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Dustin Zach
Professor Bogle
ENGL-101-F15-Bogle
December 13, 2015
Is it Cheating?
Throughout the decades we as a society have been either watching or playing sports.
From when you were a kid, most of us played some sort of sport. And as we grew we began to
watch sports, but even from an early age we were taught there is one no no to sports. Cheating,
cheating was taught to us as the unbreakable rule, you dont cheat, and cheaters never win. It was
blasphemy to even think about cheating to get ahead. But what is cheating? Is it pushing a
player when the ref isnt looking, or moving the ball a little further, or lying about touching the
ball when it went out of bounds? The biggest issue that we have in todays sports is drugs.
Countless athletes are using drugs to try to get ahead of the game. To be bigger, faster, stronger,
to be able to beat there opponent with ease, instead of using hard work and talent. But is that
what the fans want to see? Is it really bad for the athletes, are those side effects of suicide really
about the steroid use or is it something else.
We all want to believe that these athletes play for the love of the game. But the hard pill
to swallow is that the game is all about money now. Jersey sales, ticket prices, stadiums, T.V.
deals. So would it be such a bad thing to have the best athletes out there putting on a show for

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the people. It is an entertainment business after all, Where do sports go from here it seems like
they shut one thing down but then another pops up. What do they do, do they let it go and if the
athletes want to use steroids they can. Or do they start the lifetime ban of it, where if youre
caught using youre done for life.
In 2007 a report was released that shook the MLB to its core, it was called the Mitchel
Report. It was a 20 month investigation into the use of PEDs in baseball, not were their over
700 interviews throughout the 20 month investigation. But he also released names of the
baseball players that were using and abusing these drugs. Some of them being future hall of
famers. This would affect a lot more than just the adults watching these sports its also going to
affect our kids. The kid who grows up watching Alex Rodrigues and finds out he is using PEDs
and wants to be just like him.
In a 2002 National Institute of Drug Abuse study, 2.5% of 8th graders, 2.5% of
10th graders, and 4% of 12th graders admitted to using steroids at some time. It is reported that
6% of athletes have used steroids, but the actual number is thought to be much higher.
(http://globalsportsdevelopment.org/steroid-use-among-high-school-athletes/ Paragraph 6.)
Those numbers dont really jump off the page, but the fact is we dont really know how many
kids are using steroids, most of them probably dont know the side effects of using them or how
to properly use them. But its ok because they saw their favorite player doing it.
So what is a PED? A PED or HGH (human growth hormone) dramatically increase the
athletes ability to produce muscle mass. (Dixon, Nicholas Pg. 1 paragraph 3.) So if you played a

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sport like football where the bigger, stronger, faster player usually comes out on top. A PED
would be your friend making your body bigger and stronger in a condensed amount of time. So
is it fair to punish somebody that is using something to create larger amounts of natural
chemicals that are already in your body?
People that make it that far in professional sports were granted these abilities from birth,
being genetically gifted. So why is it such a bad thing if someone has the same passion for the
sport to use something that will put them on the same playing field as the athletes that were
genetically gifted? The more strides we make in modern medicine the safer natural hormones
are to produce in your body. So a lot of the arguments for it being unsafe for the athlete are
being disbarred, and it all comes back to ethics. The World Anti-Doping Agency code declares
a drug illegal if it is performance enhancing, if it is a health risk, or if it violates the spirit of
sport (http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/38/6/666.full paragraph 14.) They characterize it into values
honesty, health, team work, etc.
At the end of the day I can sit here and argue that I believe that athletes should be able to
use steroids to make the game more entertaining. The biggest strongest fastest guys playing a
sport at a super human level, Id watch that. But it doesnt matter what I think because Steroids
are illegal. Not just for athletes, they are illegal for the general public as well. Federal law
placed anabolic steroids in Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) as of February
27, 1991. The possession or sale of anabolic steroids without a valid prescription is illegal.
Simple possession of illicitly obtained anabolic steroids carries a maximum penalty of one year
in prison and a minimum $1,000 fine if this is an individuals first drug offense. The maximum
penalty for trafficking is five. (https://www.elks.org/dap/pdfs/dap255.pdf) PEDs are illegal

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without having a prescription, you cant just walk into a doctors office and ask for a script it
doesnt work like that.
At the end of the day they are illegal, they are getting safer every day but up until this
point they are illegal. As much as I would like to see the super freaks out there playing football
its against the law to use, so we should stay away from them. As well as teach our kids that
they shouldnt be using them. Who knows maybe one day theyll be legal, marijuana is being
legalized by more states, maybe one day will see athletes be able to be the biggest, strongest
fastest, person they possibly can be.

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Work Cited
Anderson, Jack. "Doping, Sport And The Law: Time For Repeal Of Prohibition?." International
Journal Of Law In Context 9.2 (2013): 135-159. Academic Search Premier. Web. 13 Nov. 2015.
http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/38/6/666.full
Dixon, Nicholas. "Performance-Enhancing Drugs, Paternalism, Meritocracy, and Harm to
Sport." Journal of Social Philosophy 39.2 (2008): 246-268. Academic Search Premier. Web. 13
Nov. 2015.
https://www.elks.org/dap/pdfs/dap255.pdf
http://globalsportsdevelopment.org/steroid-use-among-high-school-athletes/
Jost, K. (2004, July 23). Sports and drugs. CQ Researcher, 14, 613-636. Retrieved from
http://library.cqpress.com/.
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/news/mitchell/
Verducci, Tom. "Swampland Chronicles." Sports Illustrated 118.5 (2013): 16- 17. Academic
Search Premier. Web. 13 Nov. 2015.
Verducci, Tom. "Now What?" Sports Illustrated 107.25 (2007): 28-32. Academic Search
Premier. Web. 13 Nov. 2015.