The National Public Radio released an article discussing the hypocrisy in the management of steroid usage in 2008. In this article the author (Jeffrey Katz) points out that the entire society lives in a world in which if you have an ailment, you go to the doctor and get prescribed a medication to treat it until it heals you or makes you better. As such, why are athletes punished if they want to use medication to help fix their ailments such as weakening muscles or muscle strains? There is a very fine line of information as to whether something is being treated as an injury or if the athlete is using a Performance Enhancing Drug (PED).
Track stars, cyclists, swimmers etc. have all been caught using PEDs and cost people their metal, title or win. When people argue about the PED usage, there are points to be made on each side. Why can people be allowed medications for some things but not others? Why are some cremes OK and others not? Who decides what is ok? Most medications come with some warning, risk or side effect that can harm the person taking it while it heals another. Are steroids that different? I can see how the argument can work both ways.
The article discusses how there were 6 experts on steroid usage that debated this very issue on a TV series called Intelligence Squared U.S. Three were in favor of PED usage and three were against it. According to the article, the audience was then polled before the debate to see who was for it and who was against it. It showed 63 % of people were against steroid usage. That number changed to 59% after the debate.
This isn’t a very big jump but it does show that some people can be persuaded to accept the usage if given the correct point of view. For me it is very different if someone is taking medication to heal a real issue such as an infection as opposed to injecting something in their body for the purpose of performing better.
Eric Walter
Source:
https://www.npr.org/2008/01/23/18299098/should-we-accept-steroid-use-in-sports
Group 4-Sport Management Seminar 