The Argument for Peds

Former Notre Dame Football coach, Knute Rockne, once said, “Show me a good and gracious loser and I’ll show you a failure,” (“The Future of Steroids”). The importance of winning in sports and being the greatest has grown immensely. This unquenchable desire to be stronger, faster, and more agile than the opponent, has caused many athletes to stop at nothing to be the best; this pressure has caused athletes to take banned and illegal substances known as performance-enhancing drugs (Performance-enhancing drugs) to achieve maximum strength and speed. The use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs in sports has been obvious to many spectators and sports enthusiasts for quite some time now, and athletes who have been found guilty of taking performance-enhancing drugs have received critical response from the public. Fans of all ages have been looking up to their favorite athletes only to be let down by the athletes’ use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs. The disappointment by fans is caused by the notion that the athletes are cheating, and that performance-enhancing drugs are detrimental to the athletes. Fans do not want to cheer or admire someone the sport has deemed a cheater of the game and of himself. However, doping in sports is more beneficial to the individual and the economy than it is detrimental. As a result, the government should remove the punishments and bans associated with doping in sports and legalize steroid use, with specific limitations thus leaving the final decision up to the athletes.
Before performance-enhancing drugs were used as a way to become stronger and faster for competition, they were used for medicinal uses. “The first therapeutic use of steroids occurred in the 18th century when English physician William Withering used digitalis to treat edema,” (“History of Steroids”). Medicine, like other areas of science, has made vast strides over the past few hundred years. Coincidentally, steroids, a natural substance in the human body, has