WC Debate - RR: Performance enhancing drugs should be legal for use in all major sports leagues

As he has not yet explained his case, I hope that he will take the next round to clarify it as I have in the first, but for now, I will focus on providing advantages for my case. The current system for athletes is such that they already put themselves at great physical risk in endeavoring to be the best. Just as a result of training, athletes suffer intensely. High altitude training is a must for many athletes, as it leads to a much higher production of red blood cells and therefore more transport of oxygen through the body, increasing endurance. However, acclimatisation to high altitude leads to the production of too many red blood cells, making the blood thicker and reducing blood flow. This stresses out the heart, and deprives parts of the body of oxygen. High altitudes also lead to intense weight loss (both from loss of appetite and the body eating itself), risks of weakening the body's immune system, and lengthened times of recovery from muscle damage. That's not to mention the expansive list of altitude illnesses that can result from pressure changes and oxygen deprivation. [1] Pro athletes train for 5-6 hours a day 6 days a week, training intensely the entire time. Typical athletes have to maintain incredibly high heart rates for long periods of time, stressing their hearts in the process. [2] This all comes in part from the extremely unhealthy diets that these athletes ingest, as well as excess stress. [3] What are the results of all this? Cardiomyopathy, enlarged hearts, wearing down of heart valves. [5] This leads to a much higher likelihood of early and sudden death. [4] This is played out in football, where the average life expectancy of an NFL player is 58 years. [6] Overtraining can lead to massive systemic issues, such as imbalances in the brain, nervous and hormonal systems, upper respiratory illness, compromised immune function, and chronic inflammation. [3] The basis for this harm actually plays out as a result of free radical production, which causes chain reactions that destroy cells in the body. [4] Athletes push themselves through pain and injury, and are expected to do so in order to achieve glory, thus perpetuating health harms, and spurning treatment and prevention efforts. [3] But the hypocrisy goes beyond training. Athletes are allowed to use any number of dietary supplements, equipment, clothing, and medical treatments to enhance their performance. Vitamin pills are commonly used, megadoses of which have been shown to cause a number of deaths among athletes and significant health harms even at regular doses. [7][8] Many use whole-body Lycra suits, and the Speedo LZR Racer swimsuit is thought to be responsible for breaking world records in swimming, increasing the costs required in order to succeed. [9] Steroids will not significantly add to these harms. More than that, it's hypocritical, and the legal structure of any organization should always endeavor to be consistent. If they're going to allow athletes to engage in practices such as I've detailed above (and, in fact, encourage it), then they should allow similarly damaging practices that the players take upon themselves to engage in. These athletes are allowed to put themselves in harm's way in dozens of other ways (not to mention the numerous ways in which they're made vulnerable to physical injury), and I see no reason why this shouldn't apply to use of drugs. Why are these allowed while steroids and hormones remain problematic? It's really just a perceptual thing " steroids are viewed as cheating, whereas all of these are effectively reasonable, despite the health harms associated with them. But the reality is that the current system is the one that encourages cheating, not one in which these are legalized. Why is that? The main reason is that athletes and the organizations behind them have found ways to outwit the system. Athletes pursue alternatives to the usual anabolic steroids and hormones that allow them to fly under the radar. Designer steroids are "manufactured to closely resemble existing known compounds, but with sufficient chemical diversity to ensure that their detection by the WADA accredited laboratories is more difficult. "[10] We manage to find the ones we know exist, but lack detection mechanisms for new designer steroids, detection cannot keep up with the rate of development. Gene doping is a newer system based on gene therapy, which is meant to insert a gene into a given site in the body, where it will then produce large amounts of steroid/hormone endogenously. It's not safe, and it's untested in humans, yet athletes have already begun to pursue it. [11] They may even already have been used at Sochi. [12] There are three major harms to this system 1. It's classist. It allows only those who are capable of affording these expensive alternatives to engage in this type of cheating. Only those who can afford the increased expense can rise to the top, something that legalized, cheap steroids could demonstrably improve upon. 2. It damages the credibility of sporting leagues, who often don't detect these for years and even decades, and of athletes and their organizations, who are forced to hide their usage. They can acquire any number of medals over the years, be idolized and immortalized by their records, and then have to be torn down much later, much to everyone's embarrassment. This also ends up damaging the organizations they're associated with. A great example is Lance Armstrong, who started the Lance Armstrong Foundation. They were forced to change their name to Livestrong, and lost the very helpful endorsement of Nike, thus reducing valuable contributions to an organization aimed at supporting cancer victims. 3. It's more dangerous for athletes. At best, they're getting these from reputable sources, where they've only been lightly tested, and thus they're using the athletes as guinea pigs, causing major harms. [10] Since they are normally less effective than what is detectable,[13] they have to take more, exacerbating the problem. And the reality is that most of them won't come from reputable sources, and any number of dangerous substances may exist alongside their choice doping agent. These athletes are far less likely to pursue the far more dangerous, less effective, and more expensive route to success in the absence of a ban. They will be taking thoroughly tested steroids and hormones, often prescribed by doctors and health officials who can monitor them. Here's another benefit, though it may seem counter-intuitive " steroids provide an opportunity to level the playing field. Individuals produce different levels of testosterone, which can dramatically affect muscle growth. [19] Those with anemia are effectively handicapped by the lack of oxygen shuttling through their bodies. The presence of hormone injections and compounds that control red blood cell production like erythropoietin make it possible for these athletes to keep up. Con, you have the floor. 1. www. altitude. org/altitude_training. php 2. health. india. com/fitness/a-professional-athletes-fitness-regime-an-insiders-guide/ 3. www. philmaffetone. com/files/20158/Athletes-Fit-But-Unhealthy. pdf 4. . http://imbodybuilding.com... 5. . http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com... 6. . http://strengthplanet.com... 7. . http://whatstheharm.net... 8. . http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org... 9. . http://www.economist.com... 10. . http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... 11. . http://www.bbc.com... 12. . http://www.businessinsider.com... 13. . http://www.steroid.com... 14. . http://www.livescience.com...