If there was a drug that made you better at your job, better able to provide for your family and allowed you to turn your greatest dreams into reality, would you take it? For me, the answer is clear: yes.
Every morning, I take a pill filled with a stimulant known as Focalin. This drug alters my brain chemistry, giving me the clarity, focus, energy and drive which are requisite to success in my social, athletic and academic lives. Without it, I would not be able to realize my full potential. I would not be able to attend college and I certainly would not be able to write this column. The medication augments my God-given ability and gives me an unnatural advantage.
In simple terms: I am on a performance-enhancing drug.
The term "performance-enhancing drug" refers to any substance which is thought to improve performance in a particular activity. There are a number of compounds which meet these criteria but the term is used most often to refer to anabolic steroids, stimulants and blood doping agents.
Performance-enhancing drugs in one form or another have been a part of sports since the genesis of the concept — there are even reports of ancient gladiators doping at the Colosseum. This relationship was forged by the pressures associated with competition, which is intrinsic to sports.
Through competition, sports compel athletes to strive to be the best, and performance-enhancing drugs make that goal more achievable. As I see it, doping is the natural praxis of the virtue of competition; the same virtue which makes sports so impactful and compelling for athlete and observer alike.
Yet each year, tens of millions of dollars are spent fighting doping. In spite of these vast sums, performance-enhancing drugs have proved as intractable as they are pervasive. An estimated 14–39 percent of elite athletes take or have taken a performance-enhancing drug of some type. All those resources aimed at preventing adults from making informed choices about their bodies have been wasted.
Doping in sports has not stopped. It has only been driven underground, exposing those who choose to use performance-enhancing drugs to unnecessary risks.
The truth is, as a society, we need to recognize that athletic doping is not going to stop anytime soon and we must adjust policy to conform with reality. The prohibition of performance-enhancing drugs has been a colossal mess achieving only counterproductive results. The reversal of this policy would enable a more effective allocation of resources — to deal with issues which pose an actual threat, like CTE or domestic violence — allowing us to better protect athletes.
Furthermore, the reversal of this idiotic policy will improve sports for the athlete and the spectator alike. To oppose doping in sports is to oppose that which makes sports great, and by extension nature, logic and the interests of the consumer.
Michael O'Malley is a senior studying Political Science at Ohio University. How do you feel about performance enhancing drugs? Email your thoughts to Michael at mm913812@ohio.edu.
