How would you feel if you were stripped of all seven of your cycling titles? It certainly isn’t a good feeling. The topic of performance enhancing drugs in sports is certainly an interesting one. Many star athletes have been busted over the last several years and the number of athletes testing positive keeps increasing. Despite the consequences, players continue to use these substances and somehow they are not always caught. Use of these drugs is most common in baseball and football, but there are still cases in other sports. Some of the major drugs used are steroids, human growth hormone, testosterone, diuretics and Adderall. These all have different purposes but are all used to increase on-field performance. Steroids and testosterone both increase strength and allow your body to gain muscle mass. These drugs have serious side effects, but players will do anything to get stronger. Human growth hormones will help to speed up recovery from an injury or just help eliminate fatigue. One of the more interesting drug categories is diuretics which are used more as a masking agent for other substances in the body. Finally, there is Adderall which allows players to focus longer and have harder, longer workouts. This drug makes such a difference because it gives them the ability to complete the extra repetitions that others can’t. Some of the more notable users of these drugs are Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco, Alex Rodriguez, Lance Armstrong, track star Marion Jones and Roger Clemens. These players were superstars who were looked up to by millions of children and they were cheating. Tainted records, suspensions, and loss of titles are direct results of the decisions these athletes make to put these substances in their bodies.

Sports need to do a better job with testing because it is not fair to the athletes who have worked their whole life with natural talent. Nobody can tell the difference between a performance enhancing drugs user and a regular, hard-working athlete. Naturally talented players are losing the spotlight because of the large amount of players doping.

I have come up with a controversial but very interesting theory. What if sports allowed performance enhancing drugs to all of the athletes? Players would be able to use whatever drug they wanted and live with their own personal risk of side-effects. You would certainly not be required to use any drugs, but if you thought they would help you, it would be fair game. Although, the drugs would be legal it would be publically released as to who was using what substances. That way the clean players would still be recognized for their ability and the drug users could play without suspension. I believe in this idea for a few reasons. The first reason is that it is good for the leagues. There will be no more negative light on the sports when it comes out that one of the faces of the business is doping. Also, this could produce several more exciting players who were running faster, being stronger and overall just improving their skill-set. For example, its going to sell tickets when you have a player hitting homeruns like Barry Bonds did or have players tackling like Shawn Merriman did when they were on steroids. The quote of the British Journal of Sports Medicine helps prove my point. “By allowing everyone to take performance enhancing drugs, we level the playing field.” If the rule was passed it gives everyone the same chance to be successful and lead there team to victory. Currently, the playing field is not equal because some players are beating the tests and cheating the game. Suspicion is another thing that would be thrown in the garbage if this rule was passed. You wouldn’t have to sit there and ask yourself if you think an athlete was doping when you see a player have an outstanding performance, make an unbelievable play or have a great season. Another reason I believe this should be applied is that the games or events would not be viewed as unfair or rigged if anyone could take the performance enhancing substances. Also, this removes the need of drug tests, suspensions and even law suits involving performance enhancing drugs. Money will be saved for the leagues that they can then invest on other, more useful things. If this took place it would be unprecedented. Fans all over would go crazy and you would almost immediately start seeing more results of the rule change.

I firmly believe this rule would be very beneficial to all leagues and all sports. In this day and age when you hear that ticket sales will go up and money will be saved, what is there not to love?