Negative Implications of Performance-Enhancing Drugs

The Negative Implications of Performance-Enhancing Drugs
    Professional sports are extremely competitive in today’s society. In this highly competitive world, athletes are inclined to increase their competitive edge through the use of performance enhancing drugs. This, however, leads to many negative implications.   Drug use in competitive sports not only hinders the integrity and fairness of the game; it leads to many health risks amongst athletes.   Some of these health risks include stunted growth, elevated blood pressure, elevated cholesterol levels, addiction, serious heart disease, and increased aggression (Steroidabuse).   Performance-enhancing drugs do not only pose serious health risks and problems for professional athletes, but can extend problems to emerging athletes as well.   This can be seen at both the high school and collegiate level.   These younger athletes seek to emulate the way professional athletes perform.   I feel that in order to preserve the fairness of sports and prevent unnecessary deaths of many athletes, young and old, who use performance enhancing drugs, initiatives must be made to stop professional athletes from using such substances.    
    There’s a highly debatable argument that surrounds whether steroids should be used in professional sports.   To understand why doping truly undermines the integrity of the sport world we have to look at the meaning behind playing a sport.   In our society, winning something has to be justified.   Something is justified by fair treatment.   Athletes can justify a win when they themselves work to accomplish it, on a level playing field.   When an athlete takes drugs to perform better, the playing field is automatically outweighed.   When drugs are involved, the player can’t justify a win on individual accomplishment; the drugs are what accomplished a goal.   We see society respond to this unfair “winning” in baseball in the 1990s – “the steroid era”.   During this time, the MLB experienced an increase in...