Performance Enhancing Drugs Research Paper

Should the use of performance enhancing substances be accepted for athletic use? While the opposition will argue for the use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) by athletes, use of these substances must be banned from competition because it damages the honesty of athletic competition, provides an unfair advantage to athletes who train clean, and can have numerous detrimental effects to the user. Ultimately, it is imperative that stricter limits are put on athletes which bans the use of performance enhancing substances by any athlete regardless of sport.
The use of performance enhancing drugs is damaging the integrity of athletics nationwide and must be forbidden. The use of PEDs is becoming an epidemic around the world. From track and field
Clean training mandates an overall discipline and effort to reach a desired goal. Doping is described as taking the natural ability away and using PEDs to artificially enhance them. All of these contribute to why PEDs should be banned. PEDs pose an unfair advantage to athletes who chose to legitimately train and follow the rule books. As stated by Richard Bosshardt, “To have this undermined by doping among those athletes we most admire alone makes doping unacceptable. It is cheating, pure and simple, and that is wrong” (Bosshardt). Ultimately, the use of performance enhancing drugs by athletes must be banned because it provides an unfair advantage. On the other hand, the opposing side is in favor for more lenient restrictions regarding the use of PEDs in competition. The opposition makes an important point that when PEDs are used, “It’s only called ‘cheating’ when it applies to a sporting event” (Cowlishaw). While in a different scenario, when someone is sick, we hope that they receive medication to speed up their recovery time. Additionally, Cowlishaw adds that some substances get athletes penalized from game play while others give athletes praise (Cowlishaw). Authentic training for any sport requires determination, effort, and consistency. An athlete has to be willing to endure all the pain of training in order to reach the ultimate goal of success and winning whichever desired event. This is how natural talent is created and achieved. Taking performance enhancing drugs is taking the easy way out. Those drugs enable people to achieve unrealistic athletic capabilities (Bosshardt). Ultimately, the use of performance enhancing drugs needs to be prohibited due to the fact that it provides an unfair advantage during athletic