Using Steroids and Human Growth Hormone is Cheating
Published January 19, 2008
The debate surrounding the issue of steroids and human growth hormone shouldn't be about whether or not PEDs are safe, effective, dangerous, ineffective or anything else. The governing bodies of sport - whether it be MLB, NHL, the Olympics - have stated that participants cannot use PEDs. Therefore, those who use these substances are breaking the rules and are cheating, whether or not there are screening tests to catch or deter.
Using PEDs is akin to Barry Bonds using an aluminum bat, Roger Clemens using a smaller baseball, Tiger Woods using an unapproved ball or club or carrying an extra club, or Roberto Luongo using 20-inch wide goalie pads. If you want to argue that athletes should be allowed to use any substances that they want, fine. If you want to argue that baseball - or other leagues - shouldn't be allowed to prohibit certain behaviors or ban the use of performance-enhancing substances, or make and enforce any regulations that are designed to regulate their sport go ahead and try. But those arguments are not part of the current situation that MLB is dealing with.
You'll have a hard time making the argument Major League Baseball shouldn't be allowed to ban bats made of certain materials or that the PGA can't decide that there are limits to the types of clubs that golfers can use, and limit how many clubs a player can carry in his bag.
The bottom line is the-powers-that-be can set the rules for competition as they see fit and anyone who breaks them is cheating, especially in the case of PEDs. Apparently this is an antiquated notion, but there still is such a concept as abiding by the rules and right versus wrong, even when it comes baseball and football.
In the world of car racing, major fines and suspensions are commonplace when teams and their drivers break the rules. You know, cheat. Some of the biggest teams and drivers in NASCAR have been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars and have had management-types suspended. In Formula 1 racing, last year Britain's McLaren team was fined $100 million for "technical espionage." Cheating = punishment in some segments of the sports world.
A well-known national columnist who appears on ESPN has written that, "Honesty about steroids would be refreshing," and that he would love for a jock to step up and said, "Yes, I used HGH. Used it all the time, illegally, under the supervision of trainers I pay well to keep me at optimum efficiency. My body is my business and a source of great profit in the entertainment industry, and I've hired the best mechanics to keep this machine running right. I'm sorry that this is something that you tolerate from the governor of California and Rambo, but not me."
As a quick aside, anytime anyone trying to make a rational argument veers into the land of fictional characters or compares a situation where there are no rules to a situation where there are rules, you know that they are in trouble.
Sal Marinello is a National Strength and Conditioning Association Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and Certified Personal Trainer, a U.S.A. Weightlifting Certified Coach, a full-time, private Professional Strength and Conditioning Coach, an assistant football coach and a Head Strength Coach for a suburban New Jersey High School. He writes a lot and has no free time. 
- Using Steroids and Human Growth Hormone is Cheating
- Published: January 19, 2008
- Type: News
- Section: Sports
- Filed Under: Sports: Baseball, Culture: Crime and Court
- Part of a feature: The Healthy Skeptic
- Writer: Sal Marinello
- Sal Marinello's BC Writer page
- Sal Marinello's personal site
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Comments on this articleComments
Fabulous article and a great debate started by the previous commenter.
When there are a set of rules in place, they should be followed and enforced. Isn't baseball a three strikes and your out game.
The debate on the usefulness of hgh is a seperate subject. Who cares what Rambo does as long as he is not breaking any laws. I believe that the previous writer is wrong about hgh causing liver damage.
Almost all the side effects of human growth hormone are the result of intentional, abusive, overdosing.
Great stuff. I will be a frequent reader.
thanks....keep checking in.
Another solid article Sal.Can anyone give a round figure of when the breakdown of morals in this country started? I say it festered in the 70's,bloomed in the 80's and burst wide open in the 90's. Cheating has become so prevalent in our society that kids actually believe it's okay to do(as long as you don't get caught)! and if you do get caught.....what happens anyway? There are no consequences for bad behavior, on the contrary, it's kewl too be bad! I can remember when you played a game and cheated,you forfeited that game(see New England Patriots 18-0).What kind of message is this sending to our youth of today? Christ, we have cheerleader moms looking to take out their kids opposition! What a sad self portrait we have painted of ourselves. American Gothic indeed.
Excellent article, but I will comment more after I Google Roberto Luongo to see if he is really a hockey player. Nice job digging deep to keep Hockey in the top sport pool. Was Golf linked to PEDs before even Hockey in the national eye? Sorry, I keep sliding into a side story of "is Hockey really a major sport?". Another day perhaps.
Is an NHL scandle of PED use akin to a tree falling in the forrest but no one is there to hear it.......
Great Article. Cheating is cheating, regardless of anyone's personal opinion. PEDs are banned for a reason. Anyone caught taking them should be punished. An athlete caught using PEDs should face the same consequences as someone who is caught with illegal drugs such as marijuana, or as anyone caught breaking the rules. Admitting that you used PEDs does not clear you of being a cheater. There is NO excuse for cheating.
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You are correct here. The moral argument should stand on its own: PEDs are cheating. However as you point out writers (as the writer you referred to in the text) appear not to have moral boundaries. Add the lack of moral guidance to distorted understanding of the physical and medical issues, and you have a dangerous situation where the inmates will run the asylum, based on misunderstandings of the facts.
This is disturbing (from the piece referred to above:
"I take cortisone, a steroid, to keep my shoulder and back from screaming. I had Lasik surgery, lasering my eyes, to improve my vision. But with your arbitrary moralities, you are blurring the line for me so much between what is allegedly natural and allegedly unnatural that not even those Lasik lasers help me unblur it. There is no sense of proportionality here. The difference between pain-killers such as cortisone and healers such as HGH isn't nearly as large as the difference between how you react to the former and the latter."
In this writer's view, the banning of HGH and anabolic steroids is 'arbitrary'. I guess he reviewed the entire medical literature to find out that HGH is a 'healing' drug.
I also wonder if he reviewed the literature on how many people who underwent Lasik surgery murdered their families then suicided? Does Lasik surgery cause aggressiveness, liver damage, and cardiac compromise? Steroids and HGH do. These arguments confuse the issues with the facts.
There is a great movement to ignore and subvert the ethical rules of the games. That movement depends upon making up medical facts, or simply ignoring them. It is remarkable that a journalism can take on the mantle of medical expert, moral philosopher, and Constitutional law scholar without any expert training.
Such is society these days. It is up to health professionals, and ethical sportsmen to take back the world perverted by the drug cheats and their apologists.
If not, welcome to a world where legitimate sports looks much like the corrupt fantasy world of pro wrestling. Perhaps Rambo can be elected president in that world...