steroids :: essays research papers

Twenty years ago, when I was a competing professional athlete, I spoke frequently of the frustration of scent pressured to practice session anabolic steroids. I felt pressured to compete in an environs where I and many others believed there was an unbridled problem. I mentioned the prevalence of use in adolescents and commented on the training advantage using these medicates gave competitors. At that time, NFL solicitude denied the extent of the problem and little was done. The NFL, to its credit, in 1987 started its non-punitive testing program and title it was conside abut haphazard testing. In 1988, in a Sports Illustrated commentary, I predicted the failure of random testing, citing obvious loopholes, and questioned the overall concern of the fans. I solicited the ire of some in the sports media when I suggested medical supervision as an alternative to faulty drug testing. How invariably, you cant monitor a drug problem medically that society wants to stake doesnt exis t. Another issue I wanted to bring forward was goading people to keep the health effects of these drugs in perspective, as intumesce as the sports worlds tendency to define this as primarily a public relations issue. I still wonder why some of the insurance coverage of my situation either ignored or minimized some of my cognise lifestyle heart risk factors (alcohol abuse, for example) in preference to highlighting steroids. Happily, the abrasiveness of my health issues and my former addictions are a thing of the past. In the fire of the BALCO scandal and the revelations in Major League Baseball, do any of these issues ring familiar? None of the BALCO athletes (clients of the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative) have ever flunked a drug test. Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig is citing drops in numbers of compulsive tests in "announced" testing as reasons for optimism. After 20 years of researching this issue, I have earned my pessimism. Has he earned his optimism? For those paying forethought at all, the BALCO investigation has reinforced the reality that athletes are using unseeable drugs. Perhaps the optimism in testing is because there is no plan B and Selig is tired of the drug allegations. In 1989, the NFL initiated random testing. This was a smart impel for two reasons. First, it showed media and the public that they implemented the strongest policy that technology and the law would allow. Second, it was preceding to impending legislation (the 1990 Steroid Anti-Trafficking Act) that re-classified anabolic steroids under Schedule three of the Controlled Substance Act.