Let the Games Be Doped

Hugh Pickens writes "John Tierney poses the question in the New York Times 'what if we let athletes do whatever they wanted to excel?' Before you dismiss the notion, consider what we're stuck with today — a system designed to create a level playing field, protect athletes' health and set an example for children, that fails on all counts. The journal Nature, in an editorial in the current issue, complains that 'antidoping authorities have fostered a sporting culture of suspicion, secrecy and fear' by relying on unscientifically calibrated tests, like the unreliable test for synthetic testosterone that cost Floyd Landis his 2006 Tour de France victory and even if the authorities manage to correct their tests, they can't possibly keep up with the accelerating advances in biology." Read on for more. Hugh Pickens continues: "Bengt Kayser, the director of a sports medicine institute at the University of Geneva argues in an article that has been supported by more than 30 scholars in the British Medical Journal that legalizing doping would "encourage more sensible, informed use of drugs in amateur sport, leading to an overall decline in the rate of health problems associated with doping (pdf). In the competition between increasingly sophisticated doping — e.g. gene transfer — and antidoping technology, there will never be a clear winner. Consequently, such a futile but expensive strategy is difficult to defend.""

Comments

I think the problem is

[colmore]

that what might, in some argument be a sensible behavior for a professional athlete or a full time adult amateur athlete is in no way sensible for young athletes who are essentially practicing in a very publicized hobby.

Calling open season in the upper tiers of athletics would certainly have the effect of more young folks (and hell even that guy who cares too much about company soft ball) doing more drugs, and that isn't healthy and it isn't good.

I don't believe in the criminalization of drugs myself, but for something so explicitly about the body, athletics should really not be helping sell young people on the idea of dangerous chemical recreation.

I hate the drug war, but it is important to note that our world would be a lot better without certain drugs.

because it is not transferable genetically

[anselmhook]

Children of doping athletes have a higher incidence of deformity: http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/children-of-doping-athletes-deformed/2007/10/31/1193618974100.html The point of the olympics includes an ideal of finding out our limits, and improving them. The problem with doping is the same one with modern news: it favors the individual instance instead of favoring the system. It is not sustainable, nor durable over the long haul... and by long haul I mean multi-generational.

Re:Sure, and then....

[Red Alastor]

I'd love if we created "The People's Olympics" where we draw at random who is going to participate. If the people in your country are more fit than the others, you have more chances to collect medals. No proxy to do all the competition for you.

We just have to draw lots of names to account for people who won't come.

Re:No

[Smidge204]

I say let's create a new set of games specifically for this reason. Let the "all natural" athletes have their own games, and we'll hold separate ones for those who sacrifice their own bodies for their performance.

And why limit it to drugs? I say let them include anything and everything they want so long as it meets two requirements: First, it must be entirely self-contained (no power cables or wireless control links). Second, it must be operated directly from the user's nervous system (eg no buttons or switches - direct wetware interfaces only).

Just think of the medical advances a pharmaceutically and cybernetically enhanced olympics could produce once it catches on!
=Smidge=

Where do you draw the line?

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Once you start taking any drugs to compensate for physical deficiencies, then where do you reasonably draw the line? What about taking body building supplements to combat your physical weakness? Or, in other words, what conditions are allowable for compensation and which are not? For example many athletes take asthma medication to improve respiration because they get out of breath after heavy exertion.

BTW Using a steriod cream for psoriasis is very different to taking the amounts used for body building/weight lifting, though the steroid cream would possibly trigger first-level tests.