Question: Should performance-enhancing drugs be accepted in sports?

Title: Should Athletes using performance enhancing drugs be subject to harsh punishment Content: Athletes should be punished for using performance enhancing drugs

Title: Doping should be allowed Content: I will accept your challenge, and I will argue on the pro side: doping should be allowed in sports. While it may be unfair currently, where athletes are strictly forbidden to athletes and only those who are willing to win by cheating will dope, if the practice is open for everyone, it will create a fair, level playing field since every athlete will have the ability to use the substances. Sporting events are spectator events, meant to showcase the most athletic individuals in the world for the entertainment of the viewers. If there is a substance that is able to enhance the performance of an individual and therefore make the spectacle more impressive, and the athlete consents to using it after being educated on any possible ill side effects, then they should absolutely be allowed.

Title: Performance-enhancing drugs should be allowed in professional sports. Content: " They do apply to the resolution, "Performance-enhancing drugs should [not] be allowed in professional sports". They show that using these drugs is unsafe." Doing unsafe things is allowable. People have the right to do unsafe things with their own bodies. " No, I'm saying that performance-enhancing drugs should not be allowed because they set a bad example for children. " Athletes are not slaves, existing for the sake of their examples to children. They exist for their own sake and are to be treated as such, as human beings, so long as they treat others as such. This means they are not to be forced to a course of action just because it will benefit someone else, only them initiating force can justify such force. " No, I'm saying that performance-enhancing drugs cheat users out of hard work and practice that other players have to go through. " "Have to?" No one "has to" do such a thing. They are perfectly able to take the drugs themselves, or work hard, or not condition themselves, as they please. And the use of drugs by one party does not delete the hard work by another, they are separate bodies, separate phenomena. " Uh, no, it's whether "Performance-enhancing drugs should be ALLOWED in professional sports." "Allowed" and "legal" are very different. "Allowed" means allowed within the sport's rules; "legal" means allowed within the law." This would be a permissible arguments if your round 1 argument did not already concede you were talking about what THE LAW should allow. As it stands it is not, it is merely a tool of deception, and I quote (emphasis mine:) " Said drugs should stay ILLEGAL for use in sports, for a few reasons." That was at the beginning of your first round argument. That leaves no room for weaseling out of it, the resolution was explicitly clarified by you as meaning allowable by the law, not allowable by the sports league. You made your bed now argue in it. "and not actually presented an argument, you vote CON at this point." Read second paragraph from the bottom of my Round 1. I did in fact present an argument, as relates to the resolution as you clarified it's meaning at the beginning of the debate. If you are going to state the resolution is anything other than what I have stated it is, you will be forced to admit the statement at the beginning of your Round One argument was deliberately dishonest.

Title: Should MLB baseball players be banned from baseball for doing drugs Content: This truly depends on this drugs being used in my opinion. If it's not performance enhancing, it shouldn't even be an issue as it doesn't effect the outcome of a game. Recreational drug use, while illegal depending on the drug and the state, shouldn't result in a punishment in the sports world. I've stated my point and you have yourself, let's begin the arguments!

Title: permit the use of performance enhancing drugs in professional sports Content: Controlling, rather than ignoring, performance enhancing substances will improve competitive standards in sport

Title: Performance Enhancing Drugs Would be Legalize in World Sport Tournament Content: Performance-enhancing drugs (PED) are substances used by athletes to improve their performances. These drugs are addictive and if we use it for a long time it will be affect our heart-health. And these regulation will not appropriate with the purpose of sport which is Be Healthy By Natural Ways. Because if the athlete use these PED it will insist them to do more than the energy they have. And of course it is not healthy.

Title: HOF Players that used Steroids Content: Hello again. I have done a bit more research and found at least, 150 sports Halls of Fame worldwide. As I do not know if you are specifically referring to one particular sport. I will proffer a brief reflection on the use and issues surrounding the use of performance enhancing drugs, in sport generally. A quick analysis indicates that worldwide, there is now a total ban on the use of performance enhancing drugs in sport. Also testing for steroid abuse, especially at a professional level is now very vigorous. I would therefore suggest that it is unlikely that, any one inducted into a professional sporting Hall of Fame today, is unlikely to have slipped through the drugs testing net. It is fair to assume that a sportsman/woman inducted into a professional sporting Hall of Fame in the past, especially in the latter half of the 20th century was using performance enhancing drugs. Though we must pay regard to the fact, that the use of steroids to enhance sports performance, was not always considered inappropriate or illegal. Would it therefore be just, to retrospectively impose bans on our veteran sporting heroes and as a consequence, strip them of their Hall of Fame status? Con. Would suggest that we let bygones be bygones. Move forward and put our trust and faith in the ability of our sports governing bodies, to thoroughly and rigorously police our modern professional sports organisations.

Title: Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) should be permitted in professional sports. Content: I affirm that PEDs should be permitted in sports. Legalizing PEDs would serve to level the playing field. According to the New York Times, more than a third of the top Tour de France finishers since 1998 have been confirmed to be doping while racing, despite efforts to stop them (1). So, the statistics clearly indicate that those who obey the rules and do not dope have a relatively low chance of performing well. If those who did not not use Performance Enhancing Drugs in the Tour de France were instead allowed to dope, those racers would have had the same advantages as those who currently dope illegally, and the playing field would have been more even. One of the primary reasons people enjoy watching professional sports is because they showcase the highest level of human achievement. Allowing PEDs to be used would raise the level of competition and skill in professional sports. This would thus make achievements in sports seem even more unthinkable and impressive, which would thus make more people attend these sporting events. As described in Forbes, "A huge part of watching sports is witnessing the very peak of human athletic ability, and legalizing performance enhancing drugs would help athletes climb even higher (2)." This shows that Performance Enhancing Drugs can raise the level of sports, which can make sports even more of a spectacle. For example, during the 1990's, when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa used steroids, their respective games were usually sold out with people who wanted to see their heightened abilities (2). I will now refute my opponent's arguments. My opponent argues that PEDs provide with a large risk for athletes. However, Athletes who are using PEDs are already in a dangerous industry, and frequently become injured regardless of whether or not they use drugs. In the year 2013 alone, the NFL reported at least 152 concussions, and was forced to spend up to 765 million dollars to settle claims of traumatic head injury brought by former players (3). So, PEDs do not provide with a large injury risk compared to the inherent risk of professional sports. My opponent also argues that allowing PEDs takes away from true human achievement. However, being an athlete requires a high amount of skill regardless of whether or not you use PEDs. Hitting a home run, for example requires excellent timing and a perfect swing. Using PEDs may increase the distance of this home run, but hitting a it is still a spectacle of your own human, not chemical precision. So, performing in sports requires intricate skill, no matter what. It is thus clear that PEDs do not take away from human achievement. As such, I affirm. 1- http://www.nytimes.com... 2- http://www.forbes.com... 3- http://www.pbs.org...

Title: Professional athletes using Performance-Enhancing drugs Content: In todays world the temptation to use performance-enhancing drugs is too great for too many athletes. Performance-enhancing drugs are self explanatory, it is a drug to enhance physical performance. Usually associated with professional athletes striving for perfection. There are many risks that come with taking performance-enhancements there are many types of PEDs, all of which are illegal. The United States Anti-Doping agency should keep performance-enhancing drugs illegal to keep professional athletes safe. Breaking the law is not worth the risk. when a professional athlete uses performance-enhancing drugs, they have got a lot to lose. The wrong choice almost brought an end to many athletes careers. One tragic example is Lance Armstrong, stripped of his seven Tour de France titles. Jim Thorpe was denied two gold medals in the olympics, The list is endless. Athletes do not only lose their awards but it destroys their reputation that they have built. Life for professional sports organizations focused on managing the anti-doping policies would be easier. That might be true, but the people who manage the organization would no longer have a job there. Legalizing PEDs would not only negatively affect the athletes, but the people around them. There is an overwhelming amount of negative side effects that can occur from using performance-enhancing drugs. "Simply put PEDs have the ability or potential to drastically alter the human body, and biological functions, including the ability to considerably improve athletic performance" These drugs, however, can be extremely dangerous and in certain situations, deadly" (USADA). Other negative side effects include muscle weakness, hallucinations, liver abnormalities and tumors, etc. Yet, with all those factors in play, many still choose to go down that dangerous road. Professional athletes are already risking a lot when playing the sport, so why does it matter if they use performance enhancements? If athletes are already taking so many risks, then they should absolutely try to keep themselves as safe as possible. The danger of using PEDs outweigh the gains in muscle mass or strength. When an athlete uses PEDs, it defeats the purpose of the competition altogether. "Success in sports takes talent...using steroids is a form of cheating and interferes with fair competition"(littleleague). There are other ways to improve performance; train safely, eat healthy, and get plenty of rest. To be a truly great athlete you have to work hard. There is no shortcut to success. "Steroids and doping will help pitchers to throw harder, home runs go further, cyclists to charge longer and sprinters to test the very limits of human speed(Smith).In the moment that might be exhilarating, but it can cause a whole lot of problems later in life. using performance-enhancing drugs is not worth the risk at all. To keep athletes safe, performance-enhancing drugs should stay illegal.The bottom line is professional athletes have too much to lose, the risk is too great, and it is cheating the game."Life is full of grays, but sports are black and white. There is always a clear winner in the end and everyone expects that the winner achieved the success in a fair and ethical way"(little league).It is important to understand the facts about Performance-enhancing drugs. Works Cited "Fitness." Performance-enhancing Drugs: Know the Risks. Web. 18 Nov. 2014. "Why Steroids Are Bad for Major League Baseball." Why Steroids Are Bad for Major League Baseball. Web. 18 Nov. 2014. "Effects of Performance Enhancing Drugs | U.S. Anti-Doping Agency USADA." US Anti Doping Agency USADA. Web. 28 Nov. 2014. .

Title: Legalize Performance-Enhancing Drug for Sportman Content: PEDs should remain illegal. The idea of a performance enhancing drug is to improve immediate ability. This gives and unfair handicap to the players of that particular sport that are not using a drug. This in turn cheats the capitalist system by placing someone who is unfit to be at the top at the top.

Title: WC Debate - RR: Performance enhancing drugs should be legal for use in all major sports leagues Content: I would like to address the debate, however my opponent ask me to clarify the side I will support and it's quite simply the literal opposite of yours. My side is apparent simply based on the title of the debate and our positions, I will be arguing that performance enhancing drugs shouldn't be legal in every major sporting league. Also it seems you have taken care of the basic definition needed to begin the debate and I see no need for additional definitions atleast while the debate is still somewhat simple. Onto my argument 1. Equality As these drugs became allowed in sporting leagues, they would increase player production meaning in order to compete you would have to take drugs in order to win. One great example of this would be in cycling many cyclists's resorted to doping to boost their production in order to win the tour de france. So in order to stay equal to the competition Lance Armstrong took drugs alongside them, all may appear equal but in truth the drugs are expensive and discriminate on players on the league who are too poor to acquire the quantity needed to stay on par with opponents. [1] 2. Health Concerns Their are many bad health effects of anabolic steroids such as[2]: 1. Changes in liver function 2. Infertility 3. Growth of male breasts 4. Retardation in fetus's 5. Death 6. Increased aggressiveness 7. Sleeping disorders 8. Confusion 9. Paranoia 10. Hallucinations 11. A weaker immune system 12. Hair loss 3. The league's rights The league has the right to determine how the sport is played, for example in the NBA only 5 players may on the court at a time. The league itself should be able to determine drug limitations, as the league determines the game rules. [3] Sources: [1] http://www.cyclingnews.com... [2] http://www.sportsci.org... [3] http://www.nba.com...

Title: Drugs will undermine the central philosophy of sport Content: Sport is also about the spectacle for spectators. Sport has become a branch of the entertainment business and the public demands “higher, faster, stronger” from athletes. If drug-use allows world records to be continually broken, and makes American Football players bigger and more exciting to watch, why deny the public what they want, especially if the athletes want to give it to them? The criterion that athletes should only be applying their ‘natural abilities’ runs into trouble. The highly advanced training technologies, health programs, sports drinks, use of such things as caffeine pills, and other energy boosters seem to defeat the notion that athletes are currently applying only their 'natural abilities'. Performance enhancing drugs would not go too far beyond the current circumstances for athletes.

Title: Legalize Performance-Enhancing Drug for Sportman Content: wait, sir. you're not consistent with your position. Disadvantages : - Performance enhancing Drugs could have an impact on the body if left or the sportsman quits sport. - Any sport is expected to be fair and based on your natural talent and training. - There are athletes that can"t consume performance enhancing drugs. This makes their chance of winning, bleak. - A sport is usually considered as a passion. The essence of the sport is lost if performance enhancing drugs are legalizes - Be legalizing such performance enhancing drugs, athletes could be motivated and get addicted to other forms of drugs. - The athletes can take it for granted that these drugs will enhance their performance and thus, the hard work that could be put otherwise can be hampered. and it can kill the sportman who consume it. For example, some German athletes who took anabolic steroids in the 1970"s and 1980"s are having health problems now. A famous NFL player, Lyle Alzado, died at the age of 43 after having taking steroids for more than 2 decades. And the sciensist's research : "Performance enhancers, like steroids and other forms of doping, have a negative effect on long-term health. For then users of these enhancers are hurting themselves in the long run without on the average improving their short-term rewards from athletic competition, as long as competitors also use harmful enhancers. This is the main rationale for trying to ban steroids and other forms of doping from athletic competitions." Gary Becker, PhD Professor in the Departments of Economics, Sociology, and the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago "Doping in Sports," Becker-Posner blog Aug. 27, 2006 THINK MORE !

Title: Controlling, rather than ignoring, performance enhancing substances will improve competitive standards in sport Content: Rich athletes from wealthier countries will always have access to the latest, highest quality performance enhancers. On the other side, athletes from poorer countries which do not have the same medical and scientific advances will not be able to keep up. They will always be at a disadvantage regardless of whether performance enhancing drugs are legal or not.

Title: As an international sporting committee we would lift the doping ban Content: Short debate with 2000 characters max. The nominated judges are: Romanii, tejretics, Mikal and airmax1227 Please only accept this debate if you intend on seeing it through. Do not forfeit rounds. Doping ban: Currently, athletes in professional sports are tested periodically and randomly to check if they have taken banned substances which can boost their performance hence allowing them to have an unfair advantage. Guilty athletes may be banned from future events and/or stripped off previous achievements. We would dissolve this ruling, hence all athletes will be allowed to use whatever substances they want to prior to competing. FIRST ROUND IS ACCEPTANCE. Looking forward to a good debate. Thank you!

Title: Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) should be permitted in professional sports. Content: As am I, thank you for accepting Pro! PEDs should not be permitted for use in professional sports (or sports at any level) for a number of reasons. First and foremost, PEDs present an enormous health risk for athletes that use them. They lead to many severe health problems, including but not limited to heart and circulatory problems, psychiatric disorders and inhibited growth and development (http://www.mayoclinic.org... and http://www.livestrong.com...). The law, in the broader view of things, aims to generally protect people from making poor decisions. If all people are treated as equals under the law, it is the duty of the law to aim to protect athletes just as it aims to protect drug users. It is therefore the responsibility of the law to warn athletes away from taking performance enhancing drugs. In the broader scope of sport, it can be appreciated that teenage athletes who train among adult ones or share the same coaches would also turn to PEDs used by the people around them (were PEDs legalized and accessible), which would not only pose even more serious health concerns but also set trends about drug culture in general, spreading the reach of recreational drug use even further. Sports are enjoyed by people because they are a visual demonstration of what human beings can achieve, individually or collectively. They are designed to amaze and put on a show, and we watch them to celebrate this human achievement. If athletes took PEDs, we would be celebrating chemical achievement, instead. Thus, PEDs could be appreciated to undermine the central philosophy of sport. Finally, a counterargument could be that not all athletes would need to take PEDs and some may choose not to without consequence- however, this is not true. Even if some athletes uphold moral or health standards to not take PEDs, they have their freedom of choice infringed upon: if they want to be successful, they will also have to take drugs. Allowing any athletes to take PEDs means no longer protecting any athletes, even ones that don't want to use dangerous drugs, from these things. This is exemplified in the American Scientific Magazine: "Game theory highlights why it is rational for professional cyclists to dope: the drugs are extremely effective as well as difficult or impossible to detect; the payoffs for success are high; and as more riders use them, a "clean" rider may become so noncompetitive that he or she risks being cut from the team" (http://www.scientificamerican.com...). Two more websites consulted: http://sportsanddrugs.procon.org... http://www.usada.org... Your move! :)

Title: Freedom of choice. If athletes wish to take drugs in search of improved performances, let them do s... Content: Once some people choose to use drugs to enhance their performance, other athletes have their freedom of choice infringed upon: if they want to succeed they have to take drugs too. Athletes are very driven individuals, who would go to great lengths to achieve their goals. The chance of a gold medal in two years time may out-weigh the risks of serious health problems for the rest of their life. We should protect athletes from themselves and not allow anyone to take performance-enhancing drugs.

Title: That doping should be permitted in all sports Content: Doping: administering drugs to an athlete in order to enhance sporting performance.If doping were to be permitted (I will refer to it as legal), this would mean unrestricted use. The drugs would not be allowed to be regulated, the use would be unrestricted. Since the topic is normative (“should”), the BoP is shared. My case for why doping should not be permitted in all sports is as follows. HealthIt is truism that doping enhances sporting performance. Already, 14-39% of athletes dope [1]. If it is legalized, this number will undoubtedly increase. The sports industry is extremely competitive, athletes are pushed and constantly pressured to go out there and perform, if they fail in that aspect, they are benched, or worse, dropped from the team. Also, if doping were made legal, then those who dope will have an advantage over those who don’t, and thus those who don’t will have to dope in order to stay in the athletic industry. From this we can conclude that in order to keep their jobs, and their fame, athletes are going to take all opportunities to increase their performance. Thus, if doping were to be legalized, there would be a very large increase in the amount of athletes that dope. The most popular doping drug is anabolic steroids. If doping was to be made legal, the usage of steroids would have a tremendous increase. This is bad, as steroids are very dangerous. The use of steroids can lead to baldness, infertility, impotence, prostate gland enlargement, severe acne, increased risk of tendinitis and tendon rupture, liver abnormalities and tumors, increased low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (the "bad" cholesterol), decreased high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (the "good" cholesterol), high blood pressure (hypertension), heart and circulatory problems, aggressive behaviors, rage or violence, psychiatric disorders, such as, drug dependence, infections or diseases such as HIV or hepatitis, inhibited growth and development, and risk of future health problems in teenagers [2]. Use of steroids can also cause severe depression, which leads to suicides [3]. This is devastating for the families of the victims, and anyone around them. “Brenda Marrero came upon her son Efrain surfing the Internet one day last October. When Efrain hid what was on the screen, she asked what he had been looking at. He turned and said he wanted to tell her something: He was using steroids.She called her husband, Frank, and they told Efrain he needed to stop, because steroids are dangerous."But Barry Bonds does it," his parents remember Efrain saying."That doesn't make it right," his father responded.To please his parents, Efrain retrieved a dozen pink pills, a vial of liquid and two syringes. His mother flushed the pills and kept the vial. Efrain, who played football, promised to stop using steroids. It was a promise that no one doubts he kept.Three and a half weeks later, Mrs. Marrero found Efrain in a bedroom at home, a bullet in his head, a .22-caliber pistol in his hand. He left no explanation for his suicide. He had no history of depression or mental illness. He was 19.” [4]There are thousands more stories like this. If doping were to be made legal, this would increase drastically. As well as the other health related issues associated with it. Unfair AdvantageEveryone responds to steroids differently [5]. If doping were to be legal, this would give athletes an unfair advantage over others, based not on skill, but on doping.Ruins Purpose of SportThe meaning of sports is in the values that it exhibits. The forms of human excellence it promotes, and how each athlete strives to perfect his or her skill. Doping ruins this purpose, and thus should not be permitted.[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...[2] http://www.mayoclinic.org...[3] http://www.evolutionary.org...[4] http://www.nytimes.com...[5] http://tinyurl.com...

Title: Performance-enhancing drugs should be allowed in professional sports. Content: "Your "Part one arguments," to the extent they raise true symptoms (which is not clear, because data on the symptoms of the usage of steroids at recommended dosages in healthy people is in a shortage and rather conflicting, which is perhaps why you have cited no scientific data), apply to the resolution "Should you use steroids? " Or "Is hiring a steroid-using baseball player a good investment? "" . http://en.wikipedia.org... They do apply to the resolution, "Performance-enhancing drugs should [not] be allowed in professional sports". They show that using these drugs is unsafe. "Your part two arguments apply to "Should children be encouraged to look into athletes as role models? " No, I'm saying that performance-enhancing drugs should not be allowed because they set a bad example for children. "Your part three argument applies to "Should sports leagues concerned with an image of 'hard work' or 'fairness' allow steroid users to play? " No, I'm saying that performance-enhancing drugs cheat users out of hard work and practice that other players have to go through. "The resolution at hand, however, is whether it should be ILLEGAL for professional athletes to use these drugs. " Uh, no, it's whether "Performance-enhancing drugs should be ALLOWED in professional sports. " "Allowed" and "legal" are very different. "Allowed" means allowed within the sport's rules; "legal" means allowed within the law.

Title: Legalize Performance-Enhancing Drug for Sportman Content: PED (Performance-Enhancing Drug) gives disadvantages for the sportsman. PED should not be legalized by everyone for the sportman. PED gives disdvantages, specially in terms of health!

Title: Steroids should be legalized in sports. Content: I guess you are giving me BoP then? That seems quite ridiculous to me, to be honest, since changing a basis rule of sports would give you BoP I would think, but I'll go with it. I will provide a simple argument for now.Sports are supposed to be a judge of someone's athletic prowess. That is, how much they practice and how much of an affinity they have for the sport. If external enhancements like steroids are allowed, this falls apart. What's the point, then? People will just try to use the newest and best drugs, and competitions would have little meaning beyond who screwed up their body more to win. That is obviously not the point of sports.

Title: Drugs in Sport Content: Freedom of choice. If athletes wish to take drugs in search of improved performances, let them do s...

Title: Drug Use in Sports Content: My last round arguments was seen mostly jokes, But however in this round I will get more serious. DRUGS IN SPORT The use of performance enhancing drugs in the modern Olympics is on record as early as the games of the third Olympiad, When Thomas Hicks won the marathon after receiving an injection of strychnine in the middle of the race. 1 The first official ban on "stimulating substances" by a sporting organisation was introduced by the International Amateur Athletic Federation in 1928. 2 Using drugs to cheat in sport is not new, But it is becoming more effective. In 1976, The East German swimming team won 11 out of 13 Olympic events, And later sued the government for giving them anabolic steroids. 3 Yet despite the health risks, And despite the regulating bodies" attempts to eliminate drugs from sport, The use of illegal substances is widely known to be rife. It hardly raises an eyebrow now when some famous athlete fails a dope test. In 1992, Vicky Rabinowicz interviewed small groups of athletes. She found that Olympic athletes, In general, Believed that most successful athletes were using banned substances. 4 Much of the writing on the use of drugs in sport is focused on this kind of anecdotal evidence. There is very little rigorous, Objective evidence because the athletes are doing something that is taboo, Illegal, And sometimes highly dangerous. The anecdotal picture tells us that our attempts to eliminate drugs from sport have failed. In the absence of good evidence, We need an analytical argument to determine what we should do. CONDEMNED TO CHEATING? We are far from the days of amateur sporting competition. Elite athletes can earn tens of millions of dollars every year in prize money alone, And millions more in sponsorships and endorsements. The lure of success is great. But the penalties for cheating are small. A six month or one year ban from competition is a small penalty to pay for further years of multimillion dollar success. Drugs are much more effective today than they were in the days of strychnine and sheep"s testicles. Studies involving the anabolic steroid androgen showed that, Even in doses much lower than those used by athletes, Muscular strength could be improved by 5"20%. 5 Most athletes are also relatively unlikely to ever undergo testing. The International Amateur Athletic Federation estimates that only 10"15% of participating athletes are tested in each major competition. 6 The enormous rewards for the winner, The effectiveness of the drugs, And the low rate of testing all combine to create a cheating "game" that is irresistible to athletes. Kjetil Haugen7 investigated the suggestion that athletes face a kind of prisoner"s dilemma regarding drugs. His game theoretic model shows that, Unless the likelihood of athletes being caught doping was raised to unrealistically high levels, Or the payoffs for winning were reduced to unrealistically low levels, Athletes could all be predicted to cheat. The current situation for athletes ensures that this is likely, Even though they are worse off as a whole if everyone takes drugs, Than if nobody takes drugs. Drugs such as erythropoietin (EPO) and growth hormone are natural chemicals in the body. As technology advances, Drugs have become harder to detect because they mimic natural processes. In a few years, There will be many undetectable drugs. Haugen"s analysis predicts the obvious: that when the risk of being caught is zero, Athletes will all choose to cheat. The recent Olympic games in Athens were the first to follow the introduction of a global anti-doping code. From the lead up to the games to the end of competition, 3000 drug tests were carried out: 2600 urine tests and 400 blood tests for the endurance enhancing drug EPO. 8 From these, 23 athletes were found to have taken a banned substance"the most ever in an Olympic games. 9 Ten of the men"s weightlifting competitors were excluded. The goal of "cleaning" up the sport is unattainable. Further down the track the spectre of genetic enhancement looms dark and large. UNFAIR? People do well at sport as a result of the genetic lottery that happened to deal them a winning hand. Genetic tests are available to identify those with the greatest potential. If you have one version of the ACE gene, You will be better at long distance events. If you have another, You will be better at short distance events. Black Africans do better at short distance events because of biologically superior muscle type and bone structure. Sport discriminates against the genetically unfit. Sport is the province of the genetic elite (or freak). The starkest example is the Finnish skier Eero Maentyranta. In 1964, He won three gold medals. Subsequently it was found he had a genetic mutation that meant that he "naturally" had 40"50% more red blood cells than average. 15 Was it fair that he had significant advantage given to him by chance? The ability to perform well in sporting events is determined by the ability to deliver oxygen to muscles. Oxygen is carried by red blood cells. The more red blood cells, The more oxygen you can carry. This in turn controls an athlete"s performance in aerobic exercise. EPO is a natural hormone that stimulates red blood cell production, Raising the packed cell volume (PCV)"the percentage of the blood comprised of red blood cells. EPO is produced in response to anaemia, Haemorrhage, Pregnancy, Or living at altitude. Athletes began injecting recombinant human EPO in the 1970s, And it was officially banned in 1985. 16 At sea level, The average person has a PCV of 0. 4"0. 5. It naturally varies; 5% of people have a packed cell volume above 0. 5, 17 and that of elite athletes is more likely to exceed 0. 5, Either because their high packed cell volume has led them to success in sport or because of their training. 18 Raising the PCV too high can cause health problems. The risk of harm rapidly rises as PCV gets above 50%. One study showed that in men whose PCV was 0. 51 or more, Risk of stroke was significantly raised (relative risk R02;=R02; 2. 5), After adjustment for other causes of stroke. 19 At these levels, Raised PCV combined with hypertension would cause a ninefold increase in stroke risk. In endurance sports, Dehydration causes an athlete"s blood to thicken, Further raising blood viscosity and pressure. 20 What begins as a relatively low risk of stroke or heart attack can rise acutely during exercise. In the early 1990s, After EPO doping gained popularity but before tests for its presence were available, Several Dutch cyclists died in their sleep due to inexplicable cardiac arrest. This has been attributed to high levels of EPO doping. 21 The risks from raising an athlete"s PCV too high are real and serious. Use of EPO is endemic in cycling and many other sports. In 1998, The Festina team was expelled from the Tour de France after trainer Willy Voet was caught with 400 vials of performance enhancing drugs. 22 The following year, The World Anti-Doping Agency was established as a result of the scandal. However, EPO is extremely hard to detect and its use has continued. Italy"s Olympic anti-doping director observed in 2003 that the amount of EPO sold in Italy outweighed the amount needed for sick people by a factor of six. 23 In addition to trying to detect EPO directly, The International Cycling Union requires athletes to have a PCV no higher than 0. 5. But 5% of people naturally have a PCV higher than 0. 5. Athletes with a naturally high PCV cannot race unless doctors do a number of tests to show that their PCV is natural. Charles Wegelius was a British rider who was banned and then cleared in 2003. He had had his spleen removed in 1998 after an accident, And as the spleen removes red blood cells, Its absence resulted in an increased PCV. 24 There are other ways to increase the number of red blood cells that are legal. Altitude training can push the PCV to dangerous, Even fatal, Levels. More recently, Hypoxic air machines have been used to simulate altitude training. The body responds by releasing natural EPO and growing more blood cells, So that it can absorb more oxygen with every breath. The Hypoxico promotional material quotes Tim Seaman, A US athlete, Who claims that the hypoxic air tent has "given my blood the legal "boost" that it needs to be competitive at the world level. "25 There is one way to boost an athlete"s number of red blood cells that is completely undetectable:26 autologous blood doping. In this process, Athletes remove some blood, And reinject it after their body has made new blood to replace it. This method was popular before recombinant human EPO became available. "By allowing everyone to take performance enhancing drugs, We level the playing field. " There is no difference between elevating your blood count by altitude training, By using a hypoxic air machine, Or by taking EPO. But the last is illegal. Some competitors have high PCVs and an advantage by luck. Some can afford hypoxic air machines. Is this fair? Nature is not fair. Ian Thorpe has enormous feet which give him an advantage that no other swimmer can get, No matter how much they exercise. Some gymnasts are more flexible, And some basketball players are seven feet tall. By allowing everyone to take performance enhancing drugs, We level the playing field. We remove the effects of genetic inequality. Far from being unfair, Allowing performance enhancement promotes equality.

Title: Drugs in sports Content: with that being said, drugs should be allowed in sports because it is just another means of trying to get ahead. Over training can be unhealthy and result in death but that isn't being stopped. Simply think of it this way, every athlete (to my knowledge) wants to do the best that they can in their particular sporting event/ field so why shouldn't they be allowed to make their own choices as to how they get to where they want to be?

Title: steriods in sports Content: i think sterids should be ban from all sports. its very unhealthy for the body. Those who oppose the use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs say that the athletes who use them are breaking the rules and getting an unfair advantage over others. Opponents of the drugs say the athletes are endangering not only their own health, but also indirectly encouraging youngsters to do the same.

Title: If legal then drugs can be controlled and monitored by doctors, making them much safer. Athletes on... Content: If legal then drugs can be controlled and monitored by doctors, making them much safer. Athletes on drugs today often take far more than is needed for performance-enhancement, running needless health risks as a result, simply because of ignorance and the need for secrecy. Legalisation allows more information to become available and open medical supervision will avoid many of the health problems currently associated with performance-enhancing drugs.

Title: Steroids Should Be Legal in Professional Sports Content: I contend that professional sports leagues should legalize steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. I understand that this position may initially be considered blasphemy, but there are multiple reasons that leagues should legalize performance-enhancing drugs. First of all, throughout history, humans have been trying to stretch the limits of what is possible. This includes through the use of any available technology. The fact that humans cannot physically fly did not stop the Wright Brothers from building the first airplane. Yes, legalized use of steroids would create frequent changes in the record books, but those are all part of human achievement. Furthermore, comparisons between eras are already moot, considering the differences between the rules of today and those of 50 or 100 years ago. Also, it benefits the sports economically to allow performance-enhancing drugs. In 1999, when Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire both broke Roger Maris's single-season home run record, interest in baseball soared. Many casual fans found their accomplishments fascinating, as those men were going to a place no human had been before. A comparable analogy would be when the oldest person ever, Jeanne Calment of France, died at the age of 122 years. She would never have been able to live that long with primitive technology, but people were fascinated by her shattering the record (no other human has even lived to 120). Why should a different standard be applied to sports? Baseball was always the sport most impacted by performance-enhancing drugs. Thus, it saw the biggest excitement around new records. Today, players normally are caught and suspended when they take other performance-enhancing drugs. Thus, there is less opportunity to have the excitement of breaking records. Consequently, baseball's ratings have slipped in a time where football and basketball are basking in rising ratings relative to the average TV show. Thus, steroids should be legal in sports.

Title: Steroids should be banned in all sports. Content: Steroids should be allowed in SOME sports. All of the below scenarios negate all arguments my opponent has placed 1Steriods should be allowed in any sport that steroids will not have an impact on performance, such as the sport of darts or billiards. 2Steriods should be allowed in sports that nearly every participant already uses steroids, such as body building (not the same as weight lifting) 3Steriods should be allowed in sports that are simply played for fun and not professional, such as a game of touch football with family. Further every private sports association should have the right to determine their own stance on steroid use, whether that be banned or not. My opponent says"...It is against the law to participate in sterood use." Not all steroids are illegal in all countries. I assume my opponent means the United States of America. Even in the United States of America human growth hormone is Legal.

Title: Legalize Performance-Enhancing Drug for Sportman Content: Oh, than simply, sir, LOL. I disagree with what I accepted to, but it is their own damn fault for using performance enhancing drugs, if they know the effects, both long and short term, than I guess it should be legal because they are stupid, the end.

Title: permit the use of performance enhancing drugs in professional sports Content: Permitting the use of performace enhancers would have a coercive effect on athletes who would otherwise avoid drug use

Title: Levels the playing field. Currently suspicion over drug use surrounds every sport and every success... Content: Levels the playing field. Currently suspicion over drug use surrounds every sport and every successful athlete, and those competitors who don’t take performance-enhancing drugs see themselves as disadvantaged. Some drugs can’t be tested for, and in any case, new medical and chemical advances mean that the cheats will always be ahead of the testers. Legalisation would remove this uncertainty and allow everyone to compete openly and fairly.

Title: Steroids in sports. Content: To clarify, I use 'advanced training' to denote the accepted methods and measures that pro athletes take to reach the top of the sport. I'll go point by point here, with some responses. You make a couple of key arguments. 1) Purity You argue that steroids would taint the pure nature of professional sports and allowing external 'alterations' would skew human performance. This argument would work great, if it hadn't already happened. It would only be true if regular people, who were athletically talented, were our pro atheletes. This is obviously not the case. Gone are the days when guys like Babe Ruth could rely on natural human ability. Todays pro athletes already use extensive, extra-human workout routines and get their hands on any kind of herbal substance, protein formula, or other legal aid that might give them a boost. Do you think that a guy who has been hardcore training since adolescence, takes dozens of supplements a day, and is paid ridiculous amounts of money to do nothing but find some kind of edge that will make him a better player is a 'pure' representation of human ability? You can not find one single professional athlete that is free from outside alteration, legal or not. If pros were pure human beings I would agree, but anymore, they are just engineered muscle. Any notion of purity went out the window decades ago. 2) Allowing Steroids is not fair to those who don't want to use them. You argue that, if we allow steroids, players who don't elect to risk their health would be unfairly ostricized from the sport, because of lower performance. Again, isn't this already true? Players who do not choose to adopt the newest and most performance beneficial supplements and training techniques are left in the perverbial dust as well. If an athlete elects not to train intensely or receive the legal aid available, his skills are not on par with others and he/she is not able to compete. Now, it seems I am avoiding the obvious. "Training isn't harmful to their health, steroids are harmful. We shouldn't make people harm themselves in order to compete professionally." This seems like a reasonable objection, but in reality, again, this is already true. It seems like common sense that being in good physical condition would be good for you. But, new studies and literature show that living the life of a professional athelete leads to more severe injuries, a shorter lifespan, and worse health sooner(http://www.eric.ed.gov...) (http://www.informaworld.com...). Professional athletes may seem like they are in peak physical condition, but the risk they assume with 'natural' and 'traditional' training regiments are harmful to their health as well. Again, I would agree with you here if we were not already to this point. As professional athletics stands now, the effects that steroids has on the body, are a drop in the pond compared to the risks and trials that it faces now. Those athletes who do not want to take steroids are free to choose not to, if that renders them obsolete (which is arguable), then professionalism will leave them behind, just as your 'natural' methods have done to so many athletes before them in the past. 3) Fairness and being a good-role model You argue that allowing steroids would eliminate fairness and poorly influence kids. This however, as I stated in my first round, is merely a consequence of steroid's current illegality. No one looks down on A-Rod for drinking protein shakes, even though high-protein diets have been shown to increase risks on bone cancer and osteoporosis (http://manbir-online.com...) (http://www.futurepundit.com...). If protein supplements were banned, we would have the same terrible view of them as we do steroids. But, since they are legal, and widely accepted, we are cool with them. The same goes for numerous other legal aids. The only reason steroid use has a bad connotation is because of its illegality. Steroid users are looked at as cheaters because they used an illegal substance. If steroids were legal, these athletes would no longer be cheaters as everyone would be on a sanctioned, level playing field. I'm not saying this would happen immediately, but as time grew on and steroids were more accepted, the bad label would fall away. The message to kids has already been molested, and steroids would not send a 'do drugs' message. If kids model athletes that closely, why do we allow ball players to chew tobacco? Why are people like Ricky Williams, Michael Vick, and Tank Johnson still allowed to play, despite numerous arrests, prison sentences and admitted use of narcotics? Its not like proffessional sports has some kind of role-model clause. This argument would only hold weight if the image of the professional athlete hadn't already been skewed beyond recognition. Still, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to send the right message, I agree. The fact is, kids DO look up to athletes. But again, where is the line here? With proper understanding and parenting, kids are already told that some things are strictly for professionals. Do we tell kids to spend eight hours in the gym and dedicate their entire lives to training, or do we tell them that its a game and that they should have fun with it? Do we tell little kids who like to ride horses that jockeys need to be bulimic in order to get a job, or that track stars use a 'puke index' to measure how hard they should train? Or, do we tell them to try hard, but have fun? Obviously, steroids would function in the same way. It is already understood and told to kids, that pros take measures that they should not. Steroids would just be lumped into this existing category. We obviously don't tell kids to use testosterone enhancers and synergistic muscle volumizers, which are legal. Why would steroids be an exception here? Again, I think this loops back to the negative connotation that steroids carry, rather than the differences they have with already legal training methods. In short, steroids ARE just the next step in professional sports. There is no denying the health risk involved, but that hasn't stopped us from legalizing other extreme training methods. We shouldn't force steroids on our athletes by any means, but that avenue should be open to those who seek it, just as other extreme avenues are open to those who are willing to use them. Athletes would remain the terrible role models they are, or at least sports would handle this advance as it has handled every other one, with caution and responsibility. Any notion of purity or fairness is all relative. Athletes of the past could, in no way, compete with the legal ones of today because of the progression sports has taken. Our athletes are more athletic because of the then taboo methods that are now legal. Sports needs to take the obvious next step. I realize that this position seems terrible, but that is only because of the bad rap steroids have gotten as a result of their illegality. We need to get past this media-painted image of steroids and realize that science has allowed athletes to progress before and is doing it again. Barry Bond's wouldn't be such a terrible guy if steroids were legal, then again, maybe we would have more guys putting up his numbers too.

Title: Drug Use in Sports Content: Drug use in sports poses a negative effect on the user's health. Enacting the legalization of drug use in sports seeks an unfair advantage towards other athletes and sets a bad perception on how athletes should compete in sports. Drugs I am talking about are: stimulants, Anabolic-androgenic steroids, Erythropoietin, And 'blood doping' (practice of increasing the number of red blood cells in one's circulatory system). But I'm open to HGH (human growth hormone) ONLY if it is prescribed to them and they do not use it with anabolic steroids or testosterone.

Title: Steroids in sports. Content: I believe steroids should be allowed in sports. It would maximize the skills of most players and is the next step in advanced training. The primary reason steroids get a bad rap is because they are against the rules and viewed as cheating. Players who don't want to take steroids can be free to make that choice, just as some players don't choose certain training methods now. Players who want to take the health risks associated with steroids should be able to do so.

Title: Performance enhancing supplements are not necessary and absolutely harmful for teens Content: I personally do not condone the use of Performance Enhancing Drugs and/or Supplements whether they are illegal or not. But, I believe that in small quantities they are not harmful to teenagers. I look forward to further informing you on this topic.

Title: Natural/unnatural distinction untenable. Already athletes use all sorts of dietary supplements, exe... Content: It is true that it is difficult to decide where to draw the line between legitimate and illegitimate performance enhancement. However we should continue to draw a line nonetheless. First, to protect athletes from harmful drugs. Secondly, to preserve the spirit of fair play and unaided competition between human beings in their peak of natural fitness. Eating a balanced diet and wearing the best shoes are clearly in a different category from taking steroids and growth hormones. We should continue to make this distinction and aim for genuine drug-free athletic competitions.

Title: As an international sporting committee we would lift the doping ban Content: My opponent started with "What kind of message would we be sending our children if we allowed doping". To me, this is entirely subjective. What kind of message would we be sending if we allowed guns on the streets? If we banned marijuana but allow smoking? If we spied on people to prevent terrorism? "A young boy with dreams of becoming a professional athlete would feel he has to use drugs in order to compete and pursue his dreams." It really depends on the level of competition. If it was an amateur competition and most people join for the satisfaction and fun of it then there is nothing wrong with allowing contestants to take drugs or not since the main motivation for these people is not to win, but to challenge themselves. At the highest levels, where athletes already receive a lot of funding from governments and sponsors, there is nothing wrong with allowing them to take drugs AS LONG AS everyone is allowed to, openly and without secrets. "And you can't compare a special swimming suit or an oxygen tank to a chemical that has negative side effects on an athletes body." If you have an issue against chemicals, I suggest you wake up. We are surrounded by carcinogens on a daily basis which we use to improve ourselves. Deodorants, anti-pesticides for vegetables, injections on poultry to become fatter produce more eggs to feed an every increasing population. "We should encourage our athletes to be as healthy as possible." It is up to them whether or not they choose to take in extremely harmful substances. As long as it is an act of free choice, surely they have a right to consume what they want. Here, I would also like to highlight that these drugs are seldom extremely dangerous substances. With correct application and suitable doses, they can be used in a healthy manner to stimulate the muscles and organs. If athletes fail to follow the prescription, it's just like an obese person who chooses to consume too much foods. My opponent also never rebutted my arguments.

Title: The use of performance-enhancing drugs is widespread in the Olympics and reduces the victories of th... Content: The use of performance-enhancing drugs is widespread in the Olympics and reduces the victories of those who take them to meaninglessness. New drugs such as the growth hormone EPO are very difficult to detect, but the Olympic authorities are doing little to overcome the problem. The President of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch, has been notoriously reluctant to put his weight behind attempts to beat doping.

Title: Protecting young and vulnerable athletes Content: Even if performance-enhancing drugs were only legalized for adults, the definition of this varies from country to country, something which would be problematic for sports that are global. Teenage athletes train alongside adult ones and share the same coaches, so many would succumb to the temptation and pressures to use drugs, if these were widely available and effectively endorsed by legalization. Not only are such young athletes unable to make a fully rational, informed choice about drug-taking, the health impacts upon growing bodies would be even worse than for adult users. It would also send a positive message about drug culture in general, making the use of “recreational drugs” with all their accompanying evils more widespread.

Title: Permitting the use of performace enhancers would have a coercive effect on athletes who would otherwise avoid drug use Content: Once some people choose to use drugs to enhance their performance, other athletes have their freedom of choice infringed upon: if they want to succeed they have to take drugs too. Athletes are very driven individuals, who would go to great lengths to achieve their goals. The chance of a gold medal in two years’ time may out-weigh the risks of serious health problems for the rest of their life. We should protect athletes from themselves and not allow anyone to take performance-enhancing drugs. An example of the pressure is cycling. The American Scientific magazine explains: “Game theory highlights why it is rational for professional cyclists to dope: the drugs are extremely effective as well as difficult or impossible to detect; the payoffs for success are high; and as more riders use them, a “clean” rider may become so noncompetitive that he or she risks being cut from the team.” (1) Michael Shermer, The Dopping Dillema, 03/31/2008, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-doping-dilemma accessed 05/15/2011

Title: Olympic Dream Is Dead Content: The use of performance-enhancing drugs is widespread in the Olympics and reduces the victories of th...

Title: Steroids in sports. Content: It seems to me that using the term "advanced training" is quite vague, please can you elaborate. Secondly, I believe that there are a plethora of reasons why steroids should not be allowed in sports. for one, the sake of purity is at risk. How can you measure the skill of a human (one of the main reasons for sport) when that individual is affected by an outside alteration such as steroids? also, if you allow all players to use steroids in sports, yet all are free not to as you put it "take the health risks", aren't you not putting the people who don't want to use steroids potentially out of the game. that does not seem fair, and fairness the one of the principles guiding sports. The reason we have rules, referees and instant replay are all for the sake of pure sport, and steroids fit into that realm as well. Also, athletes are seen as heroes in the world of children. Can't you name one person that you looked up to that played sports-mine was Alex Rodriguez, and I can't imagine how my life would be changed as a kid if I had found out he had taken steroids. What kind of message does that send children; that its ok to take drugs as long as you see positive benefits? Not to mention the idea that although steroids have long term effects to the human body as well. so no, steroids should not be allowed in sports.

Title: Anabolic Steroids Should be Legalized for Professional Athletes Content: It is unfair for athletes to take drugs. It is like getting a free 48 hour workout by just taking a pill. You get into professional baseball or any other sport because you practiced hard, and that you are good. Protein shakes are like eating healthy. That's what people have to do to stay fit. In steroids there are many chemicals to boost what ever it boosts. It is just unreasonable to have steroids legal in professional sports.

Title: Anabolic Steroids Should be Legalized for Professional Athletes Content: Well, I would certainly like to see a match with people at their maximum potential. It would basically be seeing the best of the best in the match of the century. It would be amazing to watch. The game would not be like watching robots play, either. Considering the fact that sports players have brains that they use on the field, the match would be very different than what you propose. I'm surprised that you haven't made the argument that 'steroids are dangerous for athletes so they shouldn't use them'. Well, just so you don't use that in this final round, I am going to clear this up. If steroids were legalized, then they would actually be safer. Why? Because it would be done under the guidance of a doctor who can monitor how the athlete is doing with the steroids. The reason it is so dangerous now is because athletes don't know the right amount to take, so they overdose and die. Thank you for being my first opponent. I really enjoyed this debate.

Title: Controlling, rather than ignoring, performance enhancing substances will improve competitive standards in sport Content: The use of performance enhancing drugs is based on advances in science. When new drugs and therapies are found, athletes turn to them and as a result are much of the time ahead of the anti-doping organizations, which need to develop methods of athlete testing whenever a new drug that is meant to be untraceable is created. In 2008 it was a big shock when Riccardo Ricco (a cyclist) was caught using the performance-enhancing drug Mircera, which had been considered undetectable for a number of years. The fact is that a ban of performance enhancing drugs enables mainly athletes from wealthy countries and teams that can afford the newest technology to go undetected, whilst others are disadvantaged (1). So because it gives an unfair advantage to the wealthy one who can pay for the undetectable drugs, we should legalize it. Millard Baker, Riccardo Ricco Tests Positive for Undetectable New Drug Mircera at 2008 Tour de France, 07/18/2008, http://steroidreport.com/2008/07/18/riccardo-ricco-and-mircera-pegylated-epo/, accessed 05/20/2011

Title: Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) should be permitted in professional sports. Content: To refute my opponent's arguments and his responses to my own, one by one: 1. "Legalizing PEDs would serve to level the playing field. According to the New York Times, more than a third of the top Tour de France finishers since 1998 have been confirmed to be doping while racing" Response: Not only should they not be legalized, there should be more enforcement to keep them out of sports. It's not a strong argument to say "some people are doing it anyway, we might as well make it legal so everyone can". Some people do cocaine! Furthermore, rich athletes from wealthier countries will have access to the latest, highest-quality PEDs while poorer athletes from poorer countries which don't have the same medical or scientific advances will not be able to keep up. As long as PEDs are available (or even legal), the playing field won't ever be level. PEDs are one of the largest factors that make the playing field not be level, because they give a foothold to wealth and country of origin as deciders of athletic performance. 2. "One of the primary reasons people enjoy watching professional sports is because they showcase the highest level of human achievement. Allowing PEDs to be used would raise the level of competition and skill in professional sports." Response: Allowing PEDs would raise the level of competition in an extremely uneven manner, and we would showcase chemical achievement instead of human achievement (as outlined in my first argument). 3. "My opponent argues that PEDs provide with a large risk for athletes. However, Athletes who are using PEDs are already in a dangerous industry, and frequently become injured regardless of whether or not they use drugs." Response: I would call it an invalid argument to say that, because what they do is dangerous already, it doesn't matter that PEDs could make their lives more dangerous. All people are under the law and the law should protect all people. Welders have a more dangerous career than teachers, but it isn't any less against the law for them to use cocaine. 4. "My opponent also argues that allowing PEDs takes away from true human achievement. However, being an athlete requires a high amount of skill regardless of whether or not you use PEDs. [...] Using PEDs may increase the distance of this home run, but hitting a it is still a spectacle of your own human, not chemical precision." Response: I agree that there is a side of sports not affected by PEDs, but I think that this argues my side of the debate more than it does yours- we will celebrate the same skills, changed or unchanged by PEDs, as human achievement. The use of PEDs therefore does not increase this human achievement and should not be celebrated, it only adds chemical achievement to what is already amazing. This is not something we want to celebrate, as it is outside of the central philosophy of sport, and it is certainly not worth the health risks or other disparities (as outlined above) the PEDs would bring to sport at any level.

Title: Anabolic steroids should not be allowed for use in professional sports. Content: Said drugs should not be used in sports, for a few reasons. 1) Negative effect on the steroid user Steroids, as we all know, speed up protein synthesis to enhance performance. However, there are some harmful side effects to using them. They include: - higher blood pressure - higher cholesterol levels - higher risk of heart disease - liver damage - premature growth - testicular cancer - abnormally large amounts of acne - breast development in men This, obviously, is not good for the steroid user. Furthermore, exercising normally can avoid these problems, and regular exercise is better for physical and mental health. 2) Negative impact on children When children start to get into sports, they normally treat their favorite player as an idol, an image of what they want to be when they grow up. How would they feel if their idol essentially cheated by using drugs so they didn't have to work as hard? Furthermore, what if they decided to use steroids too, because their hero did? 3) Unfair advantage Most professional athletes work hard every day to stay in shape and sharp at their sport. Why should some players get to skip this hard work that everyone else is doing? That's all for now.

Title: Current rules are very arbitrary and unfair:e.g. cold remedies denied to athletes, even in sports wh... Content: What about the children? Even if performance-enhancing drugs were only legalised for adults, the definition of this varies from country to country. Teenage athletes train alongside adult ones and share the same coaches, so many would succumb to the temptation and pressure to use drugs if these were widely available and effectively endorsed by legalisation. Not only are such young athletes unable to make a fully rational, informed choice about drug-taking, the health impacts upon growing bodies would be even worse than for adult users. It would also send a positive message about drug culture in general, making the use of “recreational drugs” with all their accompanying evils more widespread.

Title: There is no distinction between "natural" and synthetic methods of performance enhancement Content: It is true that it is difficult to decide where to draw the line between legitimate and illegitimate performance enhancement. However we should continue to draw a line nonetheless. This line should be drawn at protecting athletes from harmful drugs and preserving the spirit of fair play and unaided competition between human beings in their peak of natural fitness. The special diet and sport training equipment, which may seem very hard and exeptional, have been designed based on serious scientific research proved and tested to fit with long-term training of athletes. Hard practice to achieve the best performance with help of these professional methods is completely a different from taking steroids and growth hormones for immediate result.

Title: Drug Use in Sports Content: Responding to C1: Just because drugs like stimulant and muscle/hormone growth are common practices does not justify or prove that it is not harmful or promotes a good perception on how athletes should compete in sports. They have a negative effect on long-term health. Athletes would be proned to use those substances to relieve many stressors like pressure to perform, Physical pain, Injuries, And retirement for the sport. Growth hormone are banned by the WADA because it increases muscle mass and decrease adipose tissue. Athletes use those because of their anabolic effect on muscles. According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, Half of all recently surveyed athletes admitted they would be willing to take a drug even if it would kill them eventually. They would only focus or care about winning events and makes athletes feeling coerced to use those drugs in order to compete or win. Just because on average the athletes want to use these drugs or do use those drugs does not make it okay. For example (hypothetical) if on average or majority of people support slavery that does not make it okay or provide any proof of it "goodness. " The WADA, USADA, And I. O. C. All work collaboratively in sharing information to keep an eye on doping agents, Retains ownership of blood and urine samples, And work together efficiently to enhance testing effectiveness. Abusing drug to increase athletic abilities is definitely an unfair advantage. Not to mention the "blood doping" they use, It increases the risk for heart disease, Stroke, And blood clot in the brain or lungs because it boosts the number of red blood cells in the bloodstream. The other PEDs, Increase the risk for high blood pressure, An enlarged heart, Heart attack, Stroke, Irregular heart rate, High blood temperature, And paranoia. Moreover on C2: [USADA] --- Anabolic-steroids effects on health; - (physiological) liver damage, Premature closure of the growth centers of long bones (adolescents) which result in stunted growth, And disruption of puberty. - (psychological) increased aggressiveness and sexual desire. Sometimes resulting in abnormal sexual or criminal behavior. - (males) breast tissue development, Shrinking of the testicles, Impotence, And reducing sperm production. - (females) deep voice, Cessation of breast development, Growth of hair on face etc, Abnormal menstrual cycles. --- HGH (human growth hormones) - (physiological) hypertension, Blood cancers/leukemia, Anemia, Heart attacks, Thyroid problems, Severe headaches, Loss of vision, High blood pressure and heart failure, Tumors and diabetes. --- Stimulants - (physiological) insomnia, Anxiety, Dependence and addiction, Weight loss, Dehydration, Tremors, Increased heart rate and blood pressure, And increased risk of stroke and heart attack. --- Blood doping - (physiological) increased stress on the heart, Blood clotting, And stroke. Responding to C2: Yes the technology is very expensive and doesn't produce the same effects for performance as drugs. Again that does not justify or prove that it's healthy or promotes a "good" perception on athletes competing. You mostly use quotes, I don't really see how this one was an actual argument.

Title: Freedom of choice. If athletes wish to take drugs in search of improved performances, let them do s... Content: Freedom of choice. If athletes wish to take drugs in search of improved performances, let them do so. They harm nobody but themselves and should be treated as adults, capable of making rational decisions upon the basis of widely-available information. Even if there are adverse health effects in the long-term, this is also true of both tobacco and boxing, which remain legal.

Title: Levels the playing field. Currently suspicion over drug use surrounds every sport and every success... Content: Very bad for athletes. The use of performance-enhancing drugs leads to serious health problems, including “steroid rage”, the development of male characteristics in female athletes, heart attacks, and greatly reduced life expectancy. Some drugs are also addictive.

Title: Resolved: In the United States, steroid usage should be permitted for all sports. Content: In this debate, as the Con I will be arguing that steroids should not be allowed in sports. I would primarily like to point out that according to the wording of the resolution, in order for the Con to win, I need only prove that steroids should not be allowed in one sport. This said, I will not only prove why steroids should not be allowed in several sports, but I will also show steroids in general should not be allowed. Contention 1: Athletes who choose not to use steroids will be disadvantaged. Due to the fact that steroids can have serious side effects such as kdney failure, liver failure, heart risks, depression, risk for infections and many others, the athletes that choose not to use steroids will be disadvantaged which means that athletes will be pressured into using steroids which means they will have a few good years of performance but after that severe health problems will greatly lowers life expectancy. (1) Contention 2: Athletes should be role models. If all or most professional athletes are taking steroids, they are having a negative influence on the youth and society in general. Younger athletes will then start taking steroids at younger ages which will result in those teens having severe health problems, even before they make it to the professionals. http://www.peelregion.ca... (1)

Title: Steroids should be banned in all pro sports Content: My opponent is making his case based on the effects of anabolic steroids. This is only one type of steroid whereas the resolution calls for the ban of steroids in general. In my argument I contend that if steroids were completely banned from use in all professional sports then athletes that use corticosteroids to treat their conditions would be barred from competition. I will state again that corticosteroids are used to treat skin conditions such as eczema, psoriasis and allergies. They also are used to treat hay fever, many autoimmune disorders such rheumatoid arthritis, asthma and polymyalgia rheumatica. Corticosteroids are also used to prevent organ rejection in transplant patients. Sometimes they are injected into joints to reduce joint pain and swelling. If these facts are not enough to convince the voters I will also provide an argument as to why Anabolic steroids do not need to be banned from _all_ professional sports. Anabolic steroids are used to improve and accelerate muscle growth. This gives these athletes an unfair strength advantage and is the main reason that they are banned. There are many professional sports where strength means nothing. These sports include [2]: * Auto-Racing * Curling * Motorcycle Racing * Speedway * Radio-controlled model * Video Games My opponent may also argue that since aggression is a side-effect of steroid use that they should be banned. I contend that this is not the case as aggression alone does not pose a threat. It is only when a person actually causes harm to another that is a problem. This is a crime in and of itself and would possibly lead to jail time for the aggressor and legitimate ejection from a sporting league. I look forward to my opponent's response. [2] . http://en.wikipedia.org...

Title: As an international sporting committee we would lift the doping ban Content: What kind of message would we be sending our children if we allowed doping. A young boy with dreams of becoming a professional athlete would feel he has to use drugs in order to compete and pursue his dreams. We as a society should not promote the use of drugs. And you can't compare a special swimming suit or an oxygen tank to a chemical that has negative side effects on an athletes body. We should encourage our athletes to be as healthy as possible. Just because it is hard to screen every athlete for PEDs and the results havn't been perfect doesn't mean we should give up.

Title: Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) should be permitted in professional sports. Content: Performance Enhancing Drugs are defined as substances used to improve performance in a variety of fields. We're talking about steroids, lean mass builders, stimulants, nootropics, painkillers, sedatives, blood boosters, etc- not caffeine and green beans.

Title: That doping should be permitted in all sports Content: In light of recent events in all sports, I believe that there is an easy solution. Allow doping.DefinitionsDoping = Use of (currently) banned performance-inhanced drugs in sportsSports = Can mean 'an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.'- but for this debate sports shall be taken to mean athleticsAthletics = The sport of competing in track and field events, including running races and various competitions in jumping and throwing.RULES1.) No Wikipedia2.) No trolling3.) No kritks/semantics4.)Begin in 1st round.5.)FF is concession unless same numberThanks!

Title: Anybody who used performance enhancing drugs in the MLB shouldn't be elected to the Hall of fame Content: Any athlete who uses performance enhancing drugs and has a good career should not be able to make the hall of fame. This includes Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, and all the other players that used them. I believe that if you use these you are getting an advantage that everyone else isn't. They didn't hit all these home runs off of there pure talent and skills, they needed a booster to get where they are and they cheated. They should never be able to be among the Hall of Fame electors like Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron who did it with out performance enhancing drugs.

Title: Performance enhancing supplements are both un-necessary and potentially harmful for teens Content: To be specific, I am arguing that I am not against the use of supplements geared towards athletic performance. I do believe that the recreational use of supplements for teens/young adults between the ages of 16 and 22 are both un-necessary and more harmful than beneficial to the individual. To keep the debate interesting, I am open to all supplements both legal/illegal which are considered "performance enhancers" or "dietary" with the exception of multivitamins. To avoid confusion I will provide definitions of the focal point of the argument. I look forward to an engaging debate as this is growing more controversial as the supplement industry continues to rapidly grow. rec•re•a•tion•al (of a drug or medication) used for recreation and enjoyment rather than to treat a medical condition. sup•ple•ment Something added to complete a thing, supply a deficiency, or reinforce or extend a whole.

Title: Drug Testing on students in extra curricular activities Content: Drug testing is important. If people in sports didn't get drug tested that would be unfair to the other contestants/athletes. With taking drugs you have an advantage. You get a boost in your energy. Also it is illegal to take drugs when you are in athletics. If you participate in any athletic activities you need to be fair. There is a lot of news going around that athletes who win every race or what ever took drugs they lost all their gold metals and their whole carrier went down the drain.

Title: players found guilty of using PED's should have their records and accomplishments stripped Content: Players that are convicted of using Performance Enhancing Drugs (or PED's) should have their records, accomplishments, and titles (if in a single player sport) stripped from them. The use of PED's is cheating. The most recent case about this has been Lance Armstrong. Mr. Armstrong was found guilty of using a PED and was stripped of all of his Tour de France victories. This was rightfully done because, if he had not used them, then maybe someone else could've won. The use of PED's has become an infamous problem in sports and it shouldn't go without real consequences.

Title: Lance Armstrong should still be considered as more of an international hero than just a lying jerk Content: Since you had Prima Facie, you had the right to set the terms and limits of the debate, which you never seemed to. Also, I didn"t make the debate pro- or con- doping, I"m asking why we should praise someone whom everything they done was built on a lie, on cheating, on breaking the rules. You are saying that because he used ill-gotten gains to do good, that we should ignore that the gains are ill-gotten? There is an old adage that applies: The ends do not justify the means. You then bring up Winning at any costs. Is winning the only thing that should matter? Also, is it worth winning if you know that you didn"t do it fairly? It is a moral dilemma that we have a social norm which answers the question: CHEATERS NEVER PROSPER. Next, you say why put all the blame on him? Because for 14 years, he lied at every opportunity. He could have at any time said yes, but he only said yes now because he wants to keep competing and keep making money and is hoping that his punishment will be lessened. He wasn"t told to keep lying, he CHOSE to keep lying. Now, to rebuild my Counter Contentions, quoting your attacks. 1) "All race walkers with no exception break the basic rule of their sport, and the winner still isn't punished." Do you have evidence that EVERY one of them break the rules? I know it"s semantics but saying something like that is just open to attack. Also, has anyone in Race Walking dominated their sport in the same way Lance Armstrong did? Finally, It also doesn"t damage the argument that he should not be praised, so Bring Counter Contention 1 across. 2)"Maybe like Overeem in UFC? Doping really says more about the sport than about the athletes." In this situation, Overeem is not licensed in the state where the testing occurred, and thus cannot be punished until he decides to try to get licensed in Nevada, thus it doesn"t apply. Meanwhile, to further my argument more, Sammy Sosa also did a lot of charitable work during and after his career, but all we remember about him is PED use and corked bats. Bring Counter Contention 2 across. 3)"if Michael Jordan admits doping tomorrow, would he really loose whole of his reputation? I don't know, he would still be a legend to me..." Nice hypothetical, but there"s a difference between a statement and if evidence came out. Also, when someone ADMITS they were wrong, we treat them better than if they were confronted with the evidence before saying anything. Also, Armstrong denied for YEARS that he doped, and only said anything to try to save face. Bring Counter Contention 3 across. The point I"m trying to make is this: He made a choice to cheat, and then chose to keep cheating and keep lying about cheating for so long, that it built up and up until the truth came out. Why should we still praise someone who did this, no matter what he might have done with the fame and fortune? Cross-apply what I said at the beginning: The Ends Do Not Justify The Means, and Cheaters Never Prosper. You have shown nothing why we should ignore these social norms in this case.

Title: Drug Use in Sports Content: Since I am going to argue for the use of drugs like stimulant, Anabolic-androgenic steroids, Erythropoietin and Blood Doping in sports events. I hereby list out my arguments: C1: Drugs like stimulant and etc. Are performance boosting drugs during sport events: Drugs like stimulant and also muscle/hormone growth are common practice in some sport areas, For example: it is common knowledge that the fighters in AFL or other television events use these drugs before the event happened. Despite many arguments that these drugs are harmful to human body, Body stimulant drugs are used in many normal competitions. C2: The current technology is expensive, And also inadequate enough. One of the most famous quote in the tour of france is the following: You have no idea what the Tour de France is", Henri said. "It's a Calvary. Worse than that, Because the road to the Cross has only 14 stations and ours has 15. We suffer from the start to the end. You want to know how we keep going? Here. . . " He pulled a phial from his bag. "That's cocaine, For our eyes. This is chloroform, For our gums. " "This", Ville said, Emptying his shoulder bag "is liniment to put warmth back into our knees. " "And pills. Do you want to see pills? Have a look, Here are the pills. " Each pulled out three boxes. "The truth is", Francis said, "that we keep going on dynamite. " Henri spoke of being as white as shrouds once the dirt of the day had been washed off, Then of their bodies being drained by diarrhoea, Before continuing: "At night, In our rooms, We can't sleep. We twitch and dance and jig about as though we were doing St Vitus's Dance. . . " "There's less flesh on our bodies than on a skeleton", Francis said. This might be a joke, But the truth is, These long range races are suffering to the people who are participating in them. Also, Lance Armstrong, A legendary doping figure in the Tour De France had also talked about 1 single thing: "It is impossible to go on without drugs. "

Title: Essendon's Players should be banned Content: I think there should simply be separate leagues for people who used steroids and other enhancements and those who do not. Pretty soon we will have people who are bred for specific genetic traits and prosthetic limbs that will make them far superior to normal athletes. Doping will look downright tame by comparison. But for now, I would rather see athletes push themselves beyond the limits of their bodies using technology than watch them be hobbled by people who think that the human race should cede to evolve any further than it already has. Passing a "no steroids rule" is like passing a rule in basketball that says no player shall be over 6 feet tall.

Title: As an international sporting committee we would lift the doping ban Content: Just because you cant't catch every athlete that is doping doesn't mean you should just give up and lift the ban and let every athlete dope openly. If you did every athlete would be doping and you wouldn't be able to compete unless you used dope. This would promote the use of dope among children who dream of becoming a professional athlete. Almost all of the banned substances have negative side effects on your health from heart attacks and strokes to the shrinking of your testicles. We do not want our children taking unhealthy substances especially while their bodies are still growing. Lifting the ban would be telling them that it is okay to use these drugs. That is the most important point. Are we going to force people to use unnatural drugs in order to compete? I think that is immoral and damages the integrity of the sport. As far as the swim suit and the oxygen tank for climbing I would agree with the Royal Geographic Society it's not completely human but that's another debate.

Title: Performance-enhancing drugs should be allowed in professional sports. Content: " Did you not see what "allowed" refers to? Rights or not, steroids are not allowed in professional sports. " Again, you are ignoring your own statement at the beginning of the debate. You conceded the point about which meaning of "allowed" is to be used. " I didn't say that. Obviously, an athlete should be expected to be a role model for children, since many kids will look up to him/her. This does not dictate the way they live; it simply means they should not do stupid things, cheat, etc. because that will negatively influence kids. " You're contradicting yourself. The ability to do "stupid things" is part of the ability to choose how to live. Either you dictate how they live or you don't, there is no middle ground here. Respect their rights, or treat them as slaves. That's it. If you dictate that a person acts as a role model, this means you are dictating that they live as one. " Do you see any unconditioned professional athletes? " Yes, actually, in baseball for example, at some of the positions that are specialized, it is possible to just have a good technique down for pitching and hitting and not actually do much in the way of conditioning. Not optimal but some people do it with success. And you are ignoring the fact that being a professional athlete is a choice. They are free to be one or not to be one. So no, they don't HAVE TO do anything, even those whose sports do require conditioning, are not forced to choose that sport. " EXACTLY - one party still has to go through hard work, while the other can just take drugs. " Again that "Has to," which is false, and the false assumption that the first party can't use the drugs. And if you'll notice, exhbit A, the most successful steroid users also work the hardest (See Barry Bonds' extensive workouts.) The steroids simply allow the workout sessions to last longer and be more productive. " Well, first, if something is illegal for use in sports, then it is not allowed for use in sports. So I can relate these arguments to the resolution even if you were right. Second, you just contradicted yourself. First you state that I conceded that I was talking about what the law should allow. But then, you say I "explicitly clarified [it] as being allowable by the law, not allowable by the sports league". But really, I was laying the latter all along. The very first sentence says "illegal for use in sports". That means that their use is punishable by law if used in sports." You are twisting logic here, and it is you who contradict yourself. You state that i contradict myself by declaring you were talking about the law, and then declaring you were talking about the law? That is the opposite of a contradiction! Meanwhile you contradict yourself by stating you are talking about the sports league's rules, and then stating "PUNISHABLE BY LAW." "LAW" is not what a sports league makes. It is what congress makes. A sports league has every right to forbid participation based on such grounds as steroid use... but such a rule is not a "law," does not make participation "illegal." Only that which is forbidden by a government body, Congress, is "illegal." Unless you were trying to say I stated you were arguing it "Should be allowable by the law, not the sports league," which means you misinterpreted my statement. I stated the debate, you clarified, was about "What is allowable" by the law, rather than "what is allowable" the sports league, which means you are dropping the context and thus altering the meaning of my statement. Either way I have not contradicted myself, either you misunderstand the term contradiction or you are dropping the context of a statement (Your summary of my supposedly contradictory arguments was so ambigous I have a hard time telling which.) " Now before you start saying that we should not jail people for steroid use, that's not what "punishable by law" means. Loitering is punishable by law; do you get thrown in jail for it? What about littering or violating curfew laws? " You are given fines, which if not paid result in jail. The end that lies down the road is the same, there are simply more steps. The point is that the penalty is government administered, and active, as opposed to the passive penalty of being refused employment if the prohibition were private. Jail and government-mandated fines are morally equivalent. Where one is morally unjustified, so is the other. " My opponent has spent all of his arguments attempting to not relate my arguments to the resolution. However, I have showed how he has misinterpreted all of my arguments." And I have shown how you have misinterpreted mine, and thereby not shown how I have misinterpreted yours. "urthermore, he has not attempted to argue with my position," Your explicit position, explicated in Round 1, is that it should be, again, ILLEGAL for athletes to use steroids. Not, grounds for a private entity to not hire, but, ILLEGAL. If you think I haven't been arguing with that position, you haven't paid the slightest bit of attention. "nd is giving contradictory and misleading "reasons" on why I have "not" supported the resolution. " I already demonstrated I have not contradicted myself. I hope you can do the same. It isn't my fault what you chose to open the debate with, had you not, the meaning of "allowed" would still be open to discussion, but your inclusion of the term "illegal" made certain it is not, and you have not responded to my arguments against it being illegal (or, since i am Pro, in favor of it being legal, though there is no difference between the two terms).

Title: Should MLB baseball players be banned from baseball for doing drugs Content: I agree it does depend on the drug but steroids can really affect a person and it is ruining our game! I really don't know why anyone would agree with drug usage!

Title: Improving safety standards in sport Content: There will always be a black market for cheaper or for new untested drugs that will give an athlete an edge before others have a chance to try it. Legalization is therefore unlikely to result in large health benefits as the competitiveness of sport will always result in athletes being willing to take a risk.

Title: Performance enhancing drugs should be allowed in professional sports Content: 1. Athletes should be able to use whatever means they would like to improve their performance. If that includes steroids, then let them use it. 2. Steroids' risks are clear, and an athlete has a right to choose whether or not he would like to use them. 3. Steroid testing is not efficient, and new types of steroids are being released that often pass screenings.

Title: There's no I in team Content: A team should be punished if it is discovered and can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the entire Olympic team has been involved in illegal ‘organized cheating’. However, this does not mean that just because only one athlete was accused of using performance enhancing drugs, the entire team should be held responsible. You cannot punish someone for simply being affiliated with a person who has cheated. That is akin to arresting someone because their brother stole a car. You cannot punish someone for the bad decision of another. It is an individual’s right to make their own decisions about what they do to their bodies. Even if a convincing argument is made as to why performance enhancing drugs are a god idea, it is ultimately that athlete’s decision whether or not to use them. If the teammates did not also take the drugs, then they should not be punished. Why should we penalize the whole team for making the wrong assumption that their teammate would think twice before doping because s/he will have the entire team to consider? Some athletes are willing to cheat even if they know they are risking their career. Then, here is quite obvious question, is an athlete going to prioritize their career or their team's career? Assuming that their team's career might 'increase the risk' is not going to necessarily prevent any athletes from dope usage, and this is because each individual are even willing to sacrifice their own. Thus, our opposition has also stated that there is ‘peer pressure’, which would apparently make the athlete ‘uncomfortable’, which is illogical. At the end of the day adding pressure to someone will not guarantee that they will make a decision one way or the other. The choice ultimately rests in the hands of the athlete.

Title: That doping should be permitted in all sports Content: RebuttalCon’s only argument is that if doping were to be permitted, and if everyone were to dope, that would eliminate the already existing unfair advantage that is created by some people doing it illegally. The problem with this is that the argument only works if everyone in the sport did steroids, and that steroids works the same for every person. If these two premises are kept true, the argument works, if even one of them is negated, the entire argument falls. Firstly, if there is a reason that one person cannot do steroids, that excludes that one person from everyone, and since Con needs everyone to take steroids in order for the argument to work, the argument falls.Some people cannot do steroids because they are allergic to them. “Steroids can induce hypersensitivity reactions. The number of reports on contact allergy or anaphylactic reactions is increasing. Steroid hypersensitivity should be considered in any patient whose dermatitis becomes worse with topical steroid therapy, or in patients who develop systemic allergic reactions after the use of systemic steroids. The diagnosis can be confirmed by skin testing, in vitro evidence of specific IgE, oral or parenteral challenge, or an allergic patch test.” [1] Since we cannot have every athlete take steroids, the argument is negated.Secondly, the argument assumes that everyone responds to steroids the same. This is false, see my argument “Unfair Advantage” in R1. Since everyone has varying success with steroids, the unfair advantage would still exist, negating the argument. Defense of HealthFirstly Con attacks my source showing that 14-19% of athletes dope. This is pretty pointless because he concedes that athletes dope in his first contention.His reasons for why it was false was because the study in general was on methods to find athletes that dope. Con does not effectively discredit the fact that 14-19% of athletes dope, it has no relevance to the validity of the statistic. In order to discredit this he would have to attack the statistic, which he didn’t do.Con then says that my argument doesn’t work because these side-effects only occur at high-doses, and athletes won’t dope to a point where these side-effects occur. The problem with this is that there isn’t a “point” at which this occurs, it happens when you use it period, no matter the amount of dosage.Defense of SuicideCon responds to the argument by saying that there are treatments to help prevent suicide, and therefore suicides would be prevented. The problem with this is that although treatments may reduce the amount of suicides done by steroids, it will not prevent all of them. And this argument does not negate that fact that severe depression is caused in users. As with Efrain Marrero, his death was not prevented, the argument is demonstrably false. Defense of Unfair AdvantageCon says that my source saying that steroids affects people differently is false because it is about steroids treating arthritis. This does not discredit the source, I used the source in order to show that steroids affects people differently, which was dropped. Con then says that people react to nutrition supplements differently too, so it doesn’t matter because people react differently anyways. This is not any excuse to allow steroids. We should strive to minimize factors that give athletes unfair advantages as much as possible, not expand on them. Defense of Purpose of SportCon drops my argument, it is irrelevent. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

Title: Steroid legalization in MLB Content: Okay, it looks like my opponent has dropped all my points.Yes, yes, we all know about people who die of drugs. But who's fault is that? I already stated that it is a choice. Whether or not you make it illegal, players will still take steroids, it is inevitable. It's like how people take illicit drugs. These people know the consequence of the drug, yet they still take it. It's their choice that they want to harm their health.

Title: should doing be made legal in sports Content: what do u mean when u say that its rampant and so be made legal. .. .rapes are also rampant so do you mean to say that they should also be made legal? Another point in my view is that if doping is made legal then whether the spirit of sports will give up to the circumstances. Then sports will transform from competition between the skills of the players to the wars between the pharmaceutical labs and industries of the two countries. The country which possess the advanced medicine will have a straight win and advanced medicines could only be achieved by the countries which have a hefty budget amount to support the industry. This will directly lead to deprive the economically weak countries to even dare to challenge the the so called developed countries and will be completely overshadowed by them. the world will then be confined to these rich countries which will snatch this very chance of the poor countries to make their presence felt. Use of steroids made legal will make the strong even stronger and weal negligible. I would like to make you recall the real motto of organizing sports to bring countries or organizations together together not to demean anyone. Yes winning should be the main thought, but the path used for achieving it should also be kept in mind. The steroids will also have a degrading effect in the health of the sportsmen which will make them succumb to the particular drug and may even take his/her life . Winning the game at the cost of someones life is not that should be done.

Title: Performance Enhancing Drugs Would be Legalize in World Sport Tournament Content: But, in this case, we talk about the athlete whose have so many fans. For example, the football player, they have so many fans all around the world, from those who already old, mid-age, or even the children. If the using of PED is allowed in this case, of course what the athlete did is being adapted by their fans. For example, Child "A" said "Oh, my idol use that drugs to improve the energy during the match, I will try it too" Isn't it will be dangerous for the children under age? And for your information, eating healthy diets and exercising more efficiently = Is natural ways :-)

Title: Performance-enhancing drugs should be allowed in professional sports. Content: "Doing unsafe things is allowable. People have the right to do unsafe things with their own bodies. " Did you not see what "allowed" refers to? Rights or not, steroids are not allowed in professional sports. "Athletes are not slaves, existing for the sake of their examples to children. They exist for their own sake and are to be treated as such, as human beings, so long as they treat others as such. This means they are not to be forced to a course of action just because it will benefit someone else, only them initiating force can justify such force. " I didn't say that. Obviously, an athlete should be expected to be a role model for children, since many kids will look up to him/her. This does not dictate the way they live; it simply means they should not do stupid things, cheat, etc. because that will negatively influence kids. This is why, for example, Michael Phelps got a lot of crap for doing drugs. ""Have to? " No one "has to" do such a thing. They are perfectly able to take the drugs themselves, or work hard, or not condition themselves, as they please. " Do you see any unconditioned professional athletes? They all have to do some sort of tough conditioning to stay sharp at their sport. And most people consider steroids cheating, or do not use them because of the aforementioned side effects. Professional athletes who do not use steroids HAVE TO work hard to stay in shape and up to expectations. "And the use of drugs by one party does not delete the hard work by another, they are separate bodies, separate phenomena. " EXACTLY - one party still has to go through hard work, while the other can just take drugs. "This would be a permissible arguments if your round 1 argument did not already concede you were talking about what THE LAW should allow. As it stands it is not, it is merely a tool of deception, and I quote . . . That was at the beginning of your first round argument. That leaves no room for weaseling out of it, the resolution was explicitly clarified by you as meaning allowable by the law, not allowable by the sports league. " Well, first, if something is illegal for use in sports, then it is not allowed for use in sports. So I can relate these arguments to the resolution even if you were right. Second, you just contradicted yourself. First you state that I conceded that I was talking about what the law should allow. But then, you say I "explicitly clarified [it] as being allowable by the law, not allowable by the sports league". But really, I was laying the latter all along. The very first sentence says "illegal for use in sports". That means that their use is punishable by law if used in sports. Now before you start saying that we should not jail people for steroid use, that's not what "punishable by law" means. Loitering is punishable by law; do you get thrown in jail for it? What about littering or violating curfew laws? =============================================================================== My opponent has spent all of his arguments attempting to not relate my arguments to the resolution. However, I have showed how he has misinterpreted all of my arguments. Furthermore, he has not attempted to argue with my position, and is giving contradictory and misleading "reasons" on why I have "not" supported the resolution.

Title: Drugs in sports Content: When people use drugs in sports, it is not only cheating, it is unhealthy for the user, an overdose results in death, and other problems. Good luck to my opponent.

Title: Steroids should be banned in all sports. Content: "My opponent has proved my point all the examples he gave show that it gives the user an UNFAIR advantage over all other players because of Increased bone density, Increased muscle mass etc." Diet, exercise, and vitamin supplements also can increase muscle mass and bone density why aren't these an "UNFAIR" advantage. Further steroid use has been shown to offer enormous benefit, when taken correctly, in regard to performance and physical/mental health to the user. There are risks to taking steroids, however there are also risk when exercising or taking other beneficial drugs or undergoing cosmetic surgery. "... yes they want the best performance but of person who is playing fairly and not cheating by taking steroids. If one person wants to be unethical and take steroids that doesn't mean that everyone does but it compels them to because of the advantage that one person got." It is only "cheating" if players had agreed not to participate or been required not to participate in steroid use. If they were allowed then it is no longer "cheating" because it is fairly playing by the rules, which also negates the ethics of the matter. Diet, exercise, vitamins/supplements, and proper health care are all things that can give an athlete advantage. What is the defining difference between steroids and these? Should vitamins/supplements and proper health care be considered Cheating or Unethical because another athlete feels compelled to do the same to improve his/her performance?

Title: That doping should be permitted in all sports Content: Thank you con for that excellent speech. Rebuttal R1: 'Health' If we examine the study that we have been linked to[1], we find that it in fact is not a study that (as Con would claim) shows a widespread prevalence of doping in sports, it is in fact a study studying methods for finding out the prevalence of doping in sport- 'a review of numbers and methods' So here's the conclusion that Con has given us. (As I understand it). 'If doping is legalized then everyone would do it, leading to unrestricted use etc etc'. This is a classic example of the slippery slope fallacy. We can agree that everyone would wish to use doping drugs, as they give an advantage - we can draw this belief from what happens currently when a new training method or nutritional supplement is developed. The slippery slope is that of unrestricted use. Athletes and their trainers are not stupid. They know what is good for them and what is less good. This therefore limits the slippery slope that Con is relying on for his argument - as athletes will therefore not dope to a level which is harmful to their health, as this would be a bad thing for them and their future prospects. The parade of horrors that Con has shown us is only based upon taking excessively large doses - but, as the mayo clinic says, 'The effects of taking anabolic steroids at very high doses haven't been well-studied'[2], meaning there is no evidence to back up this claim whatever. R2 'Suicide' Now, the reason that steroids are claimed to cause depression is from the fact that they stop the pituitary glands from producing testosterone - however, the website that Con links us to [2] states that ' Scientists are not completely sure why low testosterone causes depression, but they do know there is a link between the two.' They then go on to say that ' To offset this, it is important to run a proper post cycle therapy (PCT) and bridge.'. So this alleged bad effect of steroids is actually preventable and therefore would be prevented. While the anecdote provided by Con was indeed sad, it is of dubious relevance to his actual case. Sure, there was one person who responded badly to steroids, but the plural of anecdote is not data. This means that this is not actually evidence towards the claim that is being made here. R3 'Unfair advantage' While it may in fact be the case that people respond differently to steroids, there are two factors causing this point to become invalid. Firstly, the evidence that Con has produced is about medical steroids for the treatment of arthritis and not about performance enhancing drugs, so it is invalid as a back up to his arguments. But the second factor is simply - so what? So people respond differently to steroids. So people respond differently to other more 'naturalistic'(notice the quote marks) methods of enhancing performance such as a diet regimen or training! The point is that everybody responds differently to everything, not just steroids, and so any claims of 'unfair' advantage are invalid. R4 'Ruins purpose of sport' There is no evidence whatever that the 'purpose' of sport (if indeed it has one) is, as Con claims, ' in the values that it exhibits.' More development is needed for this point to be considerable, and I would encourage the reader to disregard this pending further development. On to my points. C1 'That permitting all people to dope would erase the advantage that doping currently confers' Let's suppose we're all at a level. Let's further assume that we have an arbitrary scale of 'athleticism', with wizards[3] at 1, the average joe at 50, your average athlete at 80, and Usain Bolt (say) at 100. Let us further assume that doping confers a +20 advantage to your score. Under the current paradigm, your average athlete can dope, and reach the level of a Usain Bolt 'artificially'. Both myself and Con are in agreement that this is inherently bad. But now let's assume that everyone is doping. Sure, the guy who was doping before reaches a level of 100, but now a Usain Bolt (i.e. the ones who were already on top under the 'perfect' paradigm) also reach a higher level. This means there is now no net benefit whatever to doping, and so it is not bad. I look forward to the next round! 1.)http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... 2.)http://www.mayoclinic.org... 3.)http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net... 4.)http://www.menshealth.co.uk...

Title: Performance Enhancement Drugs in Professional Sports Content: Performance Enhancements are Putting Athletes in Danger Athletes are cheating more and more now by taking performance enhancements for their professional sport. An athletes health could be at risk while taking performance enhancement drugs, we already have the great technology to support them, plus the athletes are playing their sport for the determination it takes, and the love of the game. Therefore, Performance Enhancement Drugs (PED) in professional sports should remain illegal for the players to keep them safe. Athletes already have great technology to help them with their performance while playing their sport. Athletes will use scientific diets, and oxygen tents as a healthier way of helping them improve. Sports have the technology to push the athletes bodies to extents. "Athletes already use technology to push their bodies to the edge of human capability. Scientific diets, oxygen tents that stimulate high altitudes and supplements that fine-tune already genetically superior bodies are all simple-- and legal"examples." (Duncan). None of those examples are illegal to use for the athlete to help improve their performance. On the other hand, when using PEDs for the extra technology it will help them become better, faster, stronger, then it will make the sport more interesting for both the players and the crowd. "Scientists and engineers have recently developed devices that bump up cognitive performance by dousing the brain in low levels of electricity and using magnetic fields to stimulate the brains nerve cells." (Duncan). This is saying that now because of the help of scientists and engineers athletes can use certain devices to encourage the brain to keep going. Instead of risking their health, they have other ways to improve their performance. PEDs could cause multiple health problems that could be very dangerous. The website of the World Anti-Doping Agency gives warnings on what steroids could do to the athletes ad their body. "The website of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for example, warns that steroids increase the odds of mood shifts, reduced sperm counts, damage to the heart, and masculinization in women." (Duncan). There are many different problems that could occur while taking PEDs, they only list a small amount of possible health risks. If a player were to have one of these problems, then they could be taken out of the sport because of the damage to the body. Yet, athletes could want to use these in order to get stronger to help prevent any injury that could happen while playing. Some athletes are willing to take the chance to help with making the sport safer for the player. The purpose of having the sport is for competition. When an athlete uses PEDs, that purpose is no longer there and with competition the love of the game remains. "Any thoughtful person who plays a sport understands the connection among talent, dedication, and excellence. Every sport sets limits." (Murray). While the athlete is playing the sport each time he/she plays the love of the game should grow. The determination and competition will still be there, but when taking PEDs the athlete forgets about why they are playing in the first place. But, when the athlete uses PEDs it does make them become stronger and better at their sport making it a little bit easier on them, the athlete will then be able to play longer and practice longer because of their strength. To have athletes remain safe, PEDs should remain illegal. Athletes have amazing technology to help them improve in their sport, and there are many different health problems that can occur. Lastly, athletes are playing for the love and competition of the game. Hard work and determination will get the athlete farther than risking the athletes career with taking PEDs.

Title: Anybody who used performance enhancing drugs in the MLB shouldn't be elected to the Hall of fame Content: I am not saying all average players should make it but what about above average players who werent as good as the ones that used steriods? They won't make it because these people used steriods and got a chance at getting ahead of them. How would the players know if steriods didn't effect the quality of their game, theres no evidence to support that claim. You think there going to tell you, yeah it helped my game out a lot, they wouldn't say that. They are lying you, they make a false claim with no evidence to support that claim. They have no evidence it didn't effect their game. Why do you think they call it performance enhancing drugs, key words performance enhancing. Do you understand what performance enhancing means? It means that it improves your game, so them saying it didn't is lies. If steriods didn't enhance each players game play why would they ban it? If it didn't effect their quality of play why would the MLB ban it?

Title: Steroids Should Be Legal in Professional Sports Content: 1. Sports already have health risks that one needs to accept to be willing to play. One only needs to look at the recent focus on concussions in football. The physical side-effects that you mentioned are just that- physical. It is someone's choice to look a certain way. Thus, I do not see why a sports league should ban a substance for aesthetic reasons. If the mental side-effects that you mentioned were true, why would we not see a disproportionate number of athletes on steroids arrested for violent crimes. Also, this is not teaching kids to "abandon the values of fair play", as steroids only complement natural skill. If an average man decided to take steroids, he could not hit 762 home runs in the MLB (as Barry Bonds did). Thus, the legalization of steroids would actually help to put everyone on an equal playing field.2. Your argument seems to be that broken records are less impressive when one knows that steroids played a part. However, you do think that it is impressive that someone lived to 122 with modern technology. Let me ask you this: If we develop anti-aging technology and someone lives to 500, is that impressive or the equivalent of steroids? My point is that the best, most cutting-edge technology is a part of human achievement. If we did not accept that, then we would still be living in the way that the early cave men did thousands of years ago.3. It is not a false correlation at all. There may not be much interest in the WWE, but that can be for other reasons. For example, the idea of a scripted sport appals many. Just look at the Nielsen ratings. Per Spotted Ratings, the 2004 World Series had 216% the demo audience of the average TV show in the 2004-05 season. Most recently, the 2012 World Series only had 170% of the average show in the 2012-13 season. This came while the other sports have been rising relative to the average TV show. The NBA Finals and the Super Bowl have grown from 127% and 817%, respectively, in 2004-05 to 329% and 1884% this year.

Title: The use of performance-enhancing drugs is widespread in the Olympics and reduces the victories of th... Content: We should have some sympathy with athletes: very often, they are compelled to take drugs by their team’s coach. There are stories of Chinese swimmers eating steroid-laced noodles. To overcome this, the IOC Conference in February 1999 recommended that coaches should take the Olympic Oath as well as athletes. Techniques to detect new drugs are being developed and being embraced by the Olympic authorities. A new mass-spectroscopy unit was installed for the first time at the 1996 Atlanta Games, and a technique that can detect the taking of growth hormones up to 6 months earlier was introduced at Sydney. An Independent Anti-Doping Agency was also established for Sydney. Samaranch declared himself to be fully behind the drugs war as early as 1998. The battle is being won: 12 cases of doping in 1984; two in 1996. The IOC is coming down hard on those who take drugs: a two year ban for the first offence has been introduced.

Title: Performance enhancing supplements are not necessary and absolutely harmful for teens Content: Unfortunately I received no rebuttals from last argument so I have re-submitted and hope that Con will be able to finish the debate. I am arguing that I am not against the use of supplements geared towards athletic performance. I do believe that the recreational use of supplements for teens/young adults between the ages of 16 and 22 are not necessary and more harmful than beneficial to the individual. To keep the debate interesting, I am open to all supplements both legal/illegal which are considered "performance enhancers" or "dietary" with the exception of multivitamins. To avoid confusion I will provide definitions of the focal point of the argument. I look forward to an engaging debate as this is growing more controversial as the supplement industry continues to rapidly grow. rec•re•a•tion•al (of a drug or medication) used for recreation and enjoyment rather than to treat a medical condition. sup•ple•ment Something added to complete a thing, supply a deficiency, or reinforce or extend a whole.

Title: Resolved: In the United States, steroid usage should be permitted for all sports. Content: I extend my arguments, steroids should not be allowed within sports.

Title: WC Debate - RR: Performance enhancing drugs should be legal for use in all major sports leagues Content: Thanks to Actionsspeak for clarifying his case and for his opening remarks. This looks to be an interesting debate. I ask the audience to recognize that even his case is a departure from status quo. He would like to afford the capacity to decide whether steroid and hormone usage is allowed in any given sport to the sporting leagues themselves, and thus take it out of the hands of legislators. Con's third contention made it clear that the league, not lawmakers, should have the right to determine how a sport is played. So what we're really discussing here is whether or not the option should be available to individuals or to sporting leagues, not whether their usage should be legalized or not. This is an important distinction, and one that should be kept in mind that the American legal structures [1] aren't going to be an impediment in either of our cases as this debate goes forward. Now, onto my rebuttals. On Equality: 1. Sports aren't about equality. If it was, we wouldn't have winners and losers. The system of competition is meant to elevate those who are better at what they do, whether that's as a result of inherent capacities or how well they use their resources. No one is entitled to play professional sports " it's a privilege requiring enormous sacrifice and massive risk, whether they use steroids or not, and most walk away. If Con wants equality, sports isn't the place to find it. 2. Sports aren't equal. Recall two things I said in R2. First, I discussed what athletes do in order to get in shape. Flying into the mountains to thicken the blood and increase the flow of oxygen through their bodies isn't something everyone can do before competitions, nor can they all find training facilities above a certain altitude. Even among those that can, not all of them will have access to top of the line equipment, masseuses, trainers, or all the other expenses required to build muscle quickly and efficiently. They don't all have access to the same megadoses of vitamin pills, dietary supplements, equipment, clothing, or medical treatments that are allowed to everyone in status quo. Hell, things like hyperbaric oxygen chambers, which increase the rate of recovery for players, are being purchased by many teams and players at tremendous costs, providing them and only them an appreciable advantage.[2] and would continue to be allowed in Con's case. Why are steroids so special? Second, I talked about how some people just have higher inherent capacities. They produce more testosterone, HGH or erythropoeitin, they can endure a faster heartbeat, or even the fact that they produce normal blood cells. Not everyone has those advantages, and Con has provided no way for anyone to make up for any such deficiencies. Only my plan seeks to solve for these concerns. 3. Con's case is worse for equality. Black market drugs are more expensive, harder to find,[3] and more dangerous, but more on that last point later. But you can look at this point one of two ways. You can accept that steroid usage causes more steroid usage, in which case Con's case is more detrimental there's already a system in place where athletes feel the need to use steroids and hormones to succeed. The only difference is that they can't use the cheapest, safest, and most well-known steroids prescribed directly by doctors at specific doses and lower cost. Con provides absolutely no reason to believe that legalization will increase usage over status quo. Even if he does, recognize that equality is only a larger problem within his case and in the status quo. The only reason why an advantage such as steroids would be considered unfair is if they're unequally distributed, but as I pointed out in the previous round, the distribution is currently as unequal as it gets. Using basic steroids and hormones instead of what's available on the black market will lower, not raise, the barrier for entry, and increase fairness to all athletes. Or you can notice that this argument has no warrant. Con asserts that steroid usage among some athletes will spread to other athletes who want to compete. This is nothing more than an assertion, and one which is not well explained. Mandatory testing programs among MLB players have revealed that a whopping 5-7% of athletes were using steroids[4], which means 93-95% of athletes were able to play at a very high level without coercion. There's no reason to believe that legalization will cause these numbers to balloon out of control. The uncertainty regarding who is using steroids/hormones in status quo, if anything, creates more impetus to use than a transparent system where everyone who does use does so openly. 4. Con also allows sports leagues to create their own barriers to entry for those with anemia, low testosterone production, reduced muscle growth, and anything else that puts them at a marked disadvantage. He allows individual leagues to discriminate against these groups, harming any sense of equality by denying access to those who could easily keep up if they had access to the available resources. On Health Concerns: 1. Athletes are already forced into an incredibly unhealthy lifestyle and die young. I made this clear in the previous round, but there's no significant difference between any of the health harms presented by Con and the ones I presented in R2. Con will have to address my point that these harms are non-unique and my hypocrisy arguments as well in the next round in order to win this point. 2. Health concerns are worse in an environment where black market drugs are the only ones being used. The reality is that the health concerns are far more excessive using designer steroids and gene doping, as I pointed out last round. Worse yet, his case only exacerbates these harms by legalizing their usage in the general community, but not in all sports. In my case, incentive to use designer steroids and gene doping is erased due to their expense and ineffectiveness by comparison. Con encourages the legal usage of the most dangerous doping substances. 3. Each athlete accepts these health concerns the moment they take these drugs. There's no reason why athletes shouldn't be able to take these concerns on themselves, especially if they know about them in advance. Since Con's case encourages athletes to pursue drugs with unknown health harms, his forces a lower capacity to consent than mine does. On "The league's rights": 1. There's no impact here. Con doesn't explain how changes in the way sports are played is actually harmful. Even if this is certain to happen, the lack of a harm makes it unimportant. 2. There's no warrant for this claim. Con doesn't explain how a change in one rule affects another one. The only possible warrant is a slippery slope fallacy, which has no rational basis in this debate. Worse yet, even if it was true that one rule change could link to another, the rules he's trying to link have nothing in common. The rules of what an athlete can do to their own bodies have no effect on whether any player can disregard the basic rules of how a sport is played in competition. 3. The league doesn't have a right to deny access based on any person's characteristics, training regimen, or nutritional intake. This is one of the very few influences they have on what athletes can take and use for playing their sports, and it's done with extreme hypocrisy based on shaky reasoning. Leagues should not be allowed to spurn athletes who they think have an unfair advantage based on other characteristics, and yet Con wants us to believe that this is crossing some special line. With that, I leave it to my opponent to rebut my case and respond to these arguments. 1. http://www.steroidabuse.com... 2. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com... 3. http://www.theguardian.com... 4. http://mlb.mlb.com...

Title: Doping should be allowed Content: Thank you for showing your point of view in a clear understandable way. First of all, The main objective of sports is to provide better health or to keep it and I think the whole concept of doping is against that. And these athletes that participate in the olimpics or in big competitions are pretty much the representatives of sports. So if they start getting unhealthy and taking substances that aren't good for the body,it will not transmit a motivational image for the so called 'normal' people. Another important point is that if everyone doped obviously the rich countries would have a greater advantage since they have more money and technology to develop innovative substances that will produce better and quicker effects. And that would destroy the whole meaning of competing as an athlete because it wouldn't be the one who trained the most and has the greatest mentality who would win but only the ones with the most efficient substances in their body. It wouldn't be a competition between humans but between puppets under the effects of drugs. And finally, what about those countries like Ethiopia, Eritrea or Kenia? they have nothing, no economy, corruption, their people starve, but their moment to shine is competitons like the olympics where they completely wipe it out in the marathon or other long distance runs. And that gives those countries popularity and more attention from all parts of the world. Now if dopping would, in fact, be allowed to everyone, they would have no money or technology and innovation to create the same substances as developed and rich countries such as Russia or the USA. And what about the athletes? Is there any glory or self realization when a medal is won, not by the self's effort but by some external input? Medals wouldn't mean a thing. At the end, high competiton sports would only be another huge way of making profit and entertaining people.

Title: Better spectacle for spectators. Sport has become a branch of the entertainment business and the pu... Content: Better spectacle for spectators. Sport has become a branch of the entertainment business and the public demands “higher, faster, stronger” from athletes. If drug-use allows world records to be continually broken, and makes American Football players bigger and more exciting to watch, why deny the public what they want, especially if the athletes want to give it to them?

Title: Anabolic Steroids Should be Legalized for Professional Athletes Content: I would have to disagree with you there. You are correct that steroids is getting a free 48 hour workout, and that is precisely why it should be legalized. From what I see in your argument, you are saying that it is about having the skill through practice. In a professional sports team, it is all about getting into the championships or the playoffs or whatever the finals are. Sports are not about leveling the playing field. In all sports, everyone is different. There are short people, tall people, light people, heavy people. We are not going to level the field by making everyone 5' 10" and 220 lb. It just isn't going to happen.

Title: Resolved: In the United States, steroid usage should be permitted for all sports. Content: In my opponents first contention he says that athletes that take steroids don't show their symptoms on the field, but that doesnt mean that they don't have symptoms. The rest of my opponents first contention is saying that there is already steroid use and that it doesnt cause death basically. My response to this is simply that if steroids were allowed, then more athletes would use steroids, which means that more athletes would be subject to serious, but not always life threatening symptomes. Simply because something isn't life threatening doesn't mean that it isn't detrimental. Some more side effects of steroids are trembling vomiting, nausea, hallucinations, paranoia, mood swings, and increased blood pressure. Although these symptoms don't cause death, these symptoms should not be promoted throughout professional sports through the instigation of steroids. As I stated in my first contention, athletes will essentially be pressured into taking steroids because if they refuse, they simply wont have the ability to play professional sports since their competition will be taking steroids. In my opponents second contention, he is basically saying that professional athletes arent telling kids or teenagers to take steroids. They aren't DIRECTLY telling these kids to take steroids, but if all or most athletes are taking steroids then children will be incentivized to take steroids because they will feel that it will be their only way to make it to the professionals. My opponent also says in his second contention that sports are for entertainment, and steroids enhances that entertainment. Basically he is advocating that athletes should purposefully destroy their bodies for entertainment. This argument is obviously morally wrong for several different reasons. It is inhumane. According to my opponents logic, dog fighting should be allowed because it is for the entertainment of the viewer.

Title: Drugs in Sport Content: If legal then drugs can be controlled and monitored by doctors, making them much safer. Athletes on...

Title: It is short sighted to promote sportsmen as the role models for the youth of a country. Content: Just a brief point before I get started. There are plenty organizations that test for use and abuse of steroids, yet athletes are always upping the ante. Designer steroids are allowing many to bypass such screens (as seen by the fact that many athletes have had their medals stripped after being tested multiple times), and some coaches are even pursuing gene doping, an untested and unsafe method, as a way to circumvent these organizations. And even if they're caught, these are the people that get the most attention, not the athletes who played by the rules. My opponent is conflating two things that are not the same: encouraging sports as a beneficial hobby, and encouraging people using pro athletes as a model. Since what he is doing with his case is the latter, that is where this debate should be focused. Yes, we can all agree that someone becoming physically fit is better off on the whole. But what about someone who is competing on the level of a pro athlete? I would say that I've already given a lot of what happens " steroid usage, violence, and bad sportsmanship. However, it goes deeper than just what we see on a day-to-day basis, what's broadcast on news stations the world over. It involves intense pain and physical trauma, and early death. How about that intense pain and physical trauma? Let's talk about the training. High altitude training is a must for many athletes, but it causes major harms. 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] But that's probably the least of their concerns. The real problem starts at their overall level of training: "One word that describes it best is BRUTAL. You have to be insane and neurologically damaged in your head to undergo some of the training regimes top level athletes put themselves through, day after day, week after week for an entire year. It"s not normal but it"s the price you pay to be the best. A typical pro athlete would train around 5-6 hours a day 6 days a week. This might not seem like a lot of hours but the intensity of training is ridiculous. In fact, without sounding pompous, an average fit individual would struggle to make it through one of our warm-ups. Take a particular endurance session of a former world champion squash player (I do NOT recommend trying this at home). His training session would involve getting on a spinning bike with a heart rate monitor strapped around his chest. He"d then start pedalling hard until his heart rate hit 190 beats per minute which he"d maintain for a duration of 10 minutes. This would be followed by a 3-minute break and the cycle would be repeated 6 times! If you wish to fathom what this feels like, the next time you go exercising, try taking your heart rate to a level of 180 beats a minute and maintaining it for 20 seconds. Make sure you have a trustworthy friend by your side." [2] BRUTAL. What does this intense training result in? Let's look at endurance sports. Studies have shown that "When the data of extreme endurance athletes was isolated, it was found that the health effects of regular physical activity became less pronounced, and were instead replaced by significant heart damage."[3] Here are some examples of how this affects athletes. "For example, distance-running legend Micah True " better known for his role as Caballo Blanco in the book "Born To Run" " died while on a trail run from cardiomyopathy due to an enlarged heart. True was just one example of seasoned endurance athletes who have experienced sudden cardiac events during exercise. Marathoner Ryan Shay and Ironman triathlete Steve Larsen are others, and most recently professional Ironman triathlete Torbjorn Sindalle was forced into unexpected retirement due to premature wearing of his bicuspid valve."[3] That link has more than a half dozen other examples of this happening. And this is just with the endurance athletes. Don't think that other athletes are exempt from these physical harms. The vast majority of pro athletes die young. The mean death rate for professional athletes is worse than the general population.[4] Athletes in their mid-30's experience sudden death as a result of clogged arteries that result from a lifestyle that includes poor diet, excess stress and overtraining, all of which are common among athletes. Overtraining specifically is a big problem. It can lead to imbalances in the brain, nervous and hormonal systems, upper respiratory illness, compromised immune function, and increase chronic inflammation. It contributes to heart disease and increased risk of death. What's worse, many of these abnormalities can lead to short term improvements in athletic performance, which makes them continue pushing themselves, mistakenly thinking that their training has been successful. Worse still, athletes and society as a whole often accept this ill heath as an inextricable part of athletics. This unhealthy "no pain no gain" approach leads them so far as to assign names that are often glorified to the harms of overtraining: "athlete's heart," "runner's knee," "swimmer's shoulder," and "runner's anemia." This just perpetuates the health harms and spurns treatment and prevention efforts.[5] But let's think about it for a second. Why should we logically believe that overtraining is bad? It has to be just correlative, doesn't it? "Any athlete who overtrains must also overeat to maintain his or her bodyweight and strength, and that leads to the heart of the problem, which is the overproduction of free radicals in the body. The body produces many different kinds of free radicals, but every kind is a molecule that is missing an electron in its outer shell. That makes free radicals unstable and on the lookout for a way to fill the electron void. When they bump into a normal healthy cell, they steal one of its outer-shell electrons from the cell wall, thus damaging the cell and setting off a chain reaction, with each damaged cell molecule looking to replace its missing electron. What you get is a bunch of permanently damaged cell walls that can lead to such problems as cancer, heart disease and arthritis. You name it, and free-radical damage to the cells of the body has been linked to it."[4] So not only are there problems associated with the overtraining of these pro athletes, but they're causally linked to these harms. I will address the point about emphasis of sports vs. academics in R4. For now, I kick it back to Con. 1. http://www.altitude.org... 2. http://health.india.com... 3. http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com... 4. http://imbodybuilding.com... 5. www.philmaffetone.com/files/20158/Athletes-Fit-But-Unhealthy.pdf

Title: Anabolic Steroids Should be Legalized for Professional Athletes Content: Sports are not about the practices. If they were, then they would be televised a lot more. What matters are the games. Those are what everyone wants to see. If a professional athlete took the right amounts of the right kinds of steroids, then his game performance would be better and the team would do better. If I were a coach, I would allow my players to do just that so we could beat the other team.

Title: "Fortune" Allows Certain Teams, as well as Certain Athletes, to Take Unfair Advantages Content: The first part of the argument is thus responded: we don't oposse more and better doping tests. Let's test each and every athlete if possible. AND let's use peer and social pressure to insure fewer people try it. Their example of Michael Phelps is easily crushed when you find that the "photo of him doping" was taken in 2009 [[http://on.today.com/q1Z9CL]] and the Olympics were in 2008 [[http://fxn.ws/nh0LN4]], so opp is saying either that the drugs that he consumed in 2009 affected him retroactively on 2008, or that he had been on a continuous doped state for months. In any case, the fact that some athletes might cheat without a consequence has no bearing that cheating has to be castigated first and foremost in order to greatly reduce the number of people that will chance it. We believe that after just the first incident of this policy being enforced as a agreed upon policy, the peer pressure will work as disincentive. Of course its It is unfair some teams that do not get caught. But in the balance doping is dangerous and it’s unfair for ALL the teams that participate and don't cheat, the fans, the IOC. Even if the policy could affect completely innocent team-mates (and many aren't innocent as we explain in our 5th point) we think that possibility pales in comparison to the unfairness in the SQ where just one team member is justly punished but his team, country, fans might benefit from the medals. Lastly, Opp seems to be saying that since some teams will get away with doping because of luck and some won’t, this policy shouldn’t be implemented. But the same risk present in the SQ but with individual punishment. This is like saying that since there are criminals and their collaborators that aren't caught, then we shouldn't prosecute anyone. We think once you have a couple of "unlucky teams" that get stripped of medals you'll see a reduction of people trying their luck.

Title: Performance-enhancing drugs should be allowed in professional sports. Content: Said drugs should stay illegal for use in sports, for a few reasons. 1) Negative effect on the steroid user Steroids, as we all know, speed up protein synthesis to enhance performance. However, there are some harmful side effects to using them. They include: - higher blood pressure - higher cholesterol levels - higher risk of heart disease - liver damage - premature growth - testicular cancer - abnormally large amounts of acne - breast development in men This, obviously, is not good for the steroid user. Furthermore, exercising normally can avoid these problems, and regular exercise is better for physical and mental health. 2) Negative impact on children When children start to get into sports, they normally treat their favorite player as an idol, an image of what they want to be when they grow up. How would they feel if their idol essentially cheated by using drugs so they didn't have to work as hard? Furthermore, what if they decided to use steroids too, because their hero did? 3) Unfair advantage Most professional athletes work hard every day to stay in shape and sharp at their sport. Why should some players get to skip this hard work that everyone else is doing? That's all for now.

Title: allow women to compete in the same leagues as men Content: Athletes should decide for themselves.

Title: Steroids should be banned in all pro sports Content: My opponent has neglected to respond to any of my points and instead just kept going on about how Anabolic Steroids are bad for you; a point which I am not denying. The resolution of the debate is "Steroids should be banned in all pro sports," my two arguments were that corticosteroids are used to treat a multitude of medical conditions and that steroid use would not affect the outcome of those listed sports. My opponent did not even address these points. I end the debate with the resolution negated and urge a Con vote.

Title: Legalize Performance-Enhancing Drug for Sportman Content: Consisten? You're pro in this topic. so you agree to legalize PED. But ur argument ask to make PEDs remain illegal for sportman.

Title: Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) should be permitted in professional sports. Content: I will use this speech to further strengthen my constructive, and refute my opponents refutations. My opponent argues that it does not make sense to legal PEDs with the intention of leveling the playing field. However, I have provided evidence that says that a majority of athletes in some sports use PEDs. Because of this, it is incredibly difficult to eradicate PEDs. This has been seen recently in sports such as baseball. Despite continuous effort by Major League Baseball to take PEDs away from the game, PED use is still widely present. This shows that it would simply be less cumbersome to allow everyone to use PEDs than to attempt to remove them entirely. My opponent also observes that PEDs increase chemical achievement instead of human achievement. However, I have shown that professional athletes still are incredibly skilled, regardless of whether or not they use PEDs. Furthermore, I have shown that people do in fact celebrate "chemical" achievement. An example of this would be the MLB Home Run races in the 1990's, when a majority of the contenders used PEDs. During this point in MLB history, there were more fans and spectators than ever before, which shows celebration of what my opponent dubs "chemical achievement." So, it is clear that PEDs do not eliminate human achievement, and any chemical achievement that they provide is still celebrated. My opponent refutes my argument regarding the inherent dangers of sports by comparing it to teachers and welders who use cocaine. This argument cannot be weighed in this debate for two reasons. First, Professional Athletes are paid much more than welders or teachers. Second, PEDs are much less dangerous than using cocaine. Professional Athletes are being paid much more than teachers or welders, and they are also submitting themselves to the inherent danger of their sports. And I would observe that this argument was mainly put into my constructive speech to show that the dangers of PEDs do not come close to outweighing the inherent dangers of sports. Because of this, the contention regarding the dangers of PEDs cannot be weighed highly. My opponent finally argues that chemical achievement will never be celebrated, as all that people celebrate is human achievement. I do accept that people embrace human achievement in sports, as I even said that in my constructive speech. However, I have also shown that chemical achievement can be celebrated, which increases the appeal to watch professional sports. So, it is clear that PEDs do in fact level the playing field, make sports more appealing, and should in fact be legalized in professional sports. So, I affirm the resolution that Performance Enhancing Drugs should be permitted in professional sports, and I urge a pro ballot.

Title: In order to work the risk has to be too big to take Content: Historically, some athletes have decided to get an edge against their competition by utilizing illegal substances or have been negatively influences to do so by their social network, trainers, teammates or peer pressure. This goes against the maxim of what healthy competition represents. Council of Europe in the Code of Sports Ethics The potential benefits to society and to the individual from sport will only be maximised where fair play is centre stage. The truth is that whenever doping is discussed the debate is centered around why do athletes fall into the temptation that banned substances represent, but the main reasons why athletes do not cheat are rarely mentioned. Fact is that the main reason athletes choose not to cheat is the risk of being caught, so this leads to the argument that the risk of cheating has to be so big and the consequences so harsh that more athletes will choose to remain clean. Sociologist Howard S.Becker published a classic work in 1963 called Outsiders which illustrates that athletes' main reasons to avoid taking illegal substances hardly ever relate to moral standards or health issues, though they may factor in the decision. The reason for not doping back when the study was made that was given repeatedly was the fear that it would be socially excluding; that it would ruin the athlete's reputation if he or she were caught. The best way to illustrate how the larger risk represented through the removal of all medals to an Olympic Team will further deter the use of banned substances will be to analyze the situation from a trainer's point of view. In most cases, athletes are either recommended to use the substances by their trainers or at least the trainer is aware of the use of said substances. So, if a trainer knows than one of his athlete's does not stand a chance to win, he may support the use of banned substances. However, if that athlete's decision could hurt the entire team, he would prevent it from happening.

Title: If legal then drugs can be controlled and monitored by doctors, making them much safer. Athletes on... Content: Reform is preferable to surrender. The current testing regime is not perfect but better research, testing and funding, plus sanctions against uncooperative countries and sports could greatly improve the fight against drugs in sport.