My Beliefs on Steroids in Pro Sports

My Beliefs on Steroids in Pro Sports

Professional athletes get an unfair advantage by using steroids. Athletes should be banned from using steroids as a muscle enhancer. There are many effects on a person's well being by using steroids. Sports should be based on talent and skill without any type of medicine to enhance a player's game. If athletes are allowed to use steroids, then sports won't be used as a means to show off an athlete's "god given" talents but a challenge to become stronger and more powerful than your opponent. The unfair advantage that the athletes have is a great problem. However, the consequence of taking the drug also holds weight in the debate. Many problems can occur as a result of using steroids.

The steroids that are used by athletes are formally known as anabolic steroids. These steroids affect the user's body in both a fast way and long term. And there are different affects for both male and female. Yet, there are some that they share. Predominantly in men there is a reduction in sperm production, impotence, and irreversible breast enlargement. Women develop characteristics that men have. Women decrease in breast size. Their voices deepen along with more growth of body hair. These characteristics in men and women occur physically and noticeably (Internet1). I notice these characteristics in the women of the World Wrestling Federation. Sometimes I even get them confused with their competitors who are mostly men. However, both sexes can have liver cysts and liver cancer by using steroids. Along with the great possibility of having a heart attack, aggression, and AIDS can be other consequences of using steroids (Internet 1).

Something that I didn't think of was the chance of catching AIDS from needles used to inject the steroids. I have always thought of steroids as being in a pill form. But it can be taken "orally, injected, and in some cases there is also a rub on cream" (Internet 2). I think that the risks of using steroids outweigh the result of muscle mass obtained by taking this drug. Another problem with this drug isn't just whether athletes use the drug or not, the problem comes with the side affects. And when the people using steroids decide that they want to quit there is another bunch of side affects just to stop. Just to stop taking steroids a person has to go through affects on their body that can be worse than the side affects of taking them, "like sudden changes in attitude, loss of appetite, trouble falling asleep, and depression. Depression that occurs during this time of withdrawal can stay with the ex-user for years if it's not treated" (Internet 2).

In the debate on the use of steroids there is also the health issues of taking these drugs that cause a great deal of problems. If steroids were open to all sports, and athletes could take these drugs without any punishment, then we would have thousands of people that would be deteriorating their bodies. There would be an epidemic of manly women and sterile men. The risk of getting cancer from taking these drugs is great and if not at a young age, then down the line from now. If kids in middle school start taking these drugs in their early teens, when they are in their twenties and thirties they run the risk of dying young. Likewise with players that are already at an age that they are ready to retire (late thirties). Players in their late thirties will take steroids thinking that it will make them stronger and able to compete with the younger players. When the time comes for them to retire, they won't see themselves spending money on vacations with their families, but instead on medical bills.

Professional athletes are role models to younger athletes and kids in general. Children in their early teens are very easily influenced by their peers and older figures. "Teenagers, looking up to those elite athletes whose muscles ripple with steroid-enhanced power, are picking up some dangerous training tips." (Manning) If those kids see their role models using these steroids, they are going to use it too, thinking that it will make them like the pros or "more popular and more sexually attractive" (Manning).

Not only that but they will think that it's safe to use because they see so many professional athletes using them. The same thing goes with high school athletes that want to get that scholarship from the college of their choice. The high school athletes will have to take steroids to compete with other athletes who are on the drug to get that scholarship. The athletes that use steroids will have an unfair advantage of more muscle mass to become stronger than an athlete not using steroids. The unfair advantage would lead athletes fighting for the same scholarship to use steroids to get on the same playing field. Many athletes would put their bodies through the risks to try to end up as a rich, successful athlete in a national sport. For example, Dave Cadigon, New York Jets offensive lineman in the NFL, is quoted "I will do anything to become the best lineman in the NFL...If the NFL doesn't like it, screw them" (Wadler and Hainline, 56).

In 1998 the world watched Mark McGwire break the homerun record. After that happened Mark McGwire came out to the public and admitted to taking a legal steroid substitute. Sales of this drug, called androstenedione, increase by 1000%. The use of steroids by high school students increased and the disapproval of using steroids decreased.

In a survey conducted by the University of Michigan showed that 86% of high school students in 2001 disapproved of the use of steroids. When the survey was conducted in 1997, the percentage was 91. When they were asked if steroids pose a risk in 2001 it was 59%. However in 1997 it was 67% (Manning). So this shows how only one professional athlete has an impact on teenagers. "The use of steroids has gone from the Olympic, professional, and college levels to high school and middle school levels" (Yesalis, 43). A survey conducted by the National Institute for Drug Abuse shows that "2.7% of 8th graders have used steroids and since 1991 there is an increase of 50% of 10th graders using steroids" (Internet 1). "Male high school seniors show a 5% to 12% use of steroids and 0.5% to 2% of females" (Yesalis, 43). The first known incident where a physician gave prescriptions to a whole high school team was in 1959 in Texas (Yesalis, 43). After that incident steroids have been a part of many other sports and high schools. "At the college level the National Collegiate Athletic Association restricted the use of steroids in 1973 and started testing in 1986" (Yesalis, 42). These statistics show that the trend of younger people using steroids has already begun.

The biggest problem