In the pursuit of heightened athletic performance, many amateur athletes as well as professional athletes have turned to the use of a wide assortment of drugs ranging from steroids to amphetamines, performance-enhancing substances, and illicit drugs such as marijuana (Blue Cross and Blue Shieldà, 2003). Indeed, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association recently reported that 1.1 million young people between the ages of 12 and 17 have taken potentially dangerous performance-enhancing supplements and drugs (Blue Cross and Blue Shieldà, 2003). Similarly, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Anti-Doping Agency have reported that amateur Olympic and professional athletes in various sports regularly use these drugs, which are both unsafe and banned by sports associations (The doping scandal in sports, 2003). This brief report will consider the use of drugs in sports, focusing on the prevalence of such use and its effects.
US Newswire (Drug Czar slammedà, 2003) has stated that U.S. Drug Czar John Walters has failed to speak out sufficiently in the fight against the use of drugs in sports. There is a growing list of athletes, famous and average, amateur and professional, who have been identified as using drugs. The United States government has been accused of being delinquent with respect to educating athletes and the public on the dangers of drug use. Additionally, some professional sports associations have not been as active as necessary in banning drugs. While the National Football League bans the use of the performance-enhancer ephedrine, professional baseball has no such ban. Steroids, amphetamines, abused painkillers, and human growth hormones have the potential to seriously injure users. Some 10,000 former East German swimmers have recently learned that they have suffered liver damage, diabetes, cancers, and other serious effects due to forced steroid drugging by their national trainers (Drug...