PERFORMANCE-ENHANCING DRUGS AMONGST ATHLETES

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Performance Enhancing Drugs amongst Athletes

Performance-Enhancing Drugs in Sports, Commentary 2 | Journal of Ethics | American Medical Association (ama-assn.org)This has been an issue among many individuals, especially athletes, and other kinds of sporting activities. Some drugs have been banned for a long time in athletics, and therefore this has always brought a problem with the administrators of different games and sporting activities. Most of the athletes in the desire to perform in the best manner possible and win, make sure that they use those drugs which are not easily identifiable if they are scanned for those banned drugs. However, this causes moral questions. This paper discusses the above article and how performance in athletes has been influenced by drugs, and how this has affected many people within the field area of athletics.

In this article, we get the example of Dr Jarvis, a family therapist, and he is trying to advise Jim, who is trying to take a drug that is considered very recent and high quality. Some rumours are is allowed, and therefore Jim thinks that the drug is okay to be used. However, the doctor tries to be neutral and does not want to make Jim feel guilty for trying to use a new-generation steroid drug. However, with time the doctors try to make Jim realize that it is difficult for him to perform and go unnoticed and tries to make Jim understand what it means to be examined physically for the drugs he is trying to take.

The basic argument about enhancing a person’s ability to perform through taking drugs is unfair competition. Therefore it is needed that a person should be able to compete on level ground with all the other people. The article gives the mythical planet of Asthmatic and how everyone wheezes all the time. Suppose the people tried to use this drug to treat themselves, whether it is an enhancement or just treatment. This was the same case with Rick DeMont, who had his gold medal taken during the 1972 Olympic games. He had used ephedrine, a drug used to combat asthma, especially when swimming and in cold environments. Even though he had the disease which he was treating, this was taken as a performance enhancer. Therefore, if it was the right thing to do, the question was a very diverse topic, and it was discussed in and out. It was also caused by the doctor of the athlete who had told him that the drug had not been banned.

Therefore, when it comes to drugs and how they are used in enhancing the performance of different people, doctors need to be honest with their patients. Specifically, athletes get to know what they want to take and advise them what the correct thing to do is. Therefore the desire of most of the committees is that they want to make sure there is a level ground of competition. Consequently, a person must be able to make sure that what they are doing is the right thing and, in this case, try as much as possible not to use banned drugs to enhance their performance even though many ethical issues need to be discussed when it comes to this issue. The article ends by stating that it is possible to use some steroids to enhance performance while at the same time having vigorous training and having the correct diet, and doing all that an athlete needs to perform excellently.

It is an essential article that addresses the use of drugs in enhancing performance and at the same time talks about ethics and their place in the use of drugs by the athletes in their enhancement of performance. It is well organized, and it gives good examples while clearly explaining them.

Reference

Fost, N. C. (2004). Performance-Enhancing Drugs in Sports, Commentary 2. AMA Journal of Ethics, 6(7), 300-301.