Why are performance enhancing drugs / methods illegal?

Trev The Rev

Are we against drugs in sport on the grounds of protecting athletes health? Or, are we looking to produce a level playing field and allow those who refuse to take drugs to compete on equal trems?

Whichever, it is clear that decades since drug testing started there is still a complete failure to protect iether health or create a level playing field.

Has the time come where we just accept professional sport is impossible to keep clean and accept that any man or woman over the age of 18 has a right to put whatever substance they want in their body be it oraly, introveniously, skin patch or supository?

Please do not think for one moment I am condoning cheating. Armstrong & his like are cheats and fraudsters, they broke the rules and lied. I am only questioning whether we should accept reality and de-criminalise something which could be argued should never have been outlawed in the first place. Alcohol damages health but it is not banned. Smoking is discouraged but not illegal.

Ethically, does it matter if a rider has a hematocrit of 50% because he has slept in an altitude tent and trained at altitude or in a chamber or because he has taken EPO or used blood transfusions? Is thickened blood by pill or transfusion more dangerous than thikened blood caused by sleeping in a tent and training at altitude? Certainly blood transfusions and storage is more dangerous, if done without expert medical help and dangerous, even with medical help, due to the added risk of infection, than EPO.

dsoutar

Trev The Rev wrote:

Are we against drugs in sport on the grounds of protecting athletes health? Or, are we looking to produce a level playing field and allow those who refuse to take drugs to compete on equal trems?

Whichever, it is clear that decades since drug testing started there is still a complete failure to protect iether health or create a level playing field.

Has the time come where we just accept professional sport is impossible to keep clean and accept that any man or woman over the age of 18 has a right to put whatever substance they want in their body be it oraly, introveniously, skin patch or supository?

Please do not think for one moment I am condoning cheating. Armstrong & his like are cheats and fraudsters, they broke the rules and lied. I am only questioning whether we should accept reality and de-criminalise something which could be argued should never have been outlawed in the first place. Alcohol damages health but it is not banned. Smoking is discouraged but not illegal.

Ethically, does it matter if a rider has a hematocrit of 50% because he has slept in an altitude tent and trained at altitude or in a chamber or because he has taken EPO or used blood transfusions? Is thickened blood by pill or transfusion more dangerous than thikened blood caused by sleeping in a tent and training at altitude? Certainly blood transfusions and storage is more dangerous, if done without expert medical help and dangerous, even with medical help, due to the added risk of infection, than EPO.

I read a good article on precisely this just the other day. I'll try and remember where it was and dig it out (or someone else will hopefully beat me to it). I've read so many flipping things on this subject recently it's not immediately obvious where it was

herb71

I read something similar, there is a growing school of thought that absolute levels should be set for certain variables and you would be tested and stopped from competing if you exceeded those levels. How you get there would be up to you, either with currently legal or illegal drugs and training methods.

Personally I think this is very wrong. I accept the testers will always be playing catch up to the cheaters, but no effort should be spared from trying to create a level playing field as far as is practical.

My son has ambitions to be an Olympic swimmer, and at 14, that is starting to look like it could be a realistic ambition. If I thought he was not going to get there without risking his long term health and resorting to cheating and shortcuts I would stop him now.

I think all dopers, regardless of sport, should be banned for life, and if that athlete has made a great deal of money from the back of cheating and fraud, the law should allow the seizing of assets as well.

dsoutar

Here it is

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ld-fallacy

Pross

For me it's quite simple. As soon as you go down the 'let them take what they want' route those who do have health concerns regarding doping or those with morals will either have to take something they don't really want to take in order to compete or stop doing something they are naturally good at (and possibly love doing) which is unfair. Riders should be limited by what is possible through their own physiological make up, the amount of training they are prepared to do and natural processes (such as the effects of training at altitude).

LangerDan

Two points.

Trev The Rev wrote:

Has the time come where we just accept professional sport is impossible to keep clean and accept that any man or woman over the age of 18 has a right to put whatever substance they want in their body be it oraly, introveniously, skin patch or supository?

Not to be the one who shouts "who will think of the children" but.. who will think of the children? If you have the drugs and the techniques to administer them freely available to over 18s, what's going to stop younger riders using them, either off their own bat or by a over-zealous parent of coach. Look at the cases of Geneviève Jeanson, Ricco or the allegations that Chris Carmichael, along with others, doped junior US riders.

Trev The Rev wrote:

Ethically, does it matter if a rider has a hematocrit of 50% because he has slept in an altitude tent and trained at altitude or in a chamber or because he has taken EPO or used blood transfusions? Is thickened blood by pill or transfusion more dangerous than thikened blood caused by sleeping in a tent and training at altitude? Certainly blood transfusions and storage is more dangerous, if done without expert medical help and dangerous, even with medical help, due to the added risk of infection, than EPO.

EPO has been designed to make extremely sick people a little less sick. AFAIK there is no body of scientific evidence regarding the short or long-term effects of EPO use in sport - the clinical trials of these products have originally been carried out on their typical patient population, not on groups of highly trained athletes who may also be using a variety of other materials which may interact with the EPO. The FDA warned five years ago that aggressive use of erythropoiesis-stimulating agents to raise hemoglobin to a target of 12 g/dL or higher was associated with "serious and life-threatening side-effects and/or death." Bear in mind that a normal persons haemoglobin would be 14-18, with athletes having levels of 20+ due to EPO use.

Trev The Rev

Pross wrote:

For me it's quite simple. As soon as you go down the 'let them take what they want' route those who do have health concerns regarding doping or those with morals will either have to take something they don't really want to take in order to compete or stop doing something they are naturally good at (and possibly love doing) which is unfair. Riders should be limited by what is possible through their own physiological make up, the amount of training they are prepared to do and natural processes (such as the effects of training at altitude).

The problem is that is the route we have been down for the past 40 years. The biggest cheat with the biggest budget wins. Testing has totally failed, hardly a clean tour winner if any ever. I heard all this, "cycling is clean now" guff back in 1999 and look who won 7 years in a row. I remember Tom Simpson, that was 45 years ago. Do you really think anything will change? It won't, in 10 years time we will be right back here having the same discussions.

Why is drug taking unethical anyway?

Trev The Rev

LangerDan wrote:

Two points.

Trev The Rev wrote:

Has the time come where we just accept professional sport is impossible to keep clean and accept that any man or woman over the age of 18 has a right to put whatever substance they want in their body be it oraly, introveniously, skin patch or supository?

Not to be the one who shouts "who will think of the children" but.. who will think of the children? If you have the drugs and the techniques to administer them freely available to over 18s, what's going to stop younger riders using them, either off their own bat or by a over-zealous parent of coach. Look at the cases of Geneviève Jeanson, Ricco or the allegations that Chris Carmichael, along with others, doped junior US riders.

Trev The Rev wrote:

Ethically, does it matter if a rider has a hematocrit of 50% because he has slept in an altitude tent and trained at altitude or in a chamber or because he has taken EPO or used blood transfusions? Is thickened blood by pill or transfusion more dangerous than thikened blood caused by sleeping in a tent and training at altitude? Certainly blood transfusions and storage is more dangerous, if done without expert medical help and dangerous, even with medical help, due to the added risk of infection, than EPO.

EPO has been designed to make extremely sick people a little less sick. AFAIK there is no body of scientific evidence regarding the short or long-term effects of EPO use in sport - the clinical trials of these products have originally been carried out on their typical patient population, not on groups of highly trained athletes who may also be using a variety of other materials which may interact with the EPO. The FDA warned five years ago that aggressive use of erythropoiesis-stimulating agents to raise hemoglobin to a target of 12 g/dL or higher was associated with "serious and life-threatening side-effects and/or death." Bear in mind that a normal persons haemoglobin would be 14-18, with athletes having levels of 20+ due to EPO use.

Everything you say is correct, but we know for a fact testing does not work. Some idiot almost killed himself re injecting his old blood. He would have been safer taking drugs or getting his transfusions done out in the open by a doctor. Criminalising everything only helps those with the biggest budget. Make everything available & legal with medical supervision. Probably close to what Sky are doing anyway. This would be safer than buying drugs on the black market or DIY transfusions.

Pross

Trev The Rev wrote:

Pross wrote:

For me it's quite simple. As soon as you go down the 'let them take what they want' route those who do have health concerns regarding doping or those with morals will either have to take something they don't really want to take in order to compete or stop doing something they are naturally good at (and possibly love doing) which is unfair. Riders should be limited by what is possible through their own physiological make up, the amount of training they are prepared to do and natural processes (such as the effects of training at altitude).

The problem is that is the route we have been down for the past 40 years. The biggest cheat with the biggest budget wins. Testing has totally failed, hardly a clean tour winner if any ever. I heard all this, "cycling is clean now" guff back in 1999 and look who won 7 years in a row. I remember Tom Simpson, that was 45 years ago. Do you really think anything will change? It won't, in 10 years time we will be right back here having the same discussions.

Why is drug taking unethical anyway?

Do I think it will change? No, I think the best we can hope for is that it reduces in scale both in numbers of riders taking the risk and the benefits to those that do take the risk. I'd rather all sports governing bodies invest in improved drug testing to make the risks of getting caught outweigh the benefits of cheating.

Why is drug taking unethical? Well, it's a form of cheating and cheating is unethical in my book whether that's taking drugs, fitting a motor to your bike or jumping on the train to get the the stage finish first. I also think it would be unethical to allow people to take products that can have a detrimental affect on their health and if we go down the free-for-all route we would almost be encouraging them to do so.

esafosfina

Google: Philosophy of Sport... some good moral arguements to be found.

Trev The Rev

Pross,

We have been doing it your way for 45 years, look where we are now. The same with recreational drugs, the criminals get richer and more violent and the number of users grows. It is time for a radical approach.

Trev.

MrTapir

Here's a good inner ring article about the myth of a level playing field

josame

Trev The Rev wrote:

Everything you say is correct, but we know for a fact testing does not work. Some idiot almost killed himself re injecting his old blood. He would have been safer taking drugs or getting his transfusions done out in the open by a doctor. Criminalising everything only helps those with the biggest budget. Make everything available & legal with medical supervision. Probably close to what Sky are doing anyway. This would be safer than buying drugs on the black market or DIY transfusions.

Hmm.. I can't quite see NICE saying yep Mr GP 'this drug is fine for the old lady in your waiting room' oh and in order to satisfy some 'minority sport interests' we've even sent a control group up Alp D'heuz :?

but ya never know

Insideinfo

I think the OP raises a good question with regards 'shall we just let everyone take everything anyway?" but here's my take on it that doesn't often get thought about.

Let's just say that we do say to sportsmen and women, 'take whatever you want'. So we dont bother with testing, we dont worry about what they take and we dont worry about who wins and by which means. On the face of it, it seems like its an easy way out. Less hassle, sit back, watch the sport.

The area that nobody ever thinks about is this: if we let them do that, where does the real athlete start and where does it stop? The whole point of 'sport' is pitting people against each other with an eventual winner, if you were to let them take whatever they want, you would have people who werent that great, simply filling up on drugs thinking they could. Sport would become like the 'X-Factor', full of f*cking idiots who think they can sing but compared to people who really can sing, there's no comparison.
The other thing nobody ever mentions, is the drug side itself. If you said 'take what you want' you will find a whole industry spring up purely to create the next monster steroid. Whole chunks of sports funding would go into the creation of the drugs and not the athlete. Entire countries, the ones with big budgets, would spend millions making their athletes 'super athletes' almost like Dolph Lundgren in Rocky. It would no longer be about the event or the sport or even the human ability, they could take a simple random from the street, pump them full of drugs and market them as the ultimate sportsman or woman. You would have no way of knowing if they were the best or not.

Some of you will say 'yes but its still a level playing field if everyones doing it' but the reality is it wouldnt be. It would purely come down to money and the big countries and sports organisations could dominate with smaller countries simply not being able to compete, because they wont have the funds to produce EPO Megablast Mark 4 or whatever the Chinese or Americans have come up with.

Sport would then be watered down and it would all be about money rather than the human achievement.

Trev The Rev

Sport would then be watered down and it would all be about money rather than the human achievement.


It already is all about money and has been for years. That is exactly my point. The worst nightmare is here and now and we have been living in it for decades.

Le Commentateur

The pharma companies are almost certainly gambling on this attitude taking hold and people deluding themselves that it can be ring-fenced to just professionals, while numerous EPO pick-me-ups appear on supermarket shelves to help you cope with the exhausting demands of modern existence. In no time at all your kids will be racing on dope. Your work colleagues will be putting in longer hours and be possibly more focussed and productive than you, thereby getting that promotion (or just saving their jobs). Cycling is a trojan horse for these companies.

Trev The Rev

We already have state sponsored performance enhancement where supplements and various methods supervised by scientists & doctors mimick the results of other so called illegal and unethical methods. Look at Sky & British Cycling. How young are the kids on the performance program? It is all about money, biggest budget wins.

greasedscotsman

Trev The Rev wrote:

Testing has totally failed

Has it? Contador, Frank Schleck, Landis, Hamilton, Di Luca, Ricco, Schumacher, Kohl, Vinokourov, Heras, Rebellin, Sinkewitz, and so on... have all failed tests. Even Armstrong failed a test in '99 which was covered up by the UCI. Maybe it's not the testing that's at fault, but the governing body.

rick_chasey

esafosfina wrote:

Google: Philosophy of Sport... some good moral arguements to be found.

Sad state of affairs that as cycling fans you are forced to get pretty intimate with that.

dave_1

stupid thread, an absurd question

Trev The Rev

greasedscotsman wrote:

Trev The Rev wrote:

Testing has totally failed

Has it? Contador, Frank Schleck, Landis, Hamilton, Di Luca, Ricco, Schumacher, Kohl, Vinokourov, Heras, Rebellin, Sinkewitz, and so on... have all failed tests. Even Armstrong failed a test in '99 which was covered up by the UCI. Maybe it's not the testing that's at fault, but the governing body.

The tests and sanctions have failed to deter and many who have been caught cheating passed all the tests. Look at all the former Postal riders.

greasedscotsman

Trev The Rev wrote:

greasedscotsman wrote:

Trev The Rev wrote:

Testing has totally failed

Has it? Contador, Frank Schleck, Landis, Hamilton, Di Luca, Ricco, Schumacher, Kohl, Vinokourov, Heras, Rebellin, Sinkewitz, and so on... have all failed tests. Even Armstrong failed a test in '99 which was covered up by the UCI. Maybe it's not the testing that's at fault, but the governing body.

The tests and sanctions have failed to deter and many who have been caught cheating passed all the tests. Look at all the former Postal riders.

OK, but plenty still have failed tests. To suggest testing has totally failed is not correct.

You seem to be expecting one fix all solution that will make this go away. That isn't going to happen. Riders will cheat and they will get away with it. They always have. Also just because a rider or team gets busted, it doesn't mean that everyone is cheating. If you can't accept that, then maybe cycling as a sport isn't for you.

Trev The Rev

greasedscotsman wrote:

Trev The Rev wrote:

greasedscotsman wrote:

Trev The Rev wrote:

Testing has totally failed

Has it? Contador, Frank Schleck, Landis, Hamilton, Di Luca, Ricco, Schumacher, Kohl, Vinokourov, Heras, Rebellin, Sinkewitz, and so on... have all failed tests. Even Armstrong failed a test in '99 which was covered up by the UCI. Maybe it's not the testing that's at fault, but the governing body.

The tests and sanctions have failed to deter and many who have been caught cheating passed all the tests. Look at all the former Postal riders.

OK, but plenty still have failed tests. To suggest testing has totally failed is not correct.

You seem to be expecting one fix all solution that will make this go away. That isn't going to happen. Riders will cheat and they will get away with it. They always have. Also just because a rider or team gets busted, it doesn't mean that everyone is cheating. If you can't accept that, then maybe cycling as a sport isn't for you.

Exactly my point.

greasedscotsman

Trev The Rev wrote:

Exactly my point.

Don't get it then, why do you want to remove all the controls?

Trev The Rev

greasedscotsman wrote:

Trev The Rev wrote:

Exactly my point.

Don't get it then, why do you want to remove all the controls?

Because over the last 40 years the controls have not solved the problem - it is a futile waste of money. Criminalising drug use only pushes athletes into the hands of criminals which increases the risk to their health.

greasedscotsman

Trev The Rev wrote:

Because over the last 40 years the controls have not solved the problem - it is a futile waste of money. Criminalising drug use only pushes athletes into the hands of criminals which increases the risk to their health.

And taking PEDs isn't a risk to health?

RichN95.

Trev The Rev wrote:

greasedscotsman wrote:

Trev The Rev wrote:

Exactly my point.

Don't get it then, why do you want to remove all the controls?

Because over the last 40 years the controls have not solved the problem - it is a futile waste of money. Criminalising drug use only pushes athletes into the hands of criminals which increases the risk to their health.

Go and look up who Andreas Krieger is and ask yourself whether you want to give the competitors carte blanche to go to those extremes to win in fact almost demand they go to those lengths.

Pross

Trev The Rev wrote:

Pross,

We have been doing it your way for 45 years, look where we are now. The same with recreational drugs, the criminals get richer and more violent and the number of users grows. It is time for a radical approach.

Trev.

It's not 'my way', it's just what I believe is the best way in an imperfect world for the long term health of riders. I fail to see any benefit in making it a free-for-all. It would be like having a motor racing classification where you remove all limits and restrictions on the cars to enable them to go as fast as they like.

Murr X

greasedscotsman wrote:

Trev The Rev wrote:

Because over the last 40 years the controls have not solved the problem - it is a futile waste of money. Criminalising drug use only pushes athletes into the hands of criminals which increases the risk to their health.

And taking PEDs isn't a risk to health?

But isn't bike racing highly risky to health?

In truth there are many athletes in untested sports that go absolutely "all out" PED wise in search of performance and quite frankly make Armstrong and co totally and utterly choirboy clean. Despite what many will say on the whole they do well health wise (males) and in reality most will probably have fewer issues than the general population. I personally know very many of these athletes and in my opinion they are generally much less ignorant and better informed than the anti doping crowd would be and would have you believe (a lot more intelligent too IMO).

Of course this is not always the case when it comes to PED use especially when athletes are trying to stay under the radar in tested sports. Back alley blood transfusions are unacceptable in my opinion especially considering the risks to the athlete if blood has been improperly stored not to mention the risk of getting somebody elses blood... not worth thinking about and I really hope that this method in particular would not continue.

Anyhow I do not have the answer of to how to combat doping in tested sport, I really don't and won't pretend to know.

Murr X

rob churchill

Hell yes, doping controls are a failure, let's legalise all PED's. While we're at it, burglary has been a crime since God was a boy and it's still happening all the time, so let's legalise that too. Drink-driving as well. The vast majority of c***s who get pissed and drive home won't get stopped and breathalysed will they, so why bother criminalising it?

Do you have even a scrap of evidence to support your assertion that athletes are at increased risk from buying black market PEDS instead of getting them at Boots? If there were such a risk, how would it compare statistically to the increased harm that would result from putting every professional athlete and a fair proportion of keen amateurs on maximal pharmaceutical assistance, which would be the inevitable result of legalisation?

Back when EPO was first being used, and before the 50% haematocrit limit was introduced, pro-cyclists were sleeping with their heart monitors on - so that their soigneurs could rush in to wake them and hustle them on to an exercise bike if their heart rates dropped low enough to let their sludgy blood clot in their veins. About a dozen of them never woke up. And these were guys who had dedicated medical supervision.

Testicular atrophy, infertility, gynecomastia (enlarged breasts in men), high blood pressure, hypercholesterolaemia, liver failure, heart failure, prostate enlargement, aggression and violent crime, depression (permanent) ...just a few of the reasons why anabolics are banned. But because a minority of athletes still use anabolics (in small doses to avoid detection) you would make anabolic steroid use effectively mandatory for any young man or woman who wants to make a living in professional sport?

I'm with Dave_1 - stupid thread, hardly deserves the effort of a response.

rob churchill

Pross wrote:

Trev The Rev wrote:

Pross,

<snip inanity>

Trev.

It's not 'my way', it's just what I believe is the best way in an imperfect world for the long term health of riders. I fail to see any benefit in making it a free-for-all. ]It would be like having a motor racing classification where you remove all limits and restrictions on the cars to enable them to go as fast as they like.

Actually, I would pay to watch that.