Debating whether or not PED’s should be introduced into professional sports

the forum held a debate on the whether or not PED's should be allowed in professional sports

On January 15^th Intelligence squared hosted a debate on the issues surrounding performance enhancing drugs in professional sports. Reason Senior Editor Radley Balko was one of the many participants in the New York debate- here is the YouTube page for videos of all the presentations, rebuttals and Q&A with the audience.

Check it out if you’re interested,

Intelligence squared debate

Fighting FORE the motion-

Radley Balko

Norman Fost

Julian Savulescu

AGAINST the motion

George Michael

Dale Murphy

Richard Hound

Major Leaguer Ramirez banned from 50 games

Ramirez has been banned after being found using PEDs

Major league Baseball seems to be hitting new lows after new allegations rise about players polluting the game with illegal performance enhancing drugs.

Manny Ramirez of the Los Angeles Dodgers has become the biggest star to be suspended for violating baseball’s drug policy, accepting a 50 game punishment last Thursday after dropping his plans to appeal.

Ramirez, 36, who former Dodgers manager and hall of famer Tom Lasorda called the teams most popular player since it moved to Los Angeles in 1958, will leave the game on the eve of New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez’s return. Rodriguez had never been suspended from a game until earlier this year when he acknowledged he used PED’s from 2000 to 2003.

His return coincides with the release of a book that speculates Rodriguez used anabolic steroids for longer then he claims.

(A review of this book will be posted on the site as soon as possible).

performance enhancing drugs approved by ethicist?

disagrees with ethicist

 

Leading ethicists are questioning the value of banning some of the sports drugs listed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada). It’s a view rejected emphatically by former Olympic champion Linford Christie, who tested positive for the anabolic steroid nandrolone in 1999; 100m sprinter Christie, rebutted comments from Julian Savulescu.

 According to professor of applied ethics at the University of Oxford, UK. ‘I think there are good reasons to allow safe performance enhancers such as caffeine or creatine,’ Altitude training and hypoxic air tents (used by Wayne Rooney) are legitimate ways to increase athletes’ red blood cell counts, according to Wada. The agency bans blood-enhancing drugs such as the red blood cell regulating hormone erythropoietin, EPO (Chemistry World, October 2004). Wada’s code is ‘incoherent and unjustified,’ Savulescu said, because EPO, in safe doses, has the same effect on the blood as the legitimate methods.   

Christie said Savulescu’s comments were risky. Humans should accept that some are born faster and fitter than others, he said. Christie said aspiring athletes should be subject to graphic images of the effects of steroids, including shrunken testicles and penises (Christie publicly criticised media attention paid to his tight fitting running attire, leading to his nickname of the ‘Lunchbox’).    

Phil Willis, chair of the committee predicts that gene receptor technology will become the next hot topic in performance enhancing technology. Athletes will attempt to use gene enhancement in the next four or five years, he told Chemistry World. Changes to genes will be harder to detect than drugs, and the detection labs are shifting their emphasis from chemistry to biology, explained Steve Maynard from HFL, one of the UK’s Wada accredited testing labs (Chemistry World, August 2004, p7). ‘We cannot adapt current methods to detect gene doping,’ said Maynard.     

What does this mean for the future of professional sport? Will performance enhancing drugs be detected in future sport competitions?

Marion Jones-former track and field champion

 

 

Marion Jones before and after anabolic steroids

Athletes who have admit to using performance enhancing drugs

Marion Jones (also known as Marion Jones Thompson) is a former American track and field athlete of Belizean- during her long career- she received five medals at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia- however, she was later stripped of every medal from 2000 after admitting that she took performance enhancing drugs.

It was in October 2007 that Jones admitted to taking steroids before the Sydney Olympics. She also accredited that she had, in fact, previously lied and denied steroid use in a number of statements to the press as well as various sport agencies- the most significant however, were the 2 grand juries, one of which was selected to investigate the BALCO “designer steroid” ring. Once Jones Admitted to using steroids, hse accepted a two- year suspension from track and field competitions, and later announced her retirement on the 5^th October 2007. The United States Anti-Doping Agency stated that the sanction “also requires disqualification of all her competitive results obtained after September 1^st 2000, and forfeiture of all medals, results and points.” On October 5^th 2007, Jones formally pled guilty to lying to federal agents in the BALCO steroid investigation in the U.S. District Court. 

Jones admitted to having taken steroids before Sydney 2000 summer Olympics and acknowledged that she had, in fact, lied when she previously denied steroid use in statements to the press, to various sport agencies, and- most at the time of her admission, Jones was one of the most famous people to be linked to the BALCO investigation. Just 41 days later, Major League Baseball player Barry Bonds was indicted on one count of justice and four counts of perjury linked to his own testimony before the BALCO Grand Jury in 1993. 

The IOC and IAAF stripped Jones of all medals, points and results received after September 1 2000 after Jones admitted to using steroids prior to the 2000 Summer Olympics. Jones is also not allowed to attend the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Here are some of Marion’s achievements throughout her career:

Year	Meeting	Venue	Place and event	Result
1992	IAAF World junior Championships	Seoul, South Korea	5th 100m7th 200m
1997	IAAF Championships	Athens, Greece	1st 100m10th Long Jump	100m (10.38)
1998	IAAF World cup	Johannesburg, South Africa	1st 100m1st 200m 2nd Long Jump	100m (10.65)200m (21.62) LG (7.00)
1999	IAAF World Championships	Seville, Spain	1st 100m3rd Long Jump	100m (10.70)LG (6.83)
2000	2000 Summer Olympics	Sydney, Australia	Dq 100mDq 200m Dq Long Jump	100m (10.75)200m (21.84) LG (6.29)
2001	IAAF World Championships	Edmonton, Canada	Dq 100mDq 200m	100m (10.85)200m (22.39)
2002	IAAF World cup	Madrid, Spain	Dq 100m	100m (10.90)