Drugs in Sports
Drugs in Sports Athletic competition has been part of society since the early beginnings of man. ... Athletes today seem to find no moral problem with using performance enhancing drugs, or in other words cheating. Drug use in sports has reached enormous proportions in society and is destroying athletics from the ground up. Athletes have taken natural or synthetic performance aids since the earliest days of organized sports competition. ... The use of drugs was one of the reasons for the end of the ancient Olympic Games. ... To succeed in sports has become highly valued. This has placed pressure on sports people to become not only successful, but the best. This pressure has contributed to the increase in the incidence of drug taking and the number of drug related deaths with the sporting community (Australian Sports Drug Agency). ... Non-medical use of anabolic steroids is illegal and banned by most, if not all, major sports organizations (Banned Drugs). ... Other popular performance enhancing supplements are called the Designer Drugs. Designer drugs are a class of drugs that are frequently associated with all night high school and college underground dance parties referred to as “raves.” Changing the molecular structure of an existing drug to create new drugs with similar effects creates these dangerous drugs. These drugs are prepared by underground “chemists,” known as cookers. Designer drugs can be injected, smoked, snorted or ingested. The three drugs which serve as the basis for designer drugs are PCP, fentanyl, and amphetamine/methamphetamine. The designer drugs are known by a variety of street names, including XTC, Ecstasy, Adam, Eve, GHB, Special K, Fantasy and Nature’s Quaalude (Designer Drugs). Designer drugs are very dangerous because they are created in secret labs by unlicensed and untrained amateur chemists.