Drugs in Sports

Notes on the Culture Wars
By Daniel G. Jennings
The struggle called the Culture Wars is among the dumbest interludes in American history. Examples of the stupidity and the hypocrisy of the Culture Wars pervade our news everyday.
Take the scandal surrounding the use of steroids in baseball. The idea behind this is that is wrong for big league baseball players to use muscle building. Note here big league baseball players have been using performance enhancing drugs since the sport began.
The hypocrisy in the steroids in sports debate is obvious. It’s wrong for ball players to use some drugs but not others. Modern sports would be impossible without modern pain relievers. Virtually every athlete uses pain relievers and probably prescription pain relievers. Without them you couldn’t have modern sports, but nobody seems to care that athletes are using pain relievers. Even though every pro athlete since the Roman gladiators has probably used some form of pain relieving drug.
I guarantee you that Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Satchel Page were taking pain relievers of some sort. Probably opium or some other morphine derivative, since nobody cared back in those days so nobody noticed. I guarantee you that most of the major ball players of the 1950s and 60s were using some sort of methamphetamine to speed up their play. Only nobody cared back in those days when every truck driver and salesman was popping pills to enhance his job performance.
The question I have to ask is why is it right for athlete A) to take a pill or shot to relieve his or her pain but wrong for athlete B) to take a pill or shot that increases his muscle mass? Especially since the Vioxx debacle shows that pain relievers can have terrible even deadly side effects. How many pro athletes end up in drug rehab because of pain reliever addiction?
The moral question raised by the steroid scandal is an obvious one, why is some drugs or medical procedures wrong and others aren’t. Why is it wrong for athlete A) to inject himself with drugs to increase his muscles but alright for athlete B) to have a knee operation to extend his career. Or take advantage of modern physical therapy which can allow players to extend their career. How far do we take this drug thing anyway do expel athlete A) from the game because he took a pill to help him sleep while athlete B) didn’t? After all, athlete A) might have an unfair advantage over athlete B) because he got a good night’s sleep and B didn’t.
How can modern ball players be compared to Babe Ruth or Satchel Page if those guys had been able to take advantage of modern medicine they might have had ten or fifteen more years of play? A modern doctor would have told Babe Ruth to loose weight making him a far better player. So why is it wrong for modern ball players to take advantage of some aspects of modern medicine but not others?
The questions have to be asked. It’s illogical and hypocritical to condemn ballplayers for taking some drugs but not others.
That of course is the whole problem with the war on drugs, it’s wrong to use some drugs but not others. I don’t understand it myself.
Then there’s the double standard of class here. It’s perfectly alright for Joe Working Class to use drugs to enhance his job performance, do more work at the plant and get a $1 an hour promotion. It’s perfectly alright for fighter pilots to take pep pills and lawyers to take drugs that enable them to stay up late and do more work. But it’s wrong for Barry Bonds to use dope to make a few million bucks.
Yes, the whole issue of drugs in sports is one of morality. Unfortunately, the opponents of drugs in sports maybe the ones who lack morality.