Benefits of College Athletes
www.thelancet.com Medicine and Sport Vol 366 December 2005 S21
The rules of sport define a level playing field on which athletes compete. Antidoping policies exist, in theory, to encourage fair play. However, we believe they are unfounded, dangerous, and excessively costly.
The need for rules in sports cannot be dismissed. But the anchoring of today’s antidoping regulations in the notion of fair play is misguided, since other factors that affect performance—eg, biological and environmental factors—are unchecked. Getting help from one’s genes— by being blessed with a performance-enhancing genetic predisposition—is acceptable. Use of drugs is not. Yet both types of advantage are undeserved. Prevailing sports ethics is unconcerned with this contradiction.
Another ethical foundation for antidoping concerns the athlete’s health. Antidoping control is judged necessary to prevent damage from doping. However, sport is dangerous even if no drugs are taken—playing soccer comes with high risks for knee and ankle problems, for instance, and boxing can lead to brain damage. To comprehensively assess any increase in risk afforded by the use of drugs or technology, every performance-enhancing method needs to be studied. Such work cannot be done while use of performance-enhancing drugs is illegal. We believe that rather than drive doping underground, use of drugs should be permitted under medical supervision.
Legalisation of the use of drugs in sport might even have some advantages. The boundary between the therapeutic and ergogenic—ie, performance enhancing—use of drugs is blurred at present and poses difficult questions for the controlling bodies of antidoping practice and for sports doctors. The antidoping rules often lead to complicated and costly administrative and medical followup to ascertain whether drugs taken by athletes are legitimate therapeutic agents or illicit.
If doping was allowed, would there be an increase in the rate of death and
The rules of sport define a level playing field on which athletes compete. Antidoping policies exist, in theory, to encourage fair play. However, we believe they are unfounded, dangerous, and excessively costly.
The need for rules in sports cannot be dismissed. But the anchoring of today’s antidoping regulations in the notion of fair play is misguided, since other factors that affect performance—eg, biological and environmental factors—are unchecked. Getting help from one’s genes— by being blessed with a performance-enhancing genetic predisposition—is acceptable. Use of drugs is not. Yet both types of advantage are undeserved. Prevailing sports ethics is unconcerned with this contradiction.
Another ethical foundation for antidoping concerns the athlete’s health. Antidoping control is judged necessary to prevent damage from doping. However, sport is dangerous even if no drugs are taken—playing soccer comes with high risks for knee and ankle problems, for instance, and boxing can lead to brain damage. To comprehensively assess any increase in risk afforded by the use of drugs or technology, every performance-enhancing method needs to be studied. Such work cannot be done while use of performance-enhancing drugs is illegal. We believe that rather than drive doping underground, use of drugs should be permitted under medical supervision.
Legalisation of the use of drugs in sport might even have some advantages. The boundary between the therapeutic and ergogenic—ie, performance enhancing—use of drugs is blurred at present and poses difficult questions for the controlling bodies of antidoping practice and for sports doctors. The antidoping rules often lead to complicated and costly administrative and medical followup to ascertain whether drugs taken by athletes are legitimate therapeutic agents or illicit.
If doping was allowed, would there be an increase in the rate of death and