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Are Performance Enhancing Drugs The Answer? Essay, Research Paper

“The overwhelming majority of athletes I know would do anything, and take

anything, short of killing themselves to improve athletic performance” (Donohoe, Johnson

1). This statement is made by a once Olympic hammer-throw champion in 1973. It hardly

portrays the importance that substance abuse has with regard to athletes and sports. If

you are one of the many athletes in the United States, you have no doubt in your mind that

this is an ongoing problem in the wide world of sports. If you live breathe, and bleed

sports, than you know the importance of winning. You, in your mind, know that losing is

not an option. You will not stand for it and for that, go to great lengths to be the best,

even if chemicals and drugs are the answer. People have gotten banned from the spot,

seriously hurt and even died due to drugs that they have used to enhance their

performance. Although people may not realize it, there are many consequences to using

performance enhancing drugs. “In some sports, it has been suggested that it may be

impossible to ‘get to the top’ without the use of these illegal substances, but many think

that they can come close without being affected by side effects and long-term effects on

health, they are wrong. (Donohoe, Johnson 1). Performance enhancing drugs are not the

answer and it is not worth loosing your life or career over a sport.

“Doping” is now a common term that people use to describe the use of a substance

of the purpose of enhancing performance. (Donohoe, Johnson 2) “Doping has been

defined as the administration to, or the use by, a competing athlete of any substance

foreign to the body or of any physiological substance taken in abnormal quantity or by an

abnormal route of entry in to the body, with the sole intention of increasing performance

in an artificial and unfair manner.” (Donohoe, Johnson 3). Using stimulants and other

drugs to increase performance is not anything new. The ideas has been around for

hundreds of years. “Roman gladiators and knights in medieval jousts used stimulants after

sustaining injury in order to continue the combat.” In these cases, it is known that these

gladiators uses herbs and dried figs and even when as far as using the rear hooves of an

Abyssinian ass, ground up, boiled in oil, and flavored with rose petals and rose hips to

improve performance. (Donohoe, Johnson 2) There are many types of advanced

chemicals that may be use in this day and age to effect performance such as painkillers,

stimulants, and anabolic steroids to name a few.

A big problem in the sports world with regards to performance enhancing drugs

are painkillers. Every sport is affected by these so-called needed drugs. There are cases

where boxers are massaged with an ointment mixture containing cocaine to provide some

sort of anesthesia during fights. (Donohoe, Johnson 4) There are many drugs blunt the

bodies ability to feel pain and since sports demand a person to train longer, harder, and

earlier in life, these drugs are always in demand. Pain is a reaction of the body to warn us

that we need to take it easy. (Nelson 84) Most athletes take analgesic to ease the

discomfort and enable them to continue. (Donohoe, Johnson 94). Football is a sport

where these drugs are over used. In this sport, a person is put in dangerous situations that

have the ability to seriously hurt an athlete. If an athlete is given a painkiller due to one of

these situations, the athlete continues, not knowing that more injury can come result if the

problem persists. Since the athlete does not feel the pain, than he is ready to win the

game. You may not realize it, but everyone has some form of painkillers at their disposal.

Aprain is a form of painkiller the people use for mild pain and aches and also may be very

hurtful if abused. Morphine and codeine are other types of drugs used by athletes to help

them feel no pain. These drugs are very dangerous and could cause death if not taken

properly. With regards to painkiller, you may think this is the best while playing but you

will soon realize that is was not such a smart move when you come crashing down.

Another dangerous drug is a stimulant. They were given to both allied and

German forces in W.W.II to increase alertness and endurance. (Eldeson 75) With regards

to cycling, which uses stimulants the most, the first case that has been reported of the first

doping-related death was in 1886. Races placed extreme physical and psychological

demands on the riders; consequently many of them turned to various stimulant to prepare.

Arthur Linton was trained by ‘Choppy’ Warburton in cycling for the Bordeaux to Paris

race. He apparently died after an overdose on strychnine which was given to him by his

trainer. Warburton was know to give all his athletes the drug during the competition. No

one is really sure that the long-term effects of the drug that killed him, since his death was

ruled the result of typhoid fever and not an overdose. Warburton was since banned for life

from the sport. In the 1960 Olympics in Rome, one Danish cyclist died because of an

overdose of amphetamines and nicotinyl tartrate which increases the blood supply to the

muscles. Two other Danish teammates were hospitalized because of toxic conditions.

(Donohoe, Johnson 5). Stimulants were also banned from the NFL. Arnold J. Mandell,

the team

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