Registered: Jul 2000
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An unlikely Libertarian issue has come up in the form of steroids in professional sports. For one, even the most mild of Libertarians can acknowledge that the government has no business getting involved (and they are starting to make some noise to that effect). But, the response is "If the government doesn't, what if steroids completely take over the game?" The Libertarian answer? "So what if it does?"

From the New York Post.

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So athletes use steroids to perform better. Wall Street traders take Ritalin and everyone uses caffeinated drinks during work to stay alert.

News anchors get face lifts and actors take Botox so more people watch them. What's different about athletes?

Yet, this weekend you would have thought that Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds had committed some unspeakable crime. Commentators spoke of them "falsifying the product." Saturday, Sen. John McCain promised hearings and threatened legislation imposing drug-testing standards if professional baseball does not crack down. By Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist made a similar call for legislation, and McCain said President Bush would sign such a bill.

Athletes may have more at stake than most of the rest of us. They may go a little farther in competing, but the risks seem pretty mild. This spring a baseball players' union representative, Gene Orza, claimed that steroids are "not worse than cigarettes." With over 4,000 people playing major league baseball over the last decade and claims that 40 or 50 percent of players are using some form of anabolic steroids, what is striking is how rare baseball deaths are and that these are not really related to "performance-enhancing" drugs. Take the last two years:

--In October, 41-year-old retired baseball star Ken Caminiti's death from a heart attack caused quite a stir. Yet, it proved a false alarm. The medical examiner ruled that the death was due to an overdose of cocaine and opiates.

--In 2003, the Baltimore Orioles' Steve Bechler died during spring training while taking a diet aid, Epherdra (a stimulant). Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) quickly rushed forward with legislation to require stricter standards. It only became clear later that the death likely had another cause: Bechler had a history of heart problems, came to camp out of shape and way over weight, and was playing while dehydrated and not eating.

Scott Gottlieb, a former senior policy adviser to the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, notes: "There are plenty of people with [multiple sclerosis], Crohn's and Colitis and rheumatoid arthritis and lupus and other diseases who are on much higher doses of chronic steroids. Certainly they have a lot of side effects, but they don't drop dead of [heart attacks] so easily."

McCain points to the NFL, with its strict testing policies for performance-enhancers, as the example for baseball to follow. Yet, football players endanger their health every game. USA Today reported earlier this year that "Two out of three [NFL players] said they left with some permanent injury."

Most likely the NFL has stricter rules simply because with direct physical contact ever-larger players are more likely to just harm each other. In baseball, few injuries result from direct physical contact.

But even if baseball players ended up crippled after their playing days as football players do, why isn't it their choice? What's next? Will government regulators protect white-collar workers from risking heart attacks when they pull all-nighters trying to meet deadlines?

The greatest risk to athletes may be the drugs' very prohibition. Getting the drugs in secret and not having the proper supervision may result in complications that could otherwise be easily avoided.

Possibly the strongest argument against drugs in baseball is the same reason the sport opposes changing how it makes baseballs. Sure we could make balls that go farther today, but baseball is a sport where history matters and such changes would make it difficult to compare performances over time.

Purists may not like the designated-hitter rule. But would it make sense for government to determine what rules baseball has? If fans like spectacular plays made possible by performance-enhancing drugs more than the loss of historical comparisons and the risks borne by players, allowing enhancements makes sense.

People take risks with their bodies everyday. Yet, without some evidence that athletes aren't properly weighing their choices, shouldn't politicians just leave the decision to those who are affected?

John R. Lott Jr. is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Sonya D. Jones is a law student at Texas Tech University.

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Registered: May 2002
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They're right that the government shouldn't be inolved in this issue, me supposes.

But I think baseball purists are more concerned (and maybe rightly so) with the way these enhancements manipulate the balance of the game and corrupt its traditions. To see Aaron, Williams, and Ruth's statistical acheivements invalidated, not by impeccable specimens with superior skill, but by Average Athlete V2.0 is sad.

Baseball is fucked up though, they're always seeking congressional opinion on something. Hopefully Selig will retire soon and his successor will learn to operate the league indepentently of the United States government.

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I guess we might as well start mass producing our athletes now, get them on the juice right off the tit.

Maybe city schools will finally get some funding.

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That's the spirit!

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The obvious solution here is to legalize steroids for public consumption. In this way we can have only the finest human specimens performing for national TV audiences. The people want records shattered, athletes are willing to subject themselves to steroid regimens...green light the project. Everyone wins, even the economy. As pro-athletes begin to enjoy shorter lifespans due to the wear and tear placed on the body by consuming massive amounts of Winstrol they will go into spending frenzies, blowing their cash loads on shiny things or attorneys. But what of the dangers of steroid use? Have no fear, science has the answer! Roid rage can be medicated away, sophisticated acne creams exist to remove blemishes, waxing any part of the body has become commonplace...society is ready to embrace the manipulation of human hormone levels to achive maximum output. If we are ever to reach our true potential as a species we must begin the experiment on our athletes...our athletes...our patients...are ready for the future!!!

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Do you guys think that steroids = giant horse pills that turn people into the Incredible Hulk and cause their hearts to explode and their penises to shrivel up at the age of 23?

There are plenty of athletic supplements that you can take, in moderation and under medical supervision, that really aren't unduly harmful, and certainly don't turn you into a raging maniac with a tiny hardon and hair on your palms. Steroids CAN be that popular impression of them that has been programmed into popular consicousness, but they're not neccessarily, by any means. That's a little infantile to assume them to be.

Is your other point that chemical enhancement of human beings is wrong? We use it already to enhance our cognitive and emotional capabilities, I'm not sure why doing it to improve our physical capabilities is supposed to be MORE "unnatural" than that. If a car salesan can take drugs to be happier and more sociable, why can't a track star use them to run faster and jump higher?

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Registered: Apr 2003
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I had a room mate of several years who habitually used steroids and other 'enhancers'...if anyone here is into power lifting, they probably know his name. Anyways, no...people dont really believe the steroid-fueled-monster myth...but it does give you bacne. HGH is also pretty terrible for you long term(organ swelling) and I have seen a few guys lose it when on a wacky new cycle...stacking decadurabolin and anadrol and pretty much any other does indeed fuck with your hormone levels enough to influence behavior. I think roids are fine...whatever...I believe everything I posted up there. Im a futurist.

ps. your balls will shrink...but...and this is the amazing part...they come back!

pps. I have never used steroids but I know firsthand what they do to your balls. Parts of my life have been pretty disgusting.

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Not a government issue, although I don't want them used in the game (so, it should be a baseball issue). The problem appears to be that the only way that baseball gets anything, information-wise, is when the government is taking testimony and it leaks. Baseball has to sort itself out. It also appears that the fans don't want their players to be on steroids; they are just pretty dumb about believing that they aren't on steroids.

I also think that Bonds should probably have the relevant parts of his record (when he was on steroids) expunged (and the same for other players).

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It's the anabolic steroids people are worried about. Those are extremely unhealthy and should be sold over the counter in gyms.

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weird that such a discussion is seen through the question of "should this be a Government issue?"..... surely the issue of steroids in sport is one which the various sporting bodies who govern different sports deal with isn't it? e.g. FIFA, IAC, etc. I've never known the governing of anabolic steroids use in sport to be a central government issue because how can it be on in international arena?

Of course, if this is just about athletes being allowed to take steroids in American domestic sports then fair enough, but you'll all be banned from competing in the international events if it happened by the various international sporting bodies out there.

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Fuck no.

Look, there are SOME nutritional supplements and the like which are less damaging and hence permissable. But that's not what we're discussing here, by and large. Bonds, Sheffield, Caminiti and the like are taking crap that kills you in your mid-forties. And the message being sent is that, to compete on the major league level, you've got to take the kill pill as well. Which means all sorts of massive horror for anyone who wants so much as a SHOT at the majors. Including huge numbers of teenagers like the ones I teach.

The governing bodies of the various sports are entirely correct to impose the restrictions they have. It's not about government. It's about private organizations recognizing their public influence and exercising--by VOLUNTARY CHOICE, mind you--a modicum of responsibility.

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quote:

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Originally posted by CHiPsJr
The governing bodies of the various sports are entirely correct to impose the restrictions they have. It's not about government. It's about private organizations recognizing their public influence and exercising--by VOLUNTARY CHOICE, mind you--a modicum of responsibility.

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So does this mean all our gold meddelists are on drugs?

Oh no! I assumed that anyway.

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quote:

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Originally posted by philjit

Paint - you're right to say government should not be involved, but it appears to me that they are not anyway, unless I'm still misunderstanding and the private bodies who govern sports in the US are actually controlled by Congress.

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quote:

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Originally posted by CHiPsJr
Fuck no.

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Cool

[p]

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