For Legalisation

Arguments for allowing performance-enhancing drugs

• The audience has an interest in seeing the best performances possible
  • Factors making a performance more enjoyable for the audience include many that can be enhanced by drugs - like skill, strength and courage
  • Opponents argue: if an athlete has cheated we view him or her with less respect, which damages our enjoyment of the performance
  • As athletes approach the limit of what can be achieved with the unenhanced human body, any further improvement will require performance-enhancers
• Admiration of a sport can even be reduced if the competitors could perform better on drugs
• It is misleading to say it disadvantages poorer teams, because they are already disadvantaged by other factors - equipment, expertise and so on
• Evidence shows that people do not lose interest in sports that are known to be tainted by drugs - viewing figures remain as high as ever
  • Opponents argue: in many cases there is no 'drug-free' alternative; people may still lose respect for the sport even if they don't want to stop watching altogether
• The rules banning drugs are left over from amateur sport, and irrelevant to professional sport
• We should not stop athletes from taking drugs if they are willing and know the health risks: that's being paternalistic
• Many of the banned substances have not even been proven to improve performance
  • So taking them may be a waste of time, but so is banning them!
• Legalising drugs would save the money currently spent on testing
• Drugs testing does not work -- it probably catches the innocent more than the guilty
  • Opponents argue: this is an argument for better testing, not giving up altogether
• The boundary between athletes and their equipment is being blurred
  • Clothes, and equipment like racquets, are often designed specially for an athlete and customised to his or her body shape
  • Some people argue that there will soon be no distinction between the equipment and the athlete's body (eg Miah, 2003)
  • It will then be impossible to separate legal enhancements from disallowed ones, and the rules will have to be changed to reflect that
• Banning drugs is discriminatory against athletes
• New technology like genetic engineering will spell the end for drug regulation
• Genetic engineering could help fair play, by allowing all competitors to create an optimal body type for sport