Information Binh #1: Should Performance Enhancing Drugs and Practices be Banned in Sport?

It started with Semantixx’s blog post, Is doping for dummies?, and it reminded me of one memorable essay I wrote in university about whether illegal performance enhancing drugs should be banned.  I duly left a comment on the blog because I still hazily remembered some of the arguments for and against.  This is despite having written the essay almost 10 years ago.  I reread the original essay to refresh my memory (disappointedly only achieving a 71%/ 2C grade) with the view to redraft it for blog form.  Enjoy.

Should Performance Enhancing Drugs and Practices be banned in Sport?

Most people will agree that performance enhancing drugs and practices, commonly referred to as doping, should be banned.  Some people will be able to give reasons why.  However, few have critically thought about their reasoning.  I will attempt to cite some of the common reasons for the banning of performance enhancing drugs and explore some of the inconsistencies in these arguments.

There is an inherent sense that this practice is cheating and unfair.  However, cheating is only cheating because it is against the rules of the sport.  If doping was legal, then it is not cheating.  This reason alone is not sufficient to ban doping.  To make this argument work, it must be separate from the rules.

Again, this argument only works if it is against the rules.  You may argue that sport is unfair regardless with biological advantages, e.g. Kenyans born in high altitude, or social advantages, e.g. those born in USA, China or Russia with a superior sports system.

Not all drugs on the banned list are harmful to your health, e.g. caffeine.  Most on the banned list are not even proven to be harmful.  There is a contradiction that some legal substances, e.g. tobacco, are more harmful than some of the banned drugs.  This argument also assumes that athletes need protection from doping and are not able to make informed decisions about their life or sporting choices

If your competitors are doping, then clean athletes can be coerced into doping as to level the playing field.  However, it can be counter-argued that sport is already highly coercive, with practices as such full-time training, altitude training, diet control, psychological intervention and performance analysis needed just to keep up.  Are the above practices any more coercive to warrant banning?

According to Bandura’s Social Learning Theory, people will copy actions of significant models.  People, especially children, will want to emulate star athletes.  If these athletes are doping, it can have two undesirable effects to society.  Firstly, children will see it as athletes having no respect for the rules of the sport and perhaps law in general.  However, this can only work if doping is illegal, which again is not in itself justification to warrant its ban.  Secondly, using drugs to achieve sporting success be can relayed generally that drugs are a viable option to achieve other ends in life.  This may contribute to the wider problem of general drug use.  However, why should sport be held to such a high standard?  There are other role models who are not subjected to such scrutiny or regulation such as Kurt Cobain and Oliver Stone.  Parents are also role models.  Should they be a ban for not smoking or drinking alcohol in front of their children?  The aggregate social harm caused by tobacco and alcohol on young people could be higher than being doped under medically controlled conditions.

Spectators expect to see dope-free athletes compete against one another in fair competition.  When doping scandals occurs, e.g. the Festina drug bust at the1998 Tour de France, reputations suffer and spectators lose interest which in turn damages the sport itself.  Again, this is only the case if doping is illegal because spectators lose faith in the sport’s integrity.

It may be unnatural because drugs are foreign to the body, e.g. caffeine.  This argument is inconsistent because aspirin is foreign but legal and blood doping is natural (it is your own blood) but banned.  It may be unnatural because of its abnormal quantities, e.g. high doses of anabolic steroids.  However, mega-doses of vitamins and creatine are used while a little decongestant is banned.  It may be unnatural due to its abnormal route, e.g. injection of blood for blood doping.  The counter claim is injections and IVs are commonplace in sport and they are legal.

It can be seen for that to continue to warrant the ban of performance enhancing drugs and practices, the arguments for it should be more clear, complete and comprehensive as current arguments can be convincingly be counter-argued.