Performance Enhancing Drugs

Improved Essays
Athletes around the world are doing whatever it takes to be the best. The competition is fierce, and the athletes are pushed to be great by coaches and even parents. There is only so much an athlete can do to get bigger, faster, and stronger. The pressure to be great is causing athletes to resort to performance-enhancing drugs to get results faster. The process of using performance-enhancing drugs to get athletic results faster is called doping (Performance-enhancing). Anabolic steroids can be effective with helping athletes get bigger, faster, and stronger, but athletes risk their life and long-term side effects for a sport. Anabolic steroids are synthetic steroids that cause muscle growth. Athletes take performance-enhancing drugs without …show more content…
If athletes don’t have access to performance-enhancing drugs, then they won’t be tempted to break the rules and violate the morals of sports. According to Darrin Belousek, performance-enhancing drugs is a serious moral issue in professional sports (Belousek). It is morally wrong for athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs because it gives an unfair advantage to the user. The use of performance-enhancing drugs not only breaks the rules in sports, but this action is stealing from the players who actually follow the rules (Belousek). A drug user may have more playing time in a sport because he is bigger, faster, and stronger. The user is literally stealing the playing time away from the all-natural athlete. If the athletes are professionals, then drug users are stealing the job from the honest athletes. An honest athlete should not be punished for doing the right thing. All natural athletes have to work harder and longer than drug users to achieve the same goals, which isn’t fair (Belousek). Performance enhancing drugs not only takes away from other players, but it takes away from the sport itself (Belousek). Sports organizations have worked hard for years to build good reputations for their athletic programs. If an organization gets caught with an athlete who cheats, then the reputation of that organization is destroyed. Athletes have to understand that they are not only violating the rules, hurting their sports organization, and cheating other athletes, but are influencing younger athletes in a poor way. One of every five high school students who take anabolic steroids are influenced by a professional athlete (Performance). Darrin Belousek says that athletes serve as role models to our nation’s youth. The author continues by inquiring that those who use doping to succeed in athletics usually have a negative effect to their health

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