Should Doping Be Allowed in Sports? | Teen Ink

Should Doping Be Allowed in Sports?

May 31, 2022
By Oibrahim BRONZE, Parsippany, New Jersey
Oibrahim BRONZE, Parsippany, New Jersey
2 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Becoming an athlete comes with great responsibility, respect, and dedication. However,  it comes at a cost. One cost is, that you can’t dope in sports because if you do you will get disciplined such as being suspended from multiple games or even getting kicked off the team. Doping in sports means taking performance-enhancing drugs. Although, doping in sports is an issue that can affect all athletes. Currently, doping, also known as taking performance-enhancing drugs is illegal for professional athletes. Some believe that this should stay because it gives athletes an unfair advantage. However, doping should be allowed in sports because the level of performance will increase which would cause spectators to watch and because there is already an unfair advantage.

The reason doping should be allowed in sports is because the level of performance will be higher and there will be an increase in spectators. In the article, “NFL Has Had 258 PED-Related Bans Since 2001, but No Big Deal?” it states, “Drugs add to the entertainment because what you pay big money to see is bigger-than-life stuff, said Charles Yesalis” (Schrotenboer 2). This shows that doping should be allowed since it adds more entertainment to the game and you pay large amounts of money to watch these games so you would expect there to be superstar athletes playing on the field/court. Furthermore, the article “NFL Has Had 258 PED-Related Bans Since 2001, but No Big Deal?” says, “viewers didn’t seem to care if they even knew, that a player who recently had been suspended under the league’s performance-enhancing drugs policy” (Schrotenboer 2). This indicates that doping should be allowed because the viewers didn’t complain or care when someone got suspended due to the performance-enhancing drugs policy. In addition, “NFL Has Had 258 PED-Related Bans Since 2001, but No Big Deal?” shows, “CBS broadcasters didn’t mention it during the game when Edelman caught 10 passes and nearly 100 million people watch on average, according to Nielsen data” (Schrotenboer 2). This shows that doping should be allowed in sports because out of the 100 million people who watched the game, no one complained about it and it was not mentioned by anyone.

Another reason doping should be allowed in sports is because there is already an unfair advantage. In “NFL Has Had 258 PED-Related Bans Since 2001, but No Big Deal?” it states, “The suspensions only represent around 1% or fewer of all NFL players each year¨  (Schrotenboer 3). This indicates that not that many NFL players get caught under performance-enhancing drugs. To add in “NFL Has Had 258 PED-Related Bans Since 2001,but No Big Deal?” it says, “We have found that a large number of the violations are ultimately deemed to be unintentional use of a supplement that was contaminated” (Schrotenboer 3). This proves that doping should be allowed in sports because athletes are unintentionally consuming the supplements which would make it unfair for other athletes. The article, “NFL Has Had 258 PED-Related Bans Since 2001, but No Big Deal?”, states, “It is a tough substance to detect without a specific intelligence about an athlete using it Tygart said” (Schrotenboer 5). This shows that doping should be allowed in sports because if it is a hard substance to detect and athletes are already using it then they might as well give athletes an option to use them. In conclusion, doping should be allowed in sports. Some may argue that doping shouldn’t be allowed in sports but, the strongest argument is that they should dope in sports because it would decrease the number of injuries. If the athletes don’t get injured as much then they could continue to perform like superstars. If doping doesn’t stay in sports then later on athletes can get injured and they could possibly be injured and not be able to play compared to when they dope in sports. 


The author's comments:

I am Omar and I wrote this writing piece in the 8th grade


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This article has 1 comment.


CurlyUnicorn said...
on Feb. 1 at 9:31 am
CurlyUnicorn, New Cumberland, West Virginia
0 articles 0 photos 2 comments
I disagree because doping could cause players to possibly use dangerous amounts to one-up the competition. It would also not be fair as players can react differently to the same drug. I think the NFL would make less money because the best team with the most steroid use would always win and would cause money loss to other games if nobody wants to watch the other games.
TL;DR, I don’t think doping is good.