Performance enhancing drugs in sports

Performance Enhancing Drugs Are Damaging

Performance Enhancing Drugs Are Damaging

The use of performance enhancing drugs has a negative impact on the consumer 's health , the economy as a whole , in addition to sports entertainment , seeing that it is only fair for either all athletes to be using these drugs in equal quantity , or for of them to be consuming them to enhance performance . The consumption of these drugs on the part of a few athletes alone is a way of cheating . Craig Freudenrich (1998 writes

Every two years as the

Olympic Games begin , we hear about athletes using or at least being tested

for performance-enhancing drugs . Every time the Tour de France rolls around , there 's talk of possible

doping . Sometimes , competitors raise the question when one athlete does particularly well . Other

times , tests catch athletes with drugs in their systems

The practice of using artificial substances or methods to enhance athletic performance is called

doping . Doping has become such a great concern that the United States formed an Anti-Doping

Agency

The non-medical use of performance enhancing drugs among adolescents and young adults is of growing concern . As many as half a million Americans under the age of 18 may be abusing anabolic /androgenic steroids to improve their athletic performance and appearance , in addition to self-image . An increasing body of evidence reveals that medically unsupervised drug use may pose severe risks to physical and psychological health of consumers (Kashkin and Kleber , 1989 . The advantages of improving appearance by growing muscles through steroid use in youth cannot even measure up to the immense risks posed by the use of performance enhancing drugs

Shockwaves went through the sports world when Canadian sports superstar , Ben Johnson was denied his gold medal at the 1988 Olympics because tests revealed that he had taken anabolic steroids to improve his athletic performance . The event called international attention to the use of anabolic steroids , and in general , performance enhancing drugs among world-class athletes to gain competitive advantage . Still athletes and non-athletes alike persist in taking performance enhancing drugs . As a matter of fact , it is known that athletes participating in the original Roman Olympic Games consumed them too (UNRV , 2003 Currently , there is no research to verify that the performance enhancing drugs used in the olden days also had harmful side effects . Yet , the element of cheating in sports through these drugs remains as before

There are reports of male adults in physically demanding professions like law enforcement also using performance enhancing drugs to appear tougher as well as more formidable (Lombardo 1990 . What is more , as these drugs grow in popularity , so does awareness of the seriously negative side effects of their use . One of the most dangerous side effects is the threat of AIDS . Yes , HIV - human immunodeficiency virus - may very well be transmitted if shared needles are used to inject the drug . Potential harm to physical and psychological health is only one aspect of this troubling trend , though (Lombardo , 1990

The non-medical...