Such evil spews from the mouth of this Inquisitor.

LET THEM USE STEROIDS.

They are there to entertain us. Why should they be denied the chemicals that enhance their entertainment? Why is that unfair??

THEY ARE PROFESSIONALS, NOT AMATEURS.

No different than saying Boob Jobs should be illegal for strippers.

I agree... on one condition: DON'T F*CKING LIE ABOUT IT!

I have no problem with these athletes using the latest pharmaceuticals to tune their bodies and do the very best they can... it's just the next step in the arms-race.

What I do have a problem with is when their bodies explode into mountains of pure muscle and they have the gall to stare into a camera and say: "I have never done steroids"... or better: "I thought I was taking flaxseed oil". When they do that it tells me that they think we're all stupid and THAT pisses me off.

God bless America!

Why do you get the right to be told about how they got to where they go? If strippers can get boob jobs, and Lasik and other bits are legal for athletes to do, why do they have to tell you about every part of how they got to be what they are?

I agree 100%, degsme. And I would add that it's FAR BEYOND time "the government" stopped playing mommie and daddy by telling us what we can and can't put into our bodies. This is ESPECIALLY true when it comes to friggin' PLANTS that, uh, apparently, "god" himself put on the planet (hehe), like coca, opium poppy, marijuana, and mushrooms. There's a TINY bit of room for govt. to argue that it should be able to control man-made chemicals (but I dismiss that as well).

Drug laws are either/both:

1) Yet one more frenzied religious "moral" proscription.

2) Business-backed-govt. attempts to keep the "work force" humming away at optimum efficiency.

Doing what you wish with your own body should be a PRIMARY HUMAN RIGHT.

It's rather pathetic that Slate has chosen to publish "party line" stuff about the "evils of drugs."

It will ALWAYS remain true that cigarettes and liquor have killed FAR FAR more people and ruined FAR FAR more lives than all other illicit drugs combined.

"No different than saying Boob Jobs should be illegal for strippers." That analogy doesn't work. Breast augmentation isn't illegal for anyone. Anyone, regardless of their day job, can make their boobs bigger or smaller. Steroids without a prescription are illegal for everyone. Professional athletes shouldn't be allowed to break the law because people find them entertaining. What's unfair about the situation is that the law making steroid use illegal isn't being uniformally aplied. Laws should either apply to everyone or to no one, but the idea that pretty, rich, and popular people don't have to follow the rules because they're pretty, rich, and popular is the exact opposite of "All men are created equal".

There is an interesting article in this Sunday's NY Times Magazine. Titled The Moral Instinct it discusses the idea of how we reason (the article claims "rationalize" is more appropriate) these sort of moral distinctions.

The article identifies 5 spheres of moral conception (examples from the article)

1. Harm
• How much would someone have to pay you to stick a pin in your palm?
• in the palm of a child you don't know?
2. Fairness
• Would you accept an HDTV from a friend who got an extra one because of a computer glitch
• Would you accept an HDTV from a friend who got it from a thief who stole it from a wealthy person
3. Community
• How much to say something bad about your country that you don't believe on a talk radio show in your country
• On a talk radio show in a foreign country?
4. Authority
• How much to slap a friend in the face with his permission as part of a comedy skit.
• How much to slap your minister/rabbi/priest in the face with his permission as part of a comedy skit
5. Purity
• How much pay to attend a performance-art piece in which actors act like idiots for 30 minutes including flubbing simple problems and falling down on stage
• How much pay to attend a performance art piece in which actors act like animals for 30 minutes including crawling around naked and urinating on stage

societal conflict occurs when groups rank different spheres in different orders (Japanese Community vs US Fairness, Orthodox Hindu Purity vs. British Authority, Muslim Authority vs. US Harm and Fairness).

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has identified that Liberals prioritize Harm and Fairness while downplaying authority and purity, whereas conservatives tend to place all at equal level.

And that largely explains the differentiated response to the drug war.

I agree that there tends to be a component of rationalization in the creation and defense of "morals." I disagree that it MUST be a component.

It's interesting that almost any American will say "Of course" to the "free to do what you wish in the privacy of your own home..." scenario--UNLESS the activity comprises an arbitrary forbidden one to the listener.

I don't ask people to erase their biases; I only ask them to MEAN what they SAY. Most people agree that people should have the freedom to lead their own lives on their own terms--but so few even DISCUSS the obvious and simple ramifications of that universally accepted idea.

The role of the government is in controlling substances that impact the general public health. Take asbestos for example. It occurs naturally and has many applications. But we learned the hard way that it is also very toxic to to humans. So the gov't stepped in and regulated the industry so that asbestos is used safely. Cocaine can addict. Opium and its derivatives will addict. Addicts are owned by their suppliers and controlled by their habits. Those drugs clearly harm users and society in general so they are made illegal. Some drugs are less intense and are perhaps unfairly controlled. This might even include steroids. Other drugs like tobacco are the opposite. Tobacco is clearly addictive and harmful and should be made illegal just like opiates. But the gov't role is quite necessary. Without that oversight companies would manufacture toys covered with lead paint. It is just plain prudent policy and proper protection for the country as a whole.

Your logic doesn't follow the rights issues enshrined in the US Constitution.

Yes The Government can regulate the commerce of these products, but not if you grow them for personal use (yes I know that great "originalist" Scalia bent himself into a pretzel to go around this in Raich)

Asbestos is not equivilent in harm though to voluntarily consumed items. Asbestos is something that can be present and inhaled and cause harm UNBENOWNST to the victim. Hence its regulation as an enviromental hazard because it harms the public sphere.

But addictive or not, medication does not do that. Nor is there any enforcement of contract of ownership between suppliers and users. In fact if consumption of these drugs was not demonized and sale was legalized even if you saw a 10 fold increase in their use (and prohibition tells us its likely to only be a 3 fold increase) you would still be only 1/10th of the way towards the harm that tobacco and alcohol cause.

The current policy is neither prudent nor logical nor consistent with the US Constittion.

degsme:

...The current policy is neither prudent nor logical nor consistent with the US Constittion...

Right, it is "not" all those things. And it IS personally and socially destructive: individual addicts are driven to criminality--which they wouldn't be if the price of drugs didn't encompass the higher costs of evading the law. And socially, HUGE, WEALTHY, and MURDEROUS organizations have grown like weeds (far beyond anything from prohibition). Even if drugs were legalized today we'd probably still be dealing with the organized crime fallout (caused by drug prohibition) for 80 years--just as we did following the misguided alcohol prohibition.

We've REALLY become sheep when we earnestly believe only the government can protect us from ourselves...