Fans want faster times, more home runs, harder tackles, and better dunks. They want the enveloped pushed each time, every time. Fans expect and demand that records be broken with increasing frequency, and they will watch whoever will deliver the next smashed barrier.

Sure, many people will tell you dopers are a disgrace to the sport when you put a microphone in front of them, but the masses' insatiable appetite for performance will not be denied.

My guess is that if each sport created two separate leagues, one that allowed doping and one that strictly forbade it, the non-doping league would be out of business within ten years.

So why fight it? Let athletes use whatever means available to enhance their performance. It will happen anyway as science blurs the line between what should and shold not be considered allowable performance enhancers. How many arbitrary lines can we draw to distinguish what is good and bad enhancement?

If someone were able to wave a magic wand and eliminate doping from sport, my guess is that sports' popularity would dive as record-breaking performances became fewer and further apart. Only those athletes who won the genetic lottery, or are the product of a selective breeding program could ever hope to break records.

But there is no magic wand, so only those unfortunate enough to get caught have their careers ruined. Why do so many athletes dope? The same reason so many employers hire illegal immigrants and pay less than minimum wage; because so many of their competitors are doing it that they cannot compete if they do not break the rules. Sure, you can make a principled stand, but the price is anonymity and last place (or watching your customers flock to your competition and going out of business).

Remember the grotesque East German "women" who were unbeatable in Olympic competition thanks to modern science? Our society will never stand for allowing people to destroy their bodies for temporary advantage. Look at the backlash "Roid Rage" deaths create. In Texas, we're testing high school athletes. Let's see how that works out. (Poorly, I would suppose).

First, you are assuming that athlets must destroy their bodies to use performance enhancing drugs. This is not necessairly true, and the negative effects of drugs that have them will probably be eliminated over time or better drugs without the effects will be found.

Similarly, you are assuming that "roid rage" is a necessary consequence of using performance enhancing drugs and that the "backlash" against it will stop athletes from using them. However, drugs tending to cause "roid rage" make up only a segment of the drugs available for enhancing performance, and not everyone using them will suffer roid rage.

Further, I doubt the backlash against steroids will be strong and persistant enough to stop their use. As far as I can tell, people will get far more upset about an athlete engaging in dog fighting than using performance enhancing drugs. Many players have already stated that doping is common in Baseball, and I don't see empty stadiums whenever I see a game, or hear about poor ratings for ESPN.

My guess is that people will continue to complain about doping long after market forces make it the de facto norm, assuming it isn't already.

Sports should be performed by those whose advantages are due either to nature or hard work, or both. Accepting doping of ANY kind is accepting cheating and devaluing the meaning of ALL sports.

Never, never, absolutely NEVER.

Cheating is breaking the rules. If the rules allow all athletes to use doping then it isn't cheating.

I think what you are tyring to say is that using "artifical" means to enhance performance is inherently wrong, and I am challenging that belief.

Why should artificial protien supplements desinged to improve muscle growth be okay while a drug that improves muscle growth is not?

The body is simply a sustained chemical reaction. Why should someone whose body is chemically superior through genetics be allowed to dominate a sport as opposed to someone who can improve their chemistry by outside means? We already allow tinkering with the body's chemistry in the form of permitted "supplements" and drugs.

Science will only continue to blur the line between "artificial" and "natural" performance enhancements. It will only become more difficult to rationally explain why some ehancements are allowed while others are not.

How can some enhancement means be "wrong" while others are "right." People often cite "roid rage" as evidence that steroids are inherently evil, but many people take steroids without harmful effect. And what about drugs that don't have any outwardly harmful side effects? If the criteria for "bad drugs" is they cause violent behavior, then any drugs that don't cause violent behavior should be okay, right?

You could argue that some drugs destroy an athlete's body. But some drugs don't. And isn't it the athletes choice as to how far and hard he or she wants to push their body? Many athletes over train and cause permanent damage to their bodies? Should they be banned? How is that different that taking a drug that may have a harmful side effect?

And what about medications that affect performance? Why should an asthmatic athlete be allowed to take medicine that improves his breathing, and thus his performance, when an athlete without asthma cannot take advantage of the same drug? And what happens when athletes start developing "asthma" at higher than normal rates and get doctors to prescribe them this drug? How do you prevent an athlete from falsely claiming they have asthma or some other medical condition that requires a performance enhancing drug to treat?

Further, there is plenty of evidence that policies agasint doping are not being effectively and/or uniformly enforced. The result seems to be that many athletes are doping and only a few are being caught. Thus, doping has a net advantage.

Finally, I suspect fans are not as appalled by doping as popular media suggests. There seems to be a lot more outrage as a result of an athlete engaging in dogfighting than abusing steroids.

Horus is a very reasonable guy so I'm hoping he replies. I was trying (but very poorly) to make the same over all point below about where the line is between a supplement and a drug.

These topics are complex but you did a great job of outlining these gray areas.

Thanks

I'm just wondering..... Is blood doping even bad for you? Maybe this is a huge display of my ignorance, but what are the negative effects of blood doping? Other than of course the legal ones!

Who cares?? People take Creatine and other supplements. They are sport legal presumabley because they are not harmful. Steroid use under a physicians care is not harmful either. It's because it's illegal that we have roid rage and gynocamastia (bitch tits) as users have no idea how to properly monitor themselves.

Like any type of chemical alteration of bodily functions, doping and chemicals will inevitably have some side-effects. Some may be less pronounced, perhaps even desirable over the original condition, but the change is there, nonetheless, and what happens when the change is not discovered soon enough to prevent the drug companies from reaping huge profits?

Oops, my bad?