Time to allow doping? Really? (Page 2)

Sorry, guess I left for too long.

I did say if PED's are safe, not that they are. I am not a doctor and I haven't spent a lot of time studying PED's. However, how many of the medications that normal people take are "safe"? At the end of every commercial for a new drug there are "serious side effects" listed.

For example, I have seen a few documentaries involving steroids for weight lifters. I believe that when used properly steroids are safe. They use them in hospitals all the time, yes any drug is dangerous when abused, but when used properly I think steroids are safe. Steroids might not help a cyclist a ton but a sprinter could surely benefit.

Without a medical degree I am not qualified to weigh in on the safety of EPO and the like but supposedly Lance took them for 10+ years and he seems to be okay to me. Seems in a controlled environment it might be safe. Heck people dropped dead over weight loss pills that were approved by the FDA, so what is really safe and what isn't?

I just don't necessarily have a problem with the idea of studying these drugs to determine a safe use and then allowing athletes to use them. Yes we would have to start over on world records and such as it wouldn't be fair to past athletes but I don't see a problem beyond that. Really the only argument I see is the "purist" argument but technology is always changing, world records were broken because of a new swim suit in 2008. Tech will march forward, why not enhance the athlete as well as his/her equipment?

From a cultural perspective, isn't PED use already allowed for most professional sports? When was the last time you heard of an NFL or NBA player testing positive and being banned or seriously penalized for PED use? All of the focus right now is on sports that only a tiny percentage of the US-population follow or care about.

What do you think would happen in the footbal, basketball, MMA or soccer world if they had a serious testing program and started to ban players who tested positive? Take a look at the average NBA player today, and compare their physique to players from the 70s or 80s. Quite a difference! With the sports that have many hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, regulators, the media, and the culture turn a blind eye.

Baseball's kind of out there stuck in the middle......it's the one sport that seems to have made at least some kind of effort to clean things up, but it's also the one mainstream sport that would seem to provide the smallest advantage to players who use PEDs.

Do a Google search for "TUE testosterone." MMA is all over the first page of results.

Well, since you brought up steroids....it's not nearly as simple as you m ake it sound.  What you consider "safe" level sof steroids do NOT give the kid of results that sprinters are looking for....that's pretty clear. So no, sprinters could not benefit from "safe" levels of steroids.....neither do weightlifters.  The side effects of those drugs can be deadly.....ask Lyle Alzado or any number of users who admitted it and died from it.

There really is no reason, IMO, to open the door to legal PED's in sports. 

Here's another problem....at what age will it be OK to start using them?  Can my kid?  He competes at the national level......he's 14.....would you think it's OK for him?  Maybe he should just look up to those who use and count the days until he can get his own needle?

The easiest and best solution is to not allow PED's......period.

Absolutely wrong.....do some research on ballplayers who made the big leagues vs. those who didn't and the PED usage of those groups.

One guy dying from steroids does not prove they are dangerous, people die for many reasons. Tons of people take roids, ever been to a body building show? They aren't dropping like flies. Heck my Grandpa died from taking medicine to cure fingernail fungus on a prescribed basis, class action suit followed a few years later. Just saying I don't see roids as being any more dangerous than most pharmaceuticals. Yes all drugs can be abused but they don't have to be abused to yield results.  

Your 14 year old can't drink, smoke or vote either, I don't see why he should be allowed to use PED's before age 18 either. Pretty standard to have different standards for kids than adults. How is it any different than your kid looking forward to a bike sponsorship so he can have that $10k race bike he has always wanted instead of the $1k "slow" bike he is on now? Better tech is all. There is nothing inherently evil about a needle. 

One guy?  Look, steroids without a doctor prescription is illegal.....you've got a few hurdles to clear before they are "legal" in sporting events.  And the level of steroids prescribed by doctors in your original scenario is not going to do anything to help a hurdler or weight lifter......by any measure, steroids are abused to get those kinds of results.

And.....you obviously haven't seen the bikes the fast kids ride.

Here's a question for you.....why not just have clean sports.....drug free.  What's the problem with that?

To expand on the firs part.

One does not have to have an acute episode of die from steroid or any other drug use for them to be detrimental to one's health.  Because a lot of people are willing to jeopardize their long term health does not make them "harmless".

Hello... Sean Meriwether? Players are suspended regularly over PEDsin the NFL. Now what is and isn't allowed... meaning high levels of test.... and how harsh the penalities are or should be is a different subject. But players are caught int he NFL.

Actually... Lyle alzedo has been debulked that roids caused his death.

The problem is the same problem with prohibition... there is no way to stop the cheaters period. you could set safe levels, you could establish a safe hemocrit level and allow doping or EPO to get to that "safe" level and have a "level playing field"... but then someone will always will push it. So you do the best you can or you take all the rules away.

One guy dying from steroids does not prove they are dangerous, people die for many reasons. Tons of people take roids, ever been to a body building show? They aren't dropping like flies. Heck my Grandpa died from taking medicine to cure fingernail fungus on a prescribed basis, class action suit followed a few years later. Just saying I don't see roids as being any more dangerous than most pharmaceuticals. Yes all drugs can be abused but they don't have to be abused to yield results.  

Your 14 year old can't drink, smoke or vote either, I don't see why he should be allowed to use PED's before age 18 either. Pretty standard to have different standards for kids than adults. How is it any different than your kid looking forward to a bike sponsorship so he can have that $10k race bike he has always wanted instead of the $1k "slow" bike he is on now? Better tech is all. There is nothing inherently evil about a needle. 

One guy dying from steroids does not prove they are dangerous, people die for many reasons. Tons of people take roids, ever been to a body building show? They aren't dropping like flies. Heck my Grandpa died from taking medicine to cure fingernail fungus on a prescribed basis, class action suit followed a few years later. Just saying I don't see roids as being any more dangerous than most pharmaceuticals. Yes all drugs can be abused but they don't have to be abused to yield results.  

Your 14 year old can't drink, smoke or vote either, I don't see why he should be allowed to use PED's before age 18 either. Pretty standard to have different standards for kids than adults. How is it any different than your kid looking forward to a bike sponsorship so he can have that $10k race bike he has always wanted instead of the $1k "slow" bike he is on now? Better tech is all. There is nothing inherently evil about a needle. 

When keeping drugs at appropriate levels, we can usually keep the effects therapeutic. But not always. Every drug has multiple effects on the body, we just cherry pick which effect we want the drug to treat, then it goes through the fda process. Hell, viagra's primary effect was only discovered during testing for it to become a new blood pressure drug. They could tell who was and wasn't getting the drug (supposed to be a blind study) by which guys stood up when the young nurses come in the room. But my point is that all drugs are dangerous. Because 1) they are toxins, and 2) the effects aren't limited to what you're using it to get the body to do. Whether or not they are used appropriately. Birth control can cause strokes even when used appropriately. The example you mentioned, clenbuterol, is a drug that, last I checked, is not approved in the US. Clenbuterol, even when used appropriately has effects including increased blood pressure, increased heart rate. Imagine giving that to someone who already has high blood pressure? Clenbuterol is banned in competition, and a little study will show why, but for someone who has an undiagnosed heart condition, who happens to have an asthma attack, that could be fatal. And that person did use it appropriately. And steroids... I could go on and on, but you only need Google for that. But have you ever seen drug seeking behavior or withdrawal? I'm not talking about for narcotics or for crack/cocaine. IMTX talking about simply for performance enhancing drugs. That can be pretty dangerous. Even when used appropriately, drugs are dangerous. We're just betting that we'll be in the majority of the population that doesn't suffer ill effects from it when we take something. There is nothing responsible about taking any drugs when you aren't treating a need.

And that's what doping is about. Wants versus needs.

In my opinion, when someone uses a drug appropriately, it is for a medical condition, only. And if that person finds out the drug is on the banned list, they seek an alternative if it exists. If not, they seek a TUE from the appropriate agency.

One guy?  Look, steroids without a doctor prescription is illegal.....you've got a few hurdles to clear before they are "legal" in sporting events.  And the level of steroids prescribed by doctors in your original scenario is not going to do anything to help a hurdler or weight lifter......by any measure, steroids are abused to get those kinds of results.

And.....you obviously haven't seen the bikes the fast kids ride.

Here's a question for you.....why not just have clean sports.....drug free.  What's the problem with that?

Alcohol alters the brain so I imagine it is a "poison or toxin" it is legal and yes in mass quantities it can kill you but plenty of people drink "betting it won't kill them" and come out fine. 

Same with testosterone, only it is natural to the body, in mass quantities it could kill you, but it appears many cyclists use it "betting it won't kill them" and they came out fine. 

Perhaps there is no good way to allow some drugs and not others, perhaps there will always be abuse no matter what the rules. 

My point is, the original article is not "ridiculous" IMO. I don't see a moral, nor really too big a safety issue (depending on the drug allowed). Yes I could see an administrative or logistical problem. But I don't think that throwing around the words needle, poison, toxin and cheating are enough to dissuade the argument.

I view the banning of PED's much the same as prohibition for alcohol, or marijuana being illegal. We overturned prohibition, marijuana is already legal for all intents and purposes in a few states and I wouldn't be surprised to see it legalized in more states and to not require a medicinal card in the not so distant future. I see the same happening for PED's and I don't have a problem with it.

The same words can be used for marijuana, instead of needle, say bong or pipe; instead of poison say mind altering smoke; instead of cheater, call them a criminal. These words don't carry the weight they used to and many people are coming around to the idea of legalizing marijuana, I can see the same happening with PED's. And so far I haven't seen much compelling argument to say it shouldn't happen. Beside the fact that it is "dumb".

ummm...what?  What part of transfusing ones own blood for an athletic event sounds safe?  There are so many risks with this.  Infection and disease are the first two that come to mind.  Especially in the typical unsanitary conditions which the transfusion happens in.

Agree. But if it was allowed, it would be done in the best possible conditions and would probably be super safe. It was just an example, though (with absolutely no medical knowledge).

Someone else mentioned Testosterone, or EPO being used for asthma, or Chlembuterol being all over in tainted meat, for instance. My point is, safe or not, I wouldn't want the athletes to openly become laboratory experiments and beat the rest because of that.

Here's the problem and no one has addressed it yet.  The vast majority of PED's are controlled substances, whose primary purpose is for medical treatment use.  Thus, when someone is using a PED they are not only violating the specific rules/regulations of their sport, they are often also violating the law by possessing a controlled substance.

So the question is, if the prohibition against PED use is relaxed or done away with totally in sports, how do you get around the controlled substance issue?

Or do we just accept that teams will hire doctors that will simply write a script for a controlled substance for non-medical reasons, and the sole basis for the script will be to increase the performance of an athlete on the field.

Are we OK with that?

Personally, after reading "breaking the Chain" about Festina and reading all of the USADA L.A. report, the idea of simply allowing doctors to write scripts for athletes for this reason makes my skin crawl. 

There is a balance in your blood between red and white cells and plasma and other solutes for a reason.  If you have too many RBCs you have sludge not blood and it can cause serious problems with circulation, particularly in the capillaries.  So even transfusion under sterile conditions is not perfectly "safe".

What really bothers me, is all I want is to watch elite athletes compete. That's it. Right now, today, take away all the PEDs, all the doping, all the banned substances... and what you have left are incredibly gifted elite athletes working their but(t) off to gain a tenth of a second on their competition. To gain 2 watts. We are still left with what the point is.

But then, one guy decides to cheat. It's cheating period, end of story. To gain an unfair competitive edge through chemistry and not work. So then they all have to. And here we are, with doped up incredibly gifted elite athletes taking big health risks, working their but off for a tenth of a second, or a 2 watt advantage.

This can't come from a regulatory body, it has to come from the athletes themselves. They have to say enough, and they have to work with the regulatory body to expose the cheats so they can have a fair career and a healthy retirement. As long as the entire sport sees doping as part of the sport and necessary then the regulators will never keep up.