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Anabolic Steroids Research Paper

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The Ethics, Effects, and Fairness of PEDs Despite being banned in many leagues and competitions, steroids are still used to gain an edge over other competitors. Athletes use steroids without any regard to the ethics that accompany the intake of drugs. There are many reasons why competitors should, in fact, follow the rules set in place and stop using steroids completely. Performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) should completely stop being used in competitions or leagues. First of all, anabolic steroids are known to be bad for your health. PEDs have unpleasant, undesirable side effects. The United States Anti-Doping Agency lists the symptoms of using PEDs, which include ”liver damage, stunted growth, increased aggressiveness, leukemia, anemia, …show more content…
An athlete’s health should be the highest priority, and therefore the harmful substances should stop being used. Although, in some cases, anabolic steroids are used to promote muscle growth when you have AIDS or another disease that prevents muscle development, athletes use much more than what is normally prescribed. The National Institute of Drug Abuse attests to the fact that “People who abuse anabolic steroids usually take...doses...10 to 100 times higher than doses prescribed to treat medical conditions.” (NIDA, 1) The fact that these athletes are taking much more than the prescribed dosage shows that they don’t care about their health, and doing it to get ahead. Scarily enough, given the scenario “You are offered a banned performance-enhancing substance that comes with two …show more content…
To beat those blessed with genius, talent, and skill, some believe that the only method to win is through drugs. Many say they must catch up with those with superior height, muscle, etc. as an excuse to use steroids. But isn’t that the point of sports? To show off your natural talent, skill, and ability? “The Olympic motto and the creed represent an ideal that Coubertin believed in and promoted as an important life lesson that could be gained from participation in sport and the Olympic Games: that giving one’s best and striving for personal excellence was a worthwhile goal.” (The Olympic Museum, 5) The key word here is personal excellence, not through artificial excellence or false excellence. And, if drugs continue to be abused, the levels of dosage will escalate. If the main part of sports, then the competition would be in how much drugs you take or the quality of the drugs you take. “Athletes don’t take drugs to level the playing field, they do it to gain an advantage. And if everyone else is doing what they’re doing, then instead of taking 10 [grams/cc’s], they’ll take 20 or 30 or 40, and a vicious cycle simply gets bigger.” (Pound, 1) The whole usage of PEDs turns into an arms race, and anyone who gets caught up in it is forced to participate, using even more dangerous levels of dosage than previously used before. It will continue to escalate, even if people die from the usage. Using

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