Legalizing Performance Enhancing Drugs Research Paper

Legalizing Performance Enhancing Drugs - Research Paper Example It is about time when the law and policy makers stopped being hypocritical and paranoid about the use of PEDs, and sought their legalization instead. This is an obvious question. Why is there a debate on this issue in the first place? Performance enhancing drugs can simply be banned because they give an added advantage to their users. Then why are people objecting to the ban? Do they wish to be unfair? Not exactly. Banning of PEDs has led to the introduction of other evils apart from further aggravating their illegal use. For instance, while anti-doping policies in sports seek to â€Å"level the playing field† and prevent sportsmen from taking unfair advantage, they have not been successful at this attempt (Kayser, Mauron and Miah 521). Sportsmen who intend to use them do so without fail, and many go undetected. This proves to be unfair for those who do not use such drugs out of fear of being caught. This has not at all leveled the playing field, as illegal use of drugs is already prevalent among sportsmen. It is just that most of them are not being caught. According to Herper, to address the issue of illegal doping by spo rtsmen: The most obvious solution has always been to legalize those drugs that work, and to experimentally monitor new entrants, including dietary supplements, for both efficacy and safety. Biological improvement would be treated much as athletic equipment like baseball bats and running shoes. If these drugs are legalized, it will at least be possible to monitor the use of such drugs and even level the playing field as those innocent players who were earlier deterred from using them