This is my first draft.
Sports have been a part of our culture from a long time and sports champions have been highly respected. The fame and glory associated has attracted many to try their luck. And as in all fields, some have tried the short cuts as well, performance enhancing drugs being one of them. After all, the desire for any and every competitive advantage is a completely understandable element of human nature. Not surprisingly, there are records of the use of performance enhancing drugs going as far back as ancient times. Despite this long and storied history of performance enhancing drugs in sports, doping is arguably the most controversial and most talked-about issue in modern sports. It is an issue that cuts across all sports, regardless of technology, popularity, or tradition. Performance enhancing drugs are substances used by athletes to improve their performances. The use of enhancement "substances" for sporting events dates back to the ancient Greeks and ancient Maya.
Performance potions where utilized by the Greeks to increase their abilities, and cocoa leaves where thought to be used by the ancient Maya to increase their abilities. Today, athletes will go to many lengths to increase athletic ability, including: steroids, HGH, Amphetamines, and even animal or human organs just as the Greeks did in their time. Due to the use of performance enhancing drugs by professional athletes there has been increased use at the high school and collegiate level. Their athletics as well as academics are suffering because of the focus on the drugs athletes are using and the negative effects that they cause.
The history of performance enhancing drugs stretches all the way to the 1880s. In 1889, Dr. Brown-Sequard, of France, discovered that he could partially reverse the degenerative ailments in his 72 year-old body by injecting himself with the parts of dog and guinea pig testicles. It wasn't until the middle of the 19th century, in the heart of the Industrial Revolution, that sporting events returned as a form of recreation and entertainment, as well as business. Not surprisingly, the first instances of doping in modern athletics did not occur long after the revitalization of sporting events. In the late 19th century, European cyclists were using a multitude of drugs from caffeine to ether-coated sugar cubes to Vin Mariani, a cocaine-laced wine in order to alleviate the pain and exhaustion resulting from their sport. Afterwards, over the early part of the 20th century, there do not appear to be a significant number of reports of widespread doping, despite the lack of any bans or tests.
All the stories of death and illness that resulted from overuse of stimulants such as strychnine might have been sufficient to scare athletes away from using those drugs completely, especially since the stakes in amateur and professional sports were a lot lower during this era. All the stories of death and illness that resulted from overuse of stimulants such as strychnine might have been sufficient to scare athletes away from using those drugs completely, especially since the stakes in amateur and professional sports were a lot lower during this era. Conversely, those stories might have simply made the athletes more cautious and deliberate in using the drugs. Since the stories of doping from this time are the result of death and/or serious illness, the cautious use by athletes would lead to no, or a negligible, amount of public harm.
There are two kinds of performance enhancing drugs. They are legal and illegal. Performance enhancing drugs come in all forms from liquid to solids. There are many kinds of illegal performance enhancing drugs. One commonly known drug is Anabolic Androgenic steroids. The use of steroids in the sports world is not new in present times These anabolic/androgenic steroids as they are precisely called belong to a group known as ergogenic or performance-enhancing drugs which is why the are so widely used by athletes. The medical steroids are synthetic derivatives of testosterone, a natural male hormone, the testosterone and may have therapeutic value in some cases. The terms anabolic means growing or building and androgenic means masculinizing.
Another illegal performance enhancing drug is cocaine. Cocaine is a chemical compound that acts as a stimulant. The compound used in the production of cocaine is derived from the coca plant. Historically, cocaine was used as a topical anesthetic to numb the surface of a body part, such as the eyes, ears, nose, throat, neck and head. Cocaine isn't usually thought of as a PED. However, now athletes use the drug to keep them going.
Also a commonly known drug is cannabinoids or marijuana. Cannabinoids have been included in an annually updated list of substances that are prohibited to elite athletes kept by the International Olympic Committee and more recently by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Cannabinoids are a compound contained in the Marijuana plant and its products. The cannabinoid compound contains a substance called THC which has psychoactive properties. Due to the fast absorption rate of THC by the lungs, cannabinoids have a rapid onset, with the effect on the central nervous system being obvious within 20 minutes with duration lasting 4-6 hours. Cannabinoids can be detected in the urine of an occasional user for up to a week following use, and much longer for regular users.
Also an illegally use, blood doping, also known as erythropoietin. Blood doping is a large boost of red blood cells in the bloodstream to enhance the performance of athletes. When blood doping, you are enhancing the O2 transport of the body to the muscles. The body goes through aerobic respiration in order to provide sufficient delivery of O2 to the exercising skeletal muscles and the main determining factors. The cardiac output of an athlete is difficult to change during a competition and the distribution of cardiac output is at the maximum rate, during competitions. In addition, the O2 extraction is approximately 90% at maximal exercise. Therefore, the only method to enhance the physical performance left to increase the O2 content in the artery is by enhancing the hemoglobin mass. In other words, hemoglobin concentration and blood volume contributes to hemoglobin mass.
There are also some legal performances enhancing drugs. Caffeine is the most commonly use performance enhancing drug in sports. Caffeine seems to be everywhere you look nowadays. Besides the usual coffee and tea consumption, caffeine can be found in gels, gum and aspirin. It is supposed that caffeine can improve the athlete's endurance in sports where long-term stamina is needed. A test was done on 6 athletes that commonly use caffeine. They were giving caffeine pills an hour before their competition. Also caffeine has been known to decrease fatigue in athletes, which plays a physical as well as psychological role in the performance of an athlete. When it comes to caffeine in sports nutrition, it can either enhance or regress an athlete's abilities.
Another legal performance enhancing drugs is creatine. Creatine supplements are athletic aids used to increase high-intensity athletic performance. Researchers have known of the use of creatine as an energy source by skeletal muscles since the beginning of the 20th century. They were popularized as a performance-enhancing supplement in 1992. Athletes from many different sports have been known to supplement creatine because it is one of the few supplements that has not been banned. Creatine supplementation appears to improve performance the most in activities that consist of repeated bouts that are high in intensity.
Another legal method is high altitude training. Training at high altitude has been used by competitive athletes as a means of improving their potential. Exposure to high altitude could theoretically improve an athlete's capacity to exercise. Exposing the body to high altitude causes it to acclimatize to the lower level of oxygen available in the atmosphere. For any type of exercise lasting longer than a few minutes, the body must use oxygen to generate energy. Without it, muscles simply seize up and can become damaged. This type of exercise is called aerobic exercise, meaning with oxygen. The body naturally produces a hormone called erythropoietin (EPO) which stimulates the production of red blood cells which carry oxygen to the muscles. Performance enhancing drugs come in varieties.
In today society, there are many policies for Performance enhancing drugs. There are banned drugs in every sport. The World Anti-Doping Agency has implemented drug test in every sport. They implement these tests for the safety of every athlete. Without these test and bans of drugs, athletes would not have long careers and sports would be more of a chemical game than of natural talent. Athletes would overdose and lose the spirit of game.
In the NFL, players must sign a contract for drug testing during their career. Here is a briefing of their policy. The NFL can perform random drug testing year round. Every player in the league gets tested at least once a year through urine sampling. The NFL reviews their methods and systems quarterly and is working on constantly upgrading their protocol. The National Football League prohibits the use of anabolic/androgenic steroids (including exogenous testosterone), stimulants, human or animal growth hormones, whether natural or synthetic, and related or similar substances. For convenience, these substances will be referred to as prohibited substance. These substances have no legitimate place in professional football. The league's agreement with the players association includes a testing provision for HGH (Human Growth Hormone.) However, after two seasons into the new Collective Bargaining Agreement there is no unified agreement on a protocol for the blood tests to detect HGH. Under the NFL's collective bargaining agreement, players aren't required to admit which performance enhancing drugs they have taken if test results are positive.
The NBA also has a policy for drugs. In 1983 the NBA adopted its anti-drug policy. Based on reasonable cause all players are subject to random testing during pre-season with rookies tested three times on a random basis throughout the season. The league works with The National Center for Drug Free Sport to administer tests and transmit the results to the Office of Commissioner David Stern.
There is also a policy in the MLB. Major League Baseball's drug policy was established by agreement between the MLB Players Association and the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball. The goal was to deter and end the use of banned substances, including anabolic steroids and other illegal drugs, and to provide for, in keeping with the overall purposes of the program, an orderly, systematic, and cooperative resolution of any disputes that may arise concerning the existence, interpretation, or application of the policy itself. The Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program were adopted in the Spring of 2006. All major league players can be tested for performance enhancing drugs which include steroids, stimulants and other listed drugs under the Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program. Major League managers, coaches and other clubhouse personnel can be tested. This testing began in 2008 based on recommendations from the Mitchell Report. The tests are administered by Independent Private Administrators (IPA). The IPAS test for over three consecutive years and penalties are meted out by the commissioner. The MLB has had many cases with performance enhancing drugs.
The collegiate level of sports also has a drug policy. The NCAA shares the responsibility of promoting a drug-free athletics environment with its member institutions to protect the health of student-athletes and preserve fair competition. Drug testing in the NCAA began in 1986 when testing at championship events began, and it expanded to a year-round program in Divisions I and II in 1990. Today, 90 percent of Division I, 65 percent of Division II and 21 percent of Division III schools conduct their own drug-testing programs in addition to the NCAA's.
Throughout the long history of sport, participants have always sought an advantage over their opponents, be it through training, technique, equipment, or medicine. Steroids, human growth hormone, and other performance enhancing drugs are merely the most recent development. And while there is strong anecdotal evidence about the detrimental effects of many performance enhancing drugs, there is still much to be learned and studied about many other drugs. The medical consensus for many of these other drugs has yet to be reached, and perhaps, society and public opinion should allow the drugs to be fully investigated and researched before reaching a conclusion about the dangers and immorality associated with the use of such drugs.
