- Position1 of 3›
- Yes, doping should be allowed
Right now, athletes and coaches prioritize remaining undetected in their doping programs. If doping was permitted, there would be more training programs and guides around major leagues to ensure the safety of the players when they accept certain drugs into their bodies. Instead of a potentially dangerous underground of drug use, a more open policy on doping would decrease the possibilities of injury or even death.
The argument
If performance enhancing drugs were permitted, attention could be turned to doping safely, rather than doping without detection. That shift in objective is the whole of the argument, because the current prohibition does not determine whether athletes dope — it determines only the conditions under which they do it. Those conditions are what create the danger. An athlete doping under prohibition selects substances and protocols for their undetectability rather than their safety, takes them without medical supervision, and cannot disclose what they are using to anyone treating them. Every one of those features is a consequence of the ban rather than of the drugs, and every one of them would be removed by permitting the practice openly. Permission would also redirect institutional effort. The same governing bodies that invest in detection methods could instead invest those resources in athlete welfare and ensure athletes are doping safely. The regulation of the drugs would ensure a more guided and less potentially harmful approach to the competitive world of doping — dosage, monitoring and contraindications becoming matters of protocol rather than of private guesswork. This is the point made in BMJ Journals: "Far from harming athletes, paradoxically, such a proposal may protect our athletes. There would be more rigorous and regular evaluation of an athlete's health and fitness to perform." The protection comes not from the drugs but from the supervision that legality makes possible. The underlying pressure does not go away in either case. Athletes push their bodies to the known limits of human exertion, which sometimes results in unsafe and even deadly underground and illegal activities. However, legalizing doping would bring all of these practices out into the open and help athletes choose healthier options for themselves. The question is therefore not whether doping happens, but whether it happens where someone can see it.
Context
Under the current system, teams are trying to develop drugs that are undetectable to testing with little concern for safety. If doping was permitted, instead of focusing on detection, enforcement bodies could focus on evaluation and monitoring athletes’ health.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Most drugs that this argument claims to be "safe" have serious mental and physical side effects on the athletes who use them. According to the USA DA, anabolic Agents like testosterone can result in "Increased aggressiveness and sexual appetite, sometimes resulting in abnormal sexual and criminal behavior, often referred to as 'Roid Rage.' Withdrawal from anabolic steroid use can be associated with depression, and in some cases, suicide." In 1984, even before the steroid use in the MLB, six athletes across various sports in 1984 were killed by anabolic steroids. The negative effects of such a proposal outweigh the positive ones, and simply because that industry is better regulated does not mean there will not still be underground practices that can seriously harm an athlete. There should not be a debate on how detrimental these drugs can be to the body.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P2] The drugs that would become legal are still harmful to athletes in many ways and simply regulating them would not stop a competition for the best and heaviest use of drugs. The underground would still operate. [Rejecting P3] Doping should not be allowed in sports.