Steroids and Drug Testing among Athletes

Steroid abuse has become a huge problem in professional sports today. Athletes are now using steroids to gain a competitive edge over their opponents. Also, the athletes are using the steroids to recover quickly from major injuries or surgeries. Many former superstar athletes have been caught taking steroids during the season and offseason.

The competitive drive to win at all cost is fierce among athletes. Winning at all cost often includes using one of many performance enhancing drugs such as anabolic steroids. Many athletes use performance enhancing drugs, like steroids, to achieve higher goals and set higher records than other drug-free successful athletes. Although athletes are performing at higher levels when using such drugs, what is the cost? Finally anabolic steroids should remain banned from sports because their use results in many harmful side effects; because their use violates sports regulations, and because their use can cause death.

cocaine, heroin or LSD, the player can be disqualified from the league. According to the New York Post. “If a player tests positive for Marijuana three times, the player will be suspended for five games.”

Athletes should take drug tests because they might be cheating in their games and competitions. They should take their tests at least once every month and one before they compete in a game to make sure it's fair for everyone. Throughout the years, there have been cases in which the athlete uses drugs right before entering a competition like the Olympics. An African-American woman who was competing in the Olympics used drugs to get an advantage from all the other athletes, and she won the gold medal all the time. Once she was about to retire, she confessed that she was using drugs the whole time and was stripped of all of her gold medals that she won while using her drugs. If she actually tried to win the medal fairly, she could've done it

stamina, they also give you a mental edge.” (Canseco in Ringer, 93) Jose Canseco devotes his entire major league career to a drug regiment that included steroids. (Ringer et al 93) The positive gains would come to brainwash athletes to the extent of their entire lives.

Drugs in sports is becoming a problem everywhere. “Another 26-year old athlete died of liver cancer after taking a number of different types of steroids over a four year period ” (Drugs and…). This is significant because this shows how dangerous drugs can be. If we have drug testing in schools this student could still be alive and would have stopped drugs before it got bad. The evidence points to the fact that drugs are a major health risk that is very concerning. In some cases taking drugs can even lead to death. In addition, another situation took place that affected a college student named Bob. Bob tried everything to gain weight so he could play football, so he chose to try steroids like everyone else. Steroids got him to play professional football, but horrible things were happening to him. He was having serious health problems. Bob quit drugs and is lucky to be alive (Drugs and…). This connects to the fact that doing drugs is a major

One study was conducted (Ljungqvist.1975) a questionnaire on top Swedish athletes, which aimed to investigate the use of anabolic steroids in Sweden at 1975. Anabolic androgenic steroids are synthetic derivatives of testosterone. Anabolic androgenic steroids are used to enhance athletic performance and appearance. A questionnaire was distributed to the ten best male athletes in each track and field event in Sweden in the year of 1973. In total, 144 athletes were involved in this investigation and answers were received from 99 (69%). It was asked in the questionnaire whether the athletes had been using any anabolic steroids. In case steroids had been used the athletes were asked to answer specific questions related to positive and negative effects

Steroids are a hot topic of debate and controversy in the world of athletes and sports. Steroids fall under the umbrella of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) and are a dark cloud that have been hovering over the sports world for a long time. In the world today, steroids are the most relevant in major league baseball. Many baseball players, such as Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun, and Mark McGwire, just to name a few, have ruined their reputations because of steroids. There are repercussions for PED use in major league baseball, which have cut down on the substance abuse by players but have nowhere near eliminated the problem.

I believe that drug testing all athletes is a good things for many reasons. One reason is the fact that “half of high school seniors have used an illicit drug by the time they graduate and about one-quarter are regular users by the time they graduate,” according a statistic study done in (YEAR) (Roan). This statistic shows that a lot of the people are using drugs during school. Nevertheless, some athletes are using these drugs while they are playing a sport which is an unfair advantage to other athletes. One key example of this is steroids, which are seen “[producing] quick gains for the athlete,” and giving the athlete an unfair advantage over other players (Steroid). This is important as these athletes are fighting to get a scholarships

With the ever increasing difficulty of “making it” in professional sports, many athletes look for a way to get ahead of the competition and they find this “power up” in steroids. Whether it be to hit a baseball farther, tackle an opponent harder or run faster, there really isn't a right or wrong answer to why athletes feel the need to take performance enhancing drugs. However, with an increasing danger to the physiological state of these athletes , steroids are becoming in many peoples minds too dangerous to take.. The real question is if these types of performance enhancing drug should be allowed in athletic competition.

Do you know someone who is a student athlete? What would you think if he/she consumed illegal drugs? What would you do if you found out he/she died from drugs? Student athletes are not aware of the long-term consequences of consuming drugs in their life. Adults need to step up and approach student athletes about the danger of the impact it can have on their life. Many student athletes will consume drugs in their teenage years to improve their performance in the sports they play. Athletes are not educated well enough in high school about the harm that a drug can do to their body. While drug testing invades the athlete's personal life, every high school should drug test their student athletes before

Slowly pushing students to become addicts, drug testing high school student athletes may or may not be to blame. In Facts & Statistics on Random Drug Testing of High School Students, Dr. M.H. Davis stated, “In the early 1990s, many school districts began to look into drug testing as a way to curb student drug use, which led to two U.S. Supreme Court cases involving student privacy. The court upheld the constitutionality of drug testing student athletes in 1995, and in 2002, the court expanded high school drug testing policies to include all students who participate in a competitive extracurricular activity. In those rulings, the court stated deterring student drug use was more important than privacy” (Davis). Drug testing high school athletes

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, an athlete is defined as “a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina.” Athletes train and practice year-round to prepare for the competition and challenges. At times during the preparation, injuries are sustained and fatigue is endured. To rid themselves of these obstacles, athletes take performance-enhancing drugs, which are also known as steroids. In the United States, the use of steroids is illegal without a prescription. When it comes to punishing athletes for the use of performance-enhancing drugs, depending on what sport and/or what league you are playing in,

Abstract:  With the increase of competition has also come the need to become bigger and stronger than the opponent.  The use of steroids among athletes has caused the focus of the game to change.  No longer does an athlete want to win by doing their best, but they want to become bigger and have an advantage over the opponent.  Ultimately, all athletes feel that they need to use performance-enhancing drugs to compete at the same level. Despite all of the warnings and information on performance-enhancing drugs, athletes continue to use them and overlook the potential health risks associated with steroids.

Roger Maris was the first major league baseball player to hit 61 home runs in one season in 1961, beating Babe Ruth’s record of 60 in 1927. Thirty seven years later in 1998, St. Louis Cardinals player Mark McGwire and Chicago Cubs player Sammy Sosa fought hard to see who could break the previous record of 61. At the end of Sosa’s season, he finished with an extraordinary 66 home runs, five home runs over the record. However, McGwire finished remarkably with 70 home runs, nine home runs over the record. Twelve years later in 2010, McGwire revealed that he had used androstenedione, a common over-the-counter drug. At the time of the record chase, androstenedione was still legal in baseball, but in the International Olympic Committee, the NFL, and National Collegiate Athletic Association, androstenedione was considered illegal and you would be disqualified or even expelled from the league if it was found in your blood. Today, people still argue whether or not McGwire should be the record holder. Drug testing for professional athletes should be required because performance-enhancing drugs are unhealthy, they can lead to negative consequences, and they are not a good influence for children looking up to these athletes.