Performance Enhancing Drugs and Athletics

Shooting the juice

Introduction

Performance enhancing drugs can ruin your athletic career and your legacy in the game you play. Just ask Lance Armstrong and Barry Bonds. Using performance enhancing drugs should be illegal and tested for more in professional sports. Performance enhancing drugs can ruin your body mentally and physically and it is also considered cheating in many if not all professional sports. While using performance enhancing drugs can make you stronger and faster than your opponent, if you get caught, you can ruin your professional career. Using steroids can help you, but can also ruin your body and your life. Most people discredit the athletes that have used steroids in their career because it is considered cheating and takes away from the pureness of athletic competition.

Counter argument: Using steroids is the norm and helps athletes perform better and stronger

Using steroids or performance enhancing drugs is more and more being considered "the norm" for athletes in professional sports. Athletes can say it helps them perform better in sports and makes aspects of the game more interesting to watch as a fan; such as more homeruns, and harder hits in football. Fans watching games would want more homeruns in baseball to make the game more interesting to watch instead of every third batter striking out and in football fans want to see harder hits and stronger athletes. Here is a quote from Braden Allenby of the Washington post "Look at any sport. People are running, swimming and biking faster and farther; linemen are bulkier than ever; sluggers have bigger muscles and hit more home runs. This might be due to better nutrition. Perhaps it is a result of legally prescribed drugs. Heck, it might simply be because of better training. But illegal enhancement has never been more evident or more popular." said Braden Allenby. Steroids help athletes perform better, faster, and stronger than their opponent. This is cheating because it gives you a competitive edge over your opponents.

Argument 1: Using steroids is considered cheating if you play a professional sport

The first argument is that using performance enhancing drugs is considered cheating in professional sports. Steroids can destroy your body mentally and physically, yes physically. It can make you faster and stronger than your opponent in a bad way. It enhances athlete's performance so they perform better and stronger than their opponent in an illegal way. "Legitimate training requires effort, discipline, consistency and a willingness to endure hardship for an ultimate reward. It takes one's natural physical abilities and develops them" said Dr. Richard T. Bosshardt of the Orlando sentinel. Steroids make athletes overall better than their opponent when steroids are present in their body. For example, Barry Bonds, a well-known baseball player, holds the record for the most homeruns in one's baseball career. Bonds, was eligible for voting to get into the National Baseball Hall of Fame this year, but was viewed as undesirable to vote in because he is accused of using steroids. Athletes, like Bonds, that use steroids can ruin their career and legacy. He is now known as a "cheater" in baseball and most likely won't end up in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Therefore, steroids can get your hard work and achievements stripped away from you.

Argument