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SPORTS STUDIES UNIT 2313 ASSIGNMENT 2 QUESTION 3 - PERFORMANCE ENHANCING DRUGS ENABLE SPORTSMEN AND WOMEN TO EXTEND THE LIMITS OF SPORTING ACHIEVEMENT AND SHOULD BE LEGALISED. TO WHAT EXTENT DO YOU AGREE WITH THIS STATEMENT? Since the realisation of athletes that being successful in sport could lead to becoming rich, famous and influential the desire to win and become the best has become the most important goal in sport for the majority of competitors. By winning, their lives could be changed forever. New types of training, improved equipment, improved aero-dynamics are all methods employed by athletes hoping to give themselves an advantage over their competitors. As well as these improvements there are other ways to gain that edge in competition and to propel yourself into the limelight.
The race to win at all costs has turned the idea of fairplay on its head and has resulted in some athletes harbouring more drugs than the average chemist store. With improvements in the types of drugs and new ways to conceal their abuse becoming more prevalent in sport all the time, has the time come to accept the fact that drug abuse in sport is just another part of the training process or would this be a violation of our human rights when the out come of a race depends on who has the most advanced chemistry set! Although the term for taking drugs to enhance sporting performance (doping) only appeared in the English dictionary in eighteen seventy-nine, drug use in sport is evident throughout the history books. This drug abuse can be traced back to the ancient Greeks; as far back as eight-hundred B. C. In a similar way to our culture, the Greeks and then consequently Romans incorporated sport into their lifestyles to a similar extent as the cultural and religious observations of the time.
As sport grew in popularity and the winners started to receive even richer prizes, the desire to win led to corruption and cheating. This came in the form of bribing and drug use. It was this corruption that led to the dissolution of the ancient Olympic games. As the years went by, the impact of sport diminished and its popularity was (on average) a lot lower than in the days of the ancient Greeks.
By the nineteenth century, populations started to establish restricted and controlled games. Setting up activities that reflected the new regulated society. The formation of clubs and the development of rules led to a fairer and more mainstream environment for sports participation. By the twentieth-century, sport was reassuming a place similar to that with which it was held in the ancient Greek societies.
With the gradual development of sport into a big business, the pressure to be the best is once again the top priority. This pressure has contributed (just as it did in the Greek and Roman societies) to the escalation in the incidence of drug taking and the number of drug related deaths within the sporting community. The benefits to an athletes performance by taking drugs is why so many take on the risks of doping. The I.
O. C. (International Olympic Commitee) the main governing body for the majority of sports issues every year a document stating the prohibited classes of substances and doping procedures. To gain a better understanding of the arguement's for and against the legalisation of drugs in sport, one must know something about the effects on performance and health these drugs have. The first class, class-A stimulants, excite and stimulate the neuromuscular systems of the body, resulting in increased performance in explosive events and in high-intensity training. All examples of stimulants are considered as banned substances, some of these are ephedrine and amphetamines. The risk with these drugs are that with prolonged use more is needed to get the rush, and hence an addiction forms leading to depression, paranoia, delusions and heart failure.
Class B (Narcotics) make the user more relaxed, hence reducing the state of arousal or psychological anxiety. Narcotics can be useful in sports where mental and physical relaxation are important. Examples of such sports include shooting darts and snooker. All forms of narcotics are banned from competition.
Diamorphine and methadone are two examples of Narcotics. Dangers associated with these drugs are blood poisoning and HIV depending on how it is administered. Class C (Anabolic and Androgenic steroids) have a muscle cell building effect and can increase the growth rate of muscles for those in a resistance programme. The benefits of steroids are obvious in that being bigger and stronger is a distinct advantage in some sports. Examples of prohibited substances in class C are further categorised into two sub-groups (a) and (b). Group (a) includes stanzolol and nandrolone.
Group (b) includes androstenedol and testosterone. Prolonged use of steroids can result in importance, increased aggression, acne, liver damage and kidney damage. Class D (Diuretics) can be used to temporarily de-hydrate the body. This is useful for athletes in sports where making a certain body-weight is important such as in boxing, wrestling and weight-lifting. Some examples of diuretics include: acetazoloamide and bumetanide. Disadvantages of using these are the obvious dangers of dehydration in certain climates.
Finally class E drugs (peptide hormones, mimetic's and analogues) include the majority of growth hormones that are designed to change the human body physically. Thes are beneficial in sports where being bigger has advantages such as swimming and basketball. As well as these prohibited substances, there are also various methods of performance enhancement that are also banned by the I. O. C. The process of blood doping, whereby blood is removed during training and re-introduced prior to competition is a method not allowed as it goes against the ethics of competition.
The benefits come from the increased levels of haemoglobin and other related blood products. The effects are more noticable in aerobic based events. Certain governing bodies place certain restrictions on some classes of drugs. Substances such as alcohol, cannabis and beta-blockers while legal in some sports are controlled in others. As well as the obvious physical effects, there are other aspects to consider when addressing the issue of whether drugs in sport should be legalized. Firstly not everyone has the same resources.
There will be athletes from first world countries who have a lot more money to invest in up to date performance enhancing drugs. They will have no problem in competing at the highest level where the best competitors are the ones with the most advanced pharmaceutical back-up. They may also have a lot of government back up and their country may invest in a national drug research programme and carry it out in their favour. The athletes from poorer countries would not have a chance of competing against them.
Third world countries especially, would not have the resources nor facilities to fund a full-scale drug development programme. This would result in the richer countries copyrighting their research and with holding it from other countries. A very uneven balance would be created where on one hand the richer countries win all the events, get more money and consequently get better while the poorer countries loose events and get poorer and worse as a result. On the other hand you could say that sport is already like this in a way and that introducing drugs would not change things. These days to compete at the highest level in most sports requires considerable funding. Sports such as cycling where you have to have the best bike, or golf where you need the best clubs and golf ranges to practise on.
The sports that third world countries tend to prosper in are the ones requiring the least funding. Running for example requires little more than some ground and some trainers and some runners do not even wear them! Climate also has a lot to do with sucess, after all who would want to sponser the jamaican bobsleigh team. So these imbalances may remain even with the legalisation of drugs in sport. Another moral arguement would be that our Olympic and world champions are our idols. We and our children try to mimic their style, their dress sence and their attitudes in every way.
If the only way to reach the top in sport was to take drugs, then it could have a dramatic effect on our cultures. The role models in society would become smacked up, whizzed out, drug addicts! Thats clearly not the the image we want to represent heroes with. Consequently, our children could see this as a way to emulate their heroes and a nation wide frenzy of drug up children could ensue. This may not become the case though. A different way of looking at it could be the reverse psychology angle.
In Holland where Marijuana is legal, only four percent of school children actually smoke it. In Britain where it is illegal, the figure rises to a massive forty-four percent of school children smoking Marijuana (Harris 1996). Although this may seem like a strange tangent to go off on it may support a claim that if drugs were legalized in sport it may result in some opting not to partake in their use and becoming more popular than the actual winners for it. A big argument for not legal ising them is that it violates basic human rights and poisons the sport.
People say that we should have free will, and be free to choose. Why then not allow athletes to take drugs? After all it is their body. Ironically whichever way you look at it, it is against our rights. If you let someone take them, it would mean that any body that would hope to compete would also have to take drugs. Ironically enough, by giving someone his human-rights, you strip away someone elses.
There would be no choice left. One way of looking at it would be that it is better to have the choice to be bad and choose to be good, than to be forced to be good (Burgess 1965). As well as the moral implications, the question of whether keeping drugs illegal in sport will stop people taking them. With ever more advanced drugs being produced and countless ways of avoiding detection will the standard drug test remain effective in catching the cheats out? Three are four types of test a urine test (the most common), a hair test, a perspiration test and a residue test. The standard test for doping is the urine test.
This is usually quite effective in that it is checked that you actually gave the urine sample, that means someone usually watches you do it. It is flawed in certain ways in that there are methods available to alter the results. One method is hyper-saturation of the body with fluids before the test, this can some times dilute the metabolites below the average threshold needed for a positive test. Two other methods that can be used in conjunction with the hyper saturation method are to make sure the urine sample is not the first of the day as this is the dirtiest, giving a mid-stream sample when the time does come and taking at least four to five april before the test.
April is known to be a very effective masking agent and it has the same wavelength as nandrolone meaning it inter fears with most spectrometry tests. Another problem facing governing bodies are the increasingly complex pre-cursor steroids that are starting to become available. One example is supplement under production by the American company Biotest. The supplement is called Nandrolone- 17 E and is infact an inactive form of nandrolone, that is later converted to nandrolone inside the body. The hormone nandrolone is is temporarily deactivated by the presence of an ether. Ethers are similar to esters in that they both cause the inactivation of the hormone, allowing it to be activated inside the body.
The loophole being exploited is that Esters of steroid hormones are controlled substances. Biotest are relying on the fact that the controlled substances act is very specific in its wording. It states that esters or salts of anabolic steroids are controlled. Ethers are not mentioned, hence if the product comes through (which it most probably will) it will be the equivalent of buying steroids legally in a shop!
The only problem is the instability of ethers in drug products. The moisture in the air can break the linkage between the molecules freeing nandrolone in the product rendering it illegal to sell. But with advancements like these starting to come through the day may come when you can take an all manner or drugs and get off with the tests due to chemical substrate loopholes. In conclusion one final point on the matter is that where do you draw the line on what is and what is not acceptable.
Doping could just be seen as a form of dietary manipulation, just like carbohydrate loading, creatine consumption or bi-carbonate loading. This may be true but I think the line should be drawn at substances which proper athletes to unbelievable levels above anything previously available. Diet manipulation makes small advances, some drugs push athletes to superhuman levels of strength and endurance also do not think it should be decided primarily on the basis of health grounds, after all anything in excess (even water), can kill you. There are many ways of looking at it and many radically different opinions but the main point that I believe makes a case for continuing strict controls on the idea of drugs in sport is that we should not be forced as individuals to damage our bodies. If it were allowed, in order to keep up all athletes would have to inevitably take them and that would ultimately contravene most peoples rights as human beings. 324
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