From Viagra to steroids

Condemning drugs in sports is hypocritical.

Marco Visscher | October 2007 issue

Baseball player Barry Bonds, who broke the major-league home-run record this summer, is said to have used steroids and amphetamines, and so fans usually jeer when he enters a stadium. Sports and artificial performance-enhancing measures simply don’t mix—well, except in the Tour de France. The 2006 winner, Floyd Landis, may still have his title stripped from him, after tests raised suspicion. Doping is why the legendary cycling event’s popularity is waning considerably.

The use of steroids and other drugs is against the rules and therefore wrong. But isn’t this collective disgust just slightly hypocritical? After all, in the rest of society, performance-boosters have become increasingly commonplace. People take Prozac so they can better manage psychological pressure. Students take Ritalin to improve their grades. Middle-aged men take Viagra to spice up their sex lives. Shy people take Paxil so they can handle social situations. Writers, musicians and other artists take other stimulants to stand out in their fields. Where are the strict rules and doping tests when it comes time to hand out diplomas or Grammy awards?

The essence of sports, critics say, would be damaged if we tolerated drugs. But in reality, play has long been corrupted by the big bucks, which also helped introduce the concept of “unfair competition.” Still, aren’t steroids and blood doping unhealthy? Yes, but so are a lot of other things: Prozac, Ritalin, alcohol, caffeine, aspirin…

In modern society, athletes have become heroes. Sports stars aren’t so much role models for society as reflections of it, albeit reflections with exceptional talent. Athletes take performance-enhancing substances mainly as a consequence of our sky-high expectations and the huge commercial interests involved.

Ultimately they are part of the same achievement-oriented society we are, in which the use of stimulants has become normal. The appropriate response is not moral outrage, but a relaxing of the enormous pressure we put on them: Just do your best, son. That’s all you can do.

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Comments (5)

How about this: Why not legalize steroids and doping for professional athletes and practise transparancy? We should still test them, and the results of the test should become public. This way, everybody will come to know that, say, the no.s 1, 3, 6, 7 and 8 in the top-10 of any contest have tested positively. The no. 1 can still keep his or her medal. Perhaps legalization could end the trade in the drugs that do not get traced (yet) in the test: the new, experimental and thus dangerous performance-enhancing drugs that are now being used by athletes.

posted by Marco Visscher on 10/25/2007 6:28 pm

At least marco divided the issues with paragraph's as well as reality. The statement's themselves are explanatory. Gaining advantages in sports,that others do not choose to use due to legality is cheating. If you want to have a steroid olympics then fine,but don't bring it the same game as those who follow the rules.

And as far as people using prescription medication under doctors supervision to try to have a normal life, that sir is a poor comparison at best. This a clear case of going down the wrong road to validate criminal behavior.

posted by winston_smith on 10/ 8/2007 9:30 pm

I wonder whether we should perhaps be looking at the whole here? Every single person has an ability or an aptitude for something that another may or may not have, or perhaps in differing degrees. But with the present way of thinking, there is a tendency for the most part to encourage people to use this talent or ability to be 'more than' or 'better than' another - in other words, to use this identification with an innate ability to constantly feed and perpetuate an egoic mindset.

While this way of thinking continues to dominate, this situation will remain the same. Only when an ability or talent is purely recognised as a facet of an individual within the greater consciousness that binds everything inextricably, will this situation change. Perhaps then everyone will be truly equal and be able to enjoy their gift/s just for the sheer joy of having and using them, without feeling the need to 'compete' with others with similar or different gifts.

posted by adamgilliland on 10/ 1/2007 5:26 pm

Overall, I agree -- It is always hypocritical to point the finger when the blamer is guilty.

However, I'd like to think that because these sports "heroes" are held up to a higher standard. Not every person has the physical (or mental) capabilities to do what these people do -- the practice, the passion, the high tolerance for pain... To be good at sports requires a purity of the body -- simply because then we (the public) know that the individual *themselves* achieved that record.

I guess it becomes a question of the individual's intent -- to play the sport (for the simple sake of playing), or to get the money/contract, to break the high score.

posted by Diseria on 9/28/2007 8:40 pm

I completely disagree with Marco Visscher’s assessment and comparison of drugs being used to enhance sports figures and drugs being used to aid anxiety, depression, ADD/ADHD, and other psychological disorders. He calls the “disgust” against steroid users in sports hypocritical as he makes statements such as, “students take Ritalin to improve their grades,” and “People take Prozac so they can better manage Psychological pressure.” Has he ever had a child who is ADD or been clinically depressed or suffered from anxiety disorder?

How can one compare the two types of drug use? One is for competing in; let’s face it, a highly lucrative and star building arena, while the other helps individuals cope with their own lives. The Prozac taker, for depression or OCD, is not looking to “win” and take home a 40 million dollar salary, they are just managing their life.

One other assertion Mr. Visscher makes that I take issue with is that “sport stars aren’t so much role models for society as reflections of it.” While I agree, that being human, they too are reflections of society, it is false to state that they are not role models. In a field where one is paid hundreds of times more in salary than your basic professional, where you are interviewed and quoted in newspapers, magazines, and on TV, and sometimes on shows like The Tonight Show, of course these athletes, being in the limelight are role models. They may not have started out with that intention, but it is a part of their job, because to be a pro athlete is to be in the spot light and therefore it is a moral obligation to realize they are now role models.

Carey Perez

posted by careyperez on 9/27/2007 2:53 pm