“[M]any of the PEDs which are currently banned ought to be allowed in the Olympics for athletes over 16 years of age. There is substantial justification for a less prohibitive approach to PEDs on the grounds of well-being, autonomy, and fairness; many of the objections to this proposal are simply unconvincing. In saying that, however, there are reasons to be hesitant about going straight from the current approach to a laissez-faire system.

Numerous drugs thought to be safe do not have studies on their long-term health consequences. Additionally, many elite athletes are relatively young and, therefore, may not be able to give free and informed consent. Furthermore, legalising PEDs may provide a benefit to athletes from wealthy countries that is unavailable to those from poorer nations. But allowing some PEDs would almost certainly not incur these negative effects. To name one example, EPO is cheap, widely available, and reliable evidence suggests that there are no long-term health risks if used in moderation. Prohibiting athletes from using EPO under the current criteria is simply unjustified, as is the case for many other safe PEDs. Over the coming years, we ought to strive for a less restrictive approach towards PED use in both the Olympics and other elite sporting events.”

“[I]f we really want to address the issue of illegal steroid use in professional sports, I propose that it’s time to head in the opposite direction: legalizing performance enhancing drugs (PEDs)…

If steroid use for professional athletes is permitted, they will be able to legally obtain physical enhancement drugs which have been regulated, and are therefore possibly safe to use…

Now, let’s not forget that the purpose of professional sports is entertainment, witnessing the seemingly magical feats of human athleticism and physical ability. An increase in steroid use would only serve to increase the talent and intensity of the game and bring it to a higher level…The essence of sports is that winning touchdown, that sprinting finish, and that fence-clearing homerun. Steroid legalization for professional athletes won’t jeopardize that; it will only enhance it.”

“What should happen is this: doping should be allowed.

Really, why should the use of steroids, or any other performance-enhancing drug, be banned? We should allow all of them. Not just drugs either: gene-therapy, DNA modification, the lot.

The important point is that as long as the participants are grown adults, making informed choices about the possible consequences, there should be no restriction on what sportsmen and women can do. We don’t stop grown men punching each other senseless in the ring or putting their body in the path of a leather ball travelling at 95mph just because they could come to harm. We trust them to make the choice.

So we should also let them take whatever substances they like to run faster or hit harder… Allowing doping and the rest would just make sport more entertaining – and more honest.”

“In light of our proven inability to enforce a zero-tolerance approach to sport, we should instead take a pragmatic approach. As a very brief and incomplete overview, I argue that we should allow doping within safe, measurable physiological parameters…

For years, we have been pretending that the problem was Lance Armstrong, Dwayne Chambers or Marion Jones. Now we are told the problem is not individuals, but a country (Russia). Or an organization, the IAAF.

But even these are not the problem. The problem is human nature. Athletics is humanity pushed to extremes, both physically and mentally. There are enormous prizes for extraordinary physical feats. There are effective means of enhancing performance. At the same time, our anti-doping capabilities are anemic and sporadically enforced…

Yes, athletes will still try and cheat wherever the line is drawn. But by focusing on measurable physiological parameters, and only using zero tolerance on drugs that are unsafe in any dose, we will have a chance to alter the balance so the rules we do have are enforceable, and it is rational not to cheat. We will also be able to tell athletes, teams and national agencies that these rules really matter… Does it matter if someone raises her hematocrit by sleeping in a hypoxic air tent or by using erythropoietin if the result is the same? No.”

“The ban on doping must be lifted.

Whatever means that athletes resort to, when they want to improve their skill, should be allowed. Those who are naturally weak should be allowed to improve their talents and complete successfully with those who have a natural advantage on them…

In doing so, there will be other consequences. Doping would be healthier and more efficient, the medical ethics around it standardized. If hemoglobin, for example, could be openly monitored and measured, athletes would not be allowed to reach unhealthy levels.”

“We allow people to do far more dangerous things than play football or baseball while using steroids. We allow people to bungee-jump, to ski on advanced slopes, to cliff dive. To eat marbled meat or ice cream pie every day if they want. I don’t think we want to go down a path in which we restrict and even criminalize behaviors just because they have health risks. And steroids are so low on the list of drugs or diets that cause serious harm I don’t understand why we would start there.”

“The ethical argument…disappears on examination. Sport is for enjoyment and competition, and usually aims to improve; but what is the difference between increasing skill and performance by training, and taking drugs?…

What is more ‘fair’ – the use of a team of sports specialists or a simple pill? What is the difference between training at altitude and taking erythropoietin to achieve a similar effect? And why are the strips of adhesive plaster on the nose – absurdly believed to increase oxygen intake – more acceptable than a drug which reduces airway resistance?”

“It’s unclear why we continue to beat ourselves up over performance-enhancing drugs, it’s not as if international sport has a great tradition of being pure and clean. Up until 1968 it was a free-for-all; over the next 20 years it was only moderately restricted, and even now the poachers seem light years ahead of the game-keepers.”

“In the same way that we have learned about injury prevention and safety, we need performance drugs exposed to the hot light of public scrutiny. We need to legitimize their use. With a more realistic view of our elite athletes, parents and kids can make more informed choices about their extracurricular activities.

The technology exists to test for levels of most of the substances on the ‘banned drugs’ lists. What if we declared that certain levels of them in the body were acceptable, while excessive amounts would result in penalties? Athletes could satisfy their drive to be faster and stronger. Drugs could move from the black market to the legitimate sports-medicine community. Athletes could stop experimenting on themselves. It would be safer to take the substances, and with medical monitoring, there would be fewer negative side effects… Track gets faster, nutrition gets more specific and training techniques improve.”

“The bottom line is we get beat the hell up. We need whatever’s available to keep ourselves out there… I think anything that’s helpful should be legal, because when you’re done, they fold you up and say goodbye.”

“How interested are we in fairness in sport? Athletes try to enhance their performance in many ways: coaches, psychologists, dietitians, massage therapists, training at high altitude, skin-tight swimsuits. All of these are used to gain an advantage, which is often unfair because, like drugs, they are available to some – wealthy athletes rather than cheats – but not to everyone.

The Tour de France, a sporting event well known for drug use, would not suddenly become a level contest if drug use disappeared. The race winner has his performance enhanced by the quality of his team… Given that drugs are significantly cheaper than psychologists, permitting their use might actually level out the playing field for poorer athletes. Finally, if fairness is our major concern we can easily solve the problem by lifting the prohibition – thus making drugs available to all athletes.”

“Were athletics to lift its ban on doping, its problems would vanish… [W]e’ve been persuaded that sportsmen and women should be ‘clean’ — ignoring perhaps their use of hypnotism, acupuncture, oxygen tents and any number of other performance aids that are not tainted by the label ‘drugs…’

Track and field, indeed sport, will never rid itself of doping, no matter how draconian the penalties. The stakes are simply too high.”