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http://www.psikiyatri.org.tr/uploadFiles/publicationsFile/file/WPJune2007[2].pdf#page=56
This PDF covers the topic of doping in sports and what it is and means.
-Hailey Desiderio

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http://sportsanddrugs.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=002352
This article shows the pros and cons for the top ten issues of doping in professional sports.
-Hailey Desiderio

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The Effects of Steroids on the Human Body

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The Effects of Steroids on the Human Body

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http://www.usada.org/substances/effects-of-performance-enhancing-drugs/

This article shows the effect of performance enhancing drugs (PED's) on the human body and other concerns that people  might have for the professional athletes that do it.

(Ty Webb)

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Professional baseball player Barry Bonds from the San Francisco Giants was tested positive for steroids. They have always had an eye on bonds considering when he broke the MLB all time home run record and now this is really going to effect his chances on going to Cooperstown.

(Jack Campbell)

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Maybe you missed it. Probably you missed it. Earlier this week, Orlando Magic forward Hedo Turkoglu was suspended 20 games by the NBA after testing positive for steroids.

Here's what didn't happen next.

Demands for more stringent drug testing. Calls for Congressional hearings. Comparisons to Lance Armstrong. I-told-you-so tweets from Jose Canseco. Wailing over Turkoglu's career statistics. Gnashing of teeth over his place in basketball history. Concern that this sets a bad example for the children. Concern that this sets a bad example for other dopers. (Seriously: Turkoglu took a left on Anabolic Avenue, and all he has to show for it 2.9 points and 2.4 rebounds per game? Did his methenolone get mixed up with a bag of oregano?)

Turkoglu's swift mea culpa and dubious-sounding excuse -- he took mystery medication from a trainer in Turkey last summer to recover from a shoulder injury, and whaddya know, he forgot to check it against the league's list of banned substances -- was not met with the pronounced public snickering that greeted Roger Clemens' totally scientific Third Ear and the short, tragic non-life of Tyler Hamilton's unborn twin. Federal agents did not pick through Turkoglu's trash. Anti-doping officials did not appear on "60 Minutes" to press for a detailed confession. No one connected the potential dots between Turkoglu and former Magic teammate Rashard Lewis, who also flunked a steroid screen in 2009; no one, not even on the Internet, took the next conspiracy-minded step and wondered how, exactly, former Magic frontcourt mate Dwight Howard's bulbous shoulders became bigger than Barry Bonds' head.

To the contrary, nobody cared. Not really. Nobody cared because the NBA got the same pass it always gets, because everybody knows that professional basketball -- a ferociously competitive, highly lucrative sport that puts a premium on running, jumping, strength and endurance, not to mention rapid recovery during a long, physically taxing season -- does not have a performance-enhancing drug problem.

Right?

David Stern seems to think so. In 2005, the league commissioner said that PED use wasn't "a problem at the present time that we think we have." Charles Barkley seems to think so, too: four years ago, he expressed surprise at Lewis' steroid suspension, arguing that tall, lithe NBA players simply don't have physiques that suggest widespread doping. Around the same time Stern made his comment, a longtime NBA athletic trainer told ESPN.com's Marc Stein that "in the basketball culture, players want to be long and athletic. They want to be lean, and they would be fearful that added bulk would affect their lateral quickness;" a team physician said that "when you're playing every other night for 82 games, endurance is really what you're after, and steroids actually hurt that;" and 15-year league veteran Tony Massenburg added that NBA players don't even like to lift weights.

Of course, all of this makes perfect sense. Provided you have no idea how PEDs can actually enhance, you know, performance.

"That makes no sense," says former Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) mastermind Victor Conte. "Look at the biceps of Tour de France riders. They're 9-10 inches [in circumference]. We know they use anabolic steroids, specifically testosterone. For the most part, these drugs -- meaning the whole category of anabolic steroids -- are recovery drugs. They are very powerful. Would they be a benefit to an NBA player? Absolutely."

Charles Yesalis, a Penn State emeritus professor and sports doping expert, concurs.

"Distance runners have been using anabolics and growth hormones in very small doses for years," he says. "Not to build muscle. But to help recuperate. The myth of [PEDs] making you muscle-bound is so over."

I believe NBA players are using steroids. Human growth hormone. Stimulants like Adderall. The blood-boosting drug erythropoietin (EPO). Anything and everything to get an edge. I believe players are doping in the summer and doping in season and doping during All-Star Weekend, stacking and micro-dosing, injecting and rubbing in cream. Do I have smoking-gun proof? Nothing beyond the occasional failed drug test, like the one that earned then-Memphis Grizzlies guard O.J. Mayo a 10-game suspension in 2011. Is use widespread, like Chicago Bulls guard Derrick Rose reportedly once suggested and then denied? I have no idea.

Still, I'm convinced it's happening. So is Yesalis, who after Lewis' suspension told me there was "no doubt in his mind." To think otherwise is to have both admirable faith in the better angels of human nature and a willful disregard for basic logic. "The money involved is substantial," Yesalis says. "The drugs are available. The tests are fraught with loopholes. I don't know how complicated it is. It's the same as all other sports. Why would anybody think the NBA is any cleaner than baseball?" To think otherwise is to sound like Stern, who in 2005 delivered the following prepared statement to a Congressional committee, and only walked away a free man because declaring one's studious belief in the existence of Bigfoot before a group of skeptical lawmakers is not, in fact, a federal crime:
"The sport of basketball emphasizes a specialized set of physical abilities -- particularly quickness, agility and basketball skill -- that are distinct from those required in a number of other sports. Accordingly, illicit substances that could assist athletes in strength sports [such as weightlifting and football], power sports [such as baseball], or endurance sports [such as cycling or marathon running], are not likely to be of benefit to NBA players."
Ahem. Conte tells a story. Back when he was helping athletes dope, he gave EPO to one of his female sprinters. (Conte declines to provide her name, but it's easy to infer he's talking about retired sprinter Kelli White.) White won two gold medals at the 2003 world championships. When she subsequently confessed to PED use during the height of the BALCO scandal, anti-doping scientists such as Don Catlin found one part of her drug cocktail baffling: why was a sprinter taking EPO, a drug that boosts endurance by increasing the blood's oxygen-carrying capacity?

"What they failed to ask was this: how long do you think these athletes train each day?" Conte says. "Hours and hours. And in the offseason, training for months and months, do you think that a deeper training load wouldn't help you? These are training drugs!"

When Conte first began studying the physiology of athletic performance, he says, he was particularly intrigued by Defense Department research on Navy SEALs, whose bodies and minds are subjected to extreme levels of strain and stress during intense training exercises. "They go through hand-to-hand combat, verbal abuse, sleep deprivation, underwater demolition," he says. "It depletes the body of nutrients and builds up metabolic waste products. I saw parallels with elite athletes."

Growth hormone, Conte says, could help NBA players maintain muscle mass over the course of a long, punishing season. Anabolic steroids accelerate muscle tissue repair and healing, which could help with recovery from both hard training and hard-luck injury. EPO boosts endurance not only by bringing more oxygen to muscles, but also by speeding up removal of metabolic waste, delaying the onset of fatigue.

"I have heard a lot of athletes in the NFL and track and field describe the effect of EPO with one word," he says. "It makes you like a machine. You just don't get tired. In basketball, you might not see the effect as much in the first and second quarter, but by the fourth quarter there's a huge edge. One guy has a body full of toxins that have built up. The other guy has a body that has accelerated the removal of those toxins. He's the one who will be able to make that quick move and get past his defender."

In baseball, widespread use of PEDs inverted the usual relationship between advancing age and declining production: 30-something players were suddenly becoming better as they got older. (See Clemens, Roger. Er, allegedly.) In the NBA, a group of aging stars including Los Angeles Lakers guards Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash spent much of the last half-decade managing to pull off a similar trick; was it, as Grantland's Bill Simmons has argued, the result of "better doctors, surgical procedures, dieting, drug testing, trainers, computers, video equipment, workout equipment, workout regiments, airplanes" and even "hotel pillows?" Or was something else afoot?

Remember: during MLB's 1990s size-and-power surge, before BALCO and the Mitchell Report, people were writing straight-faced articles about Ken Caminiti's "goody bag" -- full of all-natural vitamins and nutritional supplements -- and how creatine and weight training alone were changing the sport.

"The level of these hormones like growth hormone and testosterone begin to decline in the body on average at age 30," Conte says. "At least a one percent drop per year. So guys getting up in their 30s are not going to recover like they would be in their mid 20s. That's another way [PEDs] can help."

If NBA players have ample incentives to use PEDs -- millions of guaranteed dollars at stake; the not-insubstantial fact that the drugs work -- they also have few disincentives. After all, federal lawmakers labeled the league's drug testing policy "inadequate," "pathetic" and "a joke" in 2005, and again blasted the NBA three years later. Last October, World Anti-Doping Agency director general David Howman said the league had "gaps" in its program -- gaps that ESPN.com's Henry Abbott identified as:

* A lack of blood testing, which means the league cannot detect HGH use;

* A lack of "biological passports," a year-round assessment of an athlete's blood profile that looks for chemical oddities and has been credited with reducing doping in cycling;

* A vulnerability to micro-dosing, a practice in which athletes take small doses of PEDs that clear the body in a matter of hours, giving testers a tiny window of opportunity;

* Advance notice to players of drug tests, particularly in the off-season, which gives players time to prepare and/or make themselves scarce.

Abbott also points out that the NBA only subjects players to four random tests per season and just two random tests in the offseason. Both numbers make Conte incredulous. "Testing you only a couple of times a year isn't much, especially when you know how quickly some of these drugs clear," he says. "EPO, synthetic testosterone, you can clear them in a day. And the offseason is when the fish are really biting. If you don't put your hook and line in the pond when you know they're biting, you're not going to catch any fish. I believe that there are really all sorts of loopholes in the testing of the NBA."

Yesalis trusts his eyes. Are NBA players as muscular as their NFL counterparts? No. But they're bigger, faster and stronger than their predecessors. More defined, too. "Just get a bunch of pictures of pro basketball players in the 1960s and 1970s," he says. "Look at how they've changed." In the early 1980s, Yesalis was a college strength coach. He remembers women's basketball players at major conference programs lifting weights. "Basketball players have been lifting for more than 30 years," he says. "The notion that they're bigger and stronger just because they started lifting weights is a bunch of crap. That can't explain it. You can't use that as an excuse."

Maybe Yesalis is wrong. Conte, too. Maybe I'm wrong. I'd like to be. I'd like to believe Turkoglu is a sad, bizarre outlier, that the reason only eight NBA players since 2000 have been caught and suspended for PED use is that NBA players don't use PEDs. Thing is, history suggests otherwise. Americans once scoffed at East Germany's no-good, very-bad, lyin' and cheatin' glow-in-the-dark Olympic athletes -- that is, until we learned that the United States Olympic Committee may have covered up more than 100 positive drugs tests for U.S. athletes who won 19 Olympics medals from 1988-2000. Mark McGwire wasn't here to talk about the past. In her 2004 autobiography, Marion Jones covered an entire page in large red letters reading: I AM AGAINST PERFORMANCE ENHANCING DRUGS. I HAVE NEVER TAKEN THEM AND I NEVER WILL TAKE THEM. Armstrong told his doubters that he was "sorry you don't believe in miracles." When the Carolina Panthers were caught up in a Super Bowl steroids scandal, not even their punter was immune. Years after his good boy sweater-wearing doping confession, Alex Rodriguez is allegedly still hanging out with Cousin Yuri. So it goes. Sports are awash in drugs. Why would professional basketball be any different? "It's the same story with all of these sports," Conte says. "If you have the financial incentive and the inept testing, and you are part of a culture where you believe your opponents are using drugs, you do what you have to do in order to be competitive. I'm not as familiar with NBA culture, but I know that all the same elements are there."

In 2004, Conte appeared on ABC's "20/20," giving an interview in which he fingered Jones and insisted that the Olympics were rife with PEDs, corruption and cover-ups. Many scoffed. Almost a decade later, he's gone from pariah to prophet, and his disquieting message -- the one that very well may apply to the same NBA that has built an entire unironic marketing campaign around the word big -- hasn't changed.

"There is no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy," he says. "Not at the elite level of sport."

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Are NBA players using PEDs? You better believe it.

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Maybe you missed it. Probably you missed it. Earlier this week, Orlando Magic forward Hedo Turkoglu was suspended 20 games by the NBA after testing positive for steroids. Here's what didn't happen next. Demands for more stringent drug testing. Calls for Congressional hearings. Comparisons to Lance Armstrong. I-told-you-so tweets from Jose Canseco.

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Poor Lance Armstrong. The seven-time Tour de France winner has been stripped of his famous victories by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, which claims he used illicit performance-enhancing drugs. Armstrong never tested positive for anything, but his decision to quit fighting the charges has been seen by some as tantamount to a confession. So why shouldn't he be punished? Doping is, after all, widely considered the ultimate sin of professional athletes.

Dwain Chambers, the UK's fastest sprinter in the 100 meters, was banned from competing in the Olympic Games after testing positive for the anabolic steroid tetrahydrogestrinone. He claimed in his autobiography that at least half of the U.S. racing team at the 2008 Summer Games used illegal substances. The battle to control drug use never, ever seems to end. Why don't we accept doping will always happen and legalize it?

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That may seem crazy, but a pro-doping culture might be the inevitable future of sport. It gets to the heart of what it is we want when we compete in and watch sports, and what we consider to be "normal" humanity. An athlete who takes a performance-enhancing drug is relying on something he doesn't actually have to improve performance - whether that drug is naturally occurring or designed by scientists, whether that extra help skews their genetics to alter their humanity.

As training, coaching, nutrition and equipment has been perfected, the best times of the best athletes have been increasing at a slower and slower rate. There are numerous estimates of what the fastest possible 100m time will be, based on extrapolating current trends. The most recent study found that 9.48 seconds was the predicted "fastest" time.

Eventually, athletes will reach a wall, and then we face the question of how to keep sport interesting. We could start measuring to the thousandth of a second, say, but how interesting would it be if every race were decided by margins undetectable to the naked eye? There's no narrative of success there, nothing as iconic as Usain Bolt strolling across the line with the swagger of a man who knows he has utterly destroyed his competition. Such accuracy is also difficult to pull off in places like swimming pools, for instance, where distances of a couple of millimeters may be needed to decide a race.

That's where doping comes in. After all, it's not like it's going to go away, argues ethics professor Julian Savulescu of the Oxford Centre of Neuroethics.

"The war on doping has failed," he says. "Lance Armstrong never failed a doping test, despite being subjected to thousands. Nearly every recent winner of the Tour de France has been implicated in doping. About 80 percent of 100-meter finalists are or will be implicated in doping. The fact is that blood doping and use of growth hormone have not been possible to detect, and because doping mimics normal physiological process it will always be possible to beat the test." Thus, we should embrace the inevitable, and control doping as best we can."

This is a view echoed by bioethicist professor Andy Miah of the University of the West of Scotland. He argues that we should have a "World Pro-Doping Agency" to complement the World Anti-Doping Agency. "At the moment athletes look to find dangerous substances with significant health risks, but with the correct framework in place athletes can know the risks involved," he says.

It makes sense to make sure that athletes know what they are ingesting, as opposed to the current free-for-all which can lead to awful side effects for athletes. Anabolic steroids, for instance, have adverse side effects which range from acne, infertility and impotence, to hypertension, psychosis and cardiovascular disease. A regulatory body that lets athletes know what they're ingesting would improve athletic health.

However, this doesn't address the issue of authenticity and integrity that professional sport is built upon. After all, cyclist Bradley Wiggins could easily get up a mountain faster if he was using a motorbike. Our societal conception of sport as competition between opponents rests on a certain sense of human nature - what will decide the battle is determination, effort, grit and sweat. We can help the honest athlete compete with the doper by allowing both to use drugs, but that seems to start picking apart why we value sport.

Savulescu doesn't see this as a problem.

"Steroids augment the effects of training," he says. "They are like more effective training, which has been achieved in other ways. That does not corrupt the nature of sport. Caffeine is a performance enhancer which was banned but is now allowed. The relaxation has done nothing to affect the spectacle, nature or definition of sport. It has just meant we don't have to waste time working out how much Coca-Cola an athlete has drunk."

People still need to train to make the most of their drugs, then. It doesn't help to look at sport as being a battle of wills if, as we've already seen, the natural limits of the human body are increasingly the reason for success. I could try all I want, but I will never make it as a professional gymnast because I'm just too tall and awkward. The same applies to many athletes now who are never going to be able to beat Jessica Ennis, no matter how much they try.

We as spectators push athletes to be the absolute best, and in the process create the culture where doping is needed to reach those heights. It increasingly feels difficult to reconcile the purity of asking athletes to do whatever it takes to win as long as that isn't going beyond an arbitrary definition of "natural". Performance-enhancing drugs are that great leveler, that tool for athletes to bridge the unfair natural gap.

"Doping is not against the spirit of sport," Savulescu says. "It has always part of the human spirit to use knowledge to make oneself better and doping has been a part of sport since its beginning. Doping should only be banned when it is significantly harmful relative to the inherent risks of sport, or against the spirit of a particular sport. For example, drugs to reduce tremor like beta blockers in archery or shooting are against the spirit of that sport as it is inherently a test of ability to control nerves. Drugs which removed fear in boxing would be against the spirit of boxing. But blood doping up to a haematocrit [percentage of red blood cells in blood] of 50 percent is safe and not against the spirit of cycling."

Miah also points out that there is a lot of legal doping going on already, such as altitude chambers, which recreate the experience of training in thinner air to give athletes a bigger oxygen capacity. WADA approved such chambers in 2006 because they were felt to recreate a natural phenomenon. But then what's the difference between that and injecting someone with natural growth hormones, for instance?

This points towards the fundamental problem many have with doping &mash; its implications for what it is to be human. Athletics is at the forefront of that debate. Just look at Oscar Pistorius.

"He symbolizes the coming together of the two Olympic movements," says Miah. "If Pierre de Cobourtin founded the Olympic movement today, seeing how the gap between [the Olympic and Paralympic Games] is closing, there would be only one Games."

Pistorius represents a future where our ability to transcend what a "normal" human being is will also herald the end of a distinction between the able-bodied and paralympians - and drugs are a big part of that.

That's because, as Miah points out, human enhancement will become more and more common in everyday life. "The current problems will become less apparent because the athletes of the future will be enhanced before they even begin training for an event," he says. "Look at the human genome, for instance. Twenty years ago it took thousands of dollars to sequence just one man, now it costs $5,000. That process will only get cheaper. The continual pursuit of enhanced life will lead to these things becoming normalized."

We can see, from the use of drugs by students to improve studying to the medication of children to keep them calm, that personal enhancement through drugs is more and more common. As genetic profiling becomes more common, too, that will also herald huge changes as people are screened for diseases at birth that they may only have come to discover in later life. You can already see this as an issue when it comes to so-called " gene doping," where techniques used in gene therapy may be used to switch on or off certain genes associated with, for instance, improved muscle mass, or faster acceleration.

Doping, then, becomes part of the grand question that humanity is beginning to ask itself as nature is increasingly improved upon with technology. Just as innovations in Formula 1 cars eventually filter down to your humble hatchback, those pills and serums that athletes take to shave another 0.01 second off a personal best may well herald a common life enhancing drug later down the line.

"What is a normal human?" asks Miah. "Athletes in the NFL have 20/15 vision, which is better than normal. People are concerned about genetic identification, that the use of genetic tests will be normal. People may recoil from that, thinking that it may compromise what it means to be human, but I don't think it changes any kind of internal human essence."

That may be the crux. If there were to be an Olympiad in, let's say... thirty years' time, then will there be a Paralympiad alongside? Or will there in fact be three, with a new Olympiad for those who choose to enhance their bodies beyond what they were born with? Whatever happens, it will be a reflection of wider society's attitudes towards human enhancement beyond what is natural, or normal.

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Poor Lance Armstrong. The seven-time Tour de France winner has been stripped of his famous victories by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, which claims he used illicit performance-enhancing drugs. Armstrong never tested positive for anything, but his decision to quit fighting the charges has been seen by some as tantamount to a confession.

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This article is about the different types of drugs PED's athlete's use why they use them and what are the side effects.

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This article is about the different types of drugs PED's athlete's use why they use them and what are the side effects.

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This article was about professional baseball players using steroids and smoking marijuana

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http://www.biography.com/people/groups/athletes-involved-in-drug-scandals
This article lists some athletes involved in doping scandals, and how it affected them.

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Why Do Athletes Risk Using Performance Enhancing Drugs?

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Why Do Athletes Risk Using Performance Enhancing Drugs?

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This article is about why athletes risk using performance-enhancing drugs

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Many Sports Organizations Do Many Things To Hide The Athletes Using PEDS From Officials

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Many Sports Organizations Do Many Things To Hide The Athletes Using PEDS From Officials

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This article covers why the Russian track and field team was banned from the Olympics. A surprising paragraph in this article shared what the authorities for the Russian Olympic team did anything to dodge allegations of any athlete using the drugs.
(Bella Moore)

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Russia's track and field team is barred from competing in the Olympic Games this summer because of a far-reaching doping conspiracy, an extraordinary punishment without precedent in Olympics history.

The International Association of Athletics Federations, the governing body for track and field, announced the decision Friday, ruling in a unanimous vote that Russia had not done enough to restore global confidence in the integrity of its athletes.

Russia won 18 medals in track and field - including eight golds - at the last Summer Olympics. But when the Rio Games begin on Aug. 5, no track and field athletes will compete under the Russian flag. Not even East Germany, which conducted a notorious doping scheme throughout the 1960s, '70s and '80s, faced such a penalty.

"Politics was not playing a part in that room today," Sebastian Coe, the head of the track and field organization, said about the vote Friday. "It was unambiguous."

The case against Russia has advanced over the last seven months. Reports by the World Anti-Doping Agency and by news organizations have detailed a state-run doping scheme that punctured the integrity of the Olympics, seemingly upending many of the results from the 2008 Beijing Games, the 2012 London Games and the 2014 Sochi Games.

The allegations were wide-ranging and detailed: Athletes were given a three-drug cocktail of banned substances and liquor; authorities helped athletes evade drug tests by surreptitiously swapping out tainted urine; thousands of incriminating samples were destroyed; drug testers were threatened by members of Russia's Federal Security Service.

But perhaps the most influential force in the track organization's decision was the outcry from athletes outside of Russia. A groundswell of Olympians across sports agitated for penalties after WADA had been slow to respond.

"Athletes have been losing sleep," said Lauryn Williams, a track and field and bobsled athlete from the United States. "You can't have faith in anybody who is Russian."

The Russian ministry of sport said in a statement Friday that it was disappointed in the ruling. "We now appeal to the members of the International Olympic Committee to not only consider the impact that our athletes' exclusion will have on their dreams and the people of Russia, but also that the Olympics themselves will be diminished by their absence," the ministry said.

The I.O.C., the ultimate authority over the Games, was scheduled to discuss the decision on Tuesday. If Olympics officials amended the ruling against Russia, it would be an unusual move, as they have historically deferred to the governing bodies of specific sports.

Russian track and field athletes have been suspended from international competition since last fall, after publication of a WADA report accusing the nation of an elaborate government-run doping program. Although Russia denied those accusations, the country's track and field authorities did not contest the suspension when given an opportunity in November.

Since then, however, Russian officials have striven to persuade global decision-makers that they could be trusted in coming Olympic competitions, volunteering to go beyond standard eligibility requirements and to send only athletes who have not been disciplined for drug use.

Global track officials said Friday that individuals who could "clearly and convincingly show they are not tainted by the Russian system" - because they have been outside the country and subject to rigorous testing - could individually petition to compete for a neutral team.

Such a policy could prove controversial. The sophistication of Russia's operation, whistle-blowers have said, has made some athletes on steroids appear clean because incriminating urine samples have been swapped out or because athletes imbibed drugs with liquor to minimize the period during which the drugs can be detected.

"Two or five or 100 negative tests do not mean an athlete is clean," Rune Andersen, chairman of the I.A.A.F. task force that is monitoring Russia, said Friday.

He said that the loophole for individuals had been created at the recommendation of lawyers who were mindful of possible court challenges; Russian athletes will have the opportunity to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland.

"We do not believe that every Russian athlete cheated," said Stephanie Hightower, the president of USA Track & Field, who took part in Friday's vote. "It is unfortunate and regrettable that some may pay a penalty for the serious transgressions of their federation."

On Friday, hours before the vote, Russia's sports minister, Vitaly Mutko, made a final appeal, releasing an open letter to the I.A.A.F. that had been sent privately on Wednesday. "Russia fully supports fighting doping," Mr. Mutko wrote, citing independent drug testing of Russian athletes that had been conducted by authorities from Britain in recent months and a new law that would make it a criminal offense "for an athlete's coach and entourage to support doping."

Those overtures were not enough.

Mr. Andersen said Friday that Mr. Mutko had privately acknowledged that Russia had inherited a doping culture from the Soviet Union.

Perhaps further contributing to officials' skepticism, WADA released information days before Friday's vote that called into question the credibility of Russia's reforms. The agency said that the testing authorities from Britain had been threatened by members of Russia's Federal Security Service and that many athletes - a significant number of them track and field competitors - had evaded drug tests with the help of sports officials as recently as this month.

Whistle-blowers have provided further details on the clandestine doping scheme the report described. Fearing for their safety, at least three of them have fled to the United States.

In Los Angeles, Grigory Rodchenkov, Russia's former antidoping lab director, told The New York Times that he had worked for years at the direction of the Russian government to ensure the country's dominance in international competition.

He said he had provided a three-drug cocktail of steroids and liquor to sports officials, who in turn provided those drugs to the country's top athletes. According to Dr. Rodchenkov, Russian athletes took that cocktail to prepare for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. They stopped taking the drugs one or two weeks before they were scheduled to be tested, he said, to avoid being caught.

"If you're fighting doping, Russia should be withdrawn from the Olympics," Dr. Rodchenkov said in Los Angeles last month. "Doping is everywhere. Many people in Russia don't want to tell the truth. Lies and fear are absolute."

Russian authorities have vehemently disputed Dr. Rodchenkov's account, calling it the "slander of a turncoat."

In a phone interview Friday, Dmitri Svishchev, head of the State Duma's committee on sports, culture and youth affairs of Russia, called the decision "an injustice," adding, "Russia has never denied that it has problems with doping, just as any other country."

In general, nations have been barred from the Olympics because of geopolitical considerations, not doping. After both world wars, losing nations were kept out of the next Games. South Africa was barred from 1964 to 1988 because of its policies of apartheid. Yugoslavia was prevented from entering team events in 1992 because of United Nations penalties over the war in the Balkans.

It is unclear whether the I.O.C. can or will overturn the I.A.A.F.'s ban when it meets on Tuesday. The I.O.C.'s president, Thomas Bach, has emphasized in recent weeks "the difficult decision between collective responsibility and individual justice," suggesting sympathy for Russian athletes with clean histories who are seeking to make it to Rio.

Still, Mr. Bach has also emphasized a "zero-tolerance" policy and said that if other Russian sports organizations were proved to be ridden with state-sponsored cheating, they, too, could be kept from the Olympics.

Katie Uhlaender, a skeleton racer from the United States, said it was difficult to react to Friday's decision because the I.O.C. had yet to respond.

"If there are Russian athletes that can prove beyond reasonable doubt that they're clean, let them compete," she said. "But I literally started crying at the details of the Sochi scandal," she said, referring to Dr. Rodchenkov's account of having substituted out Russian athletes' incriminating urine.

"What does it even mean to ban Russia?" she said. "Is sending them to their room or putting them in a timeout going to solve the problem?"

Ivan Nechepurenko contributed reporting from Moscow.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Russia Barred From Track in Rio Games. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Russia's Track and Field Team Barred From Rio Olympics

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Russia's track and field team is barred from competing in the Olympic Games this summer because of a far-reaching doping conspiracy, an extraordinary punishment without precedent in Olympics history. The International Association of Athletics Federations, the governing body for track and field, announced the decision Friday, ruling in a unanimous vote that Russia had not done enough to restore global confidence in the integrity of its athletes.

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http://sps.northwestern.edu/main/news-stories/why-do-athletes-risk-using-peds.php
This article is about the reasons athletes use steroids. This article was mainly focused on reasons they dope in the NFL.

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In this a reporter asks Ramon Scruggs questions about steroids and why he prescribed them. Ramon Scruggs is a doctor who was charged last year for illegally prescribing performance-enhancing drugs to his patients, including major league baseball players.

(Madi Skinner)

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Q: What's the status of your case?

A: America is a settlement system. To not settle anything, you need the right kind of lawyer and lots of money. I have a very good lawyer, but I don't have enough money and my lawyer is working out a plea agreement with the government.

A: I had arrogance about what I did and I thought it was important and thought I was a good physician and I was lax with some patients. There is not a pattern of that, but there were a few patients of the couple of thousand that I was lax with.

I am not trying to wiggle out of this, but any physician that practices 15 to 20 years does things wrong. We had pressures from patients, and sometimes we gave in when we shouldn't, and I can plead guilty.

I don't have any emotional reserve left. I have been fighting this for 10 years. It has destroyed myself, my life and my family. If I was smart I would be on a beach in Manawatu. That's a trendy beach place where you can hide your money.

But look at the record, I have never harmed anyone.

Q: Although you are pleading, you still believe steroids are helpful drugs?

A: They are probably the most beneficial thing in the physicians' desk reference for aches and pains. It's better than getting addicted to OxyContin. There's even some research that some of them increase cartilage growth.

Q: Are you going to cooperate with the prosecutors as part of your plea?

A: I don't know any dealers, or any baseball agents.

Q: Are you going to continue to practice medicine?

A: I will never practice again; it would be like being a sitting duck in a shooting gallery. They would still go after me. If I get my license back, I will retire it honorably, but I will never practice in America.

I have a chance to re-create myself again. I want to go back to some old talents; I have a few years in broadcast journalism. I would love to have a radio show, maybe start a podcast.

Q: Do you use steroids or human growth hormone?

A: I am on hormone replacement therapy, and I don't self-prescribe. Growth hormone is expensive and not a good bang for the buck. It is not very predictable.

If people want to experiment with growth hormone to increase their well-being, I have no problem with it. My experience has been that it doesn't have a big wow factor. I have seen a few people's gray hair has turned normal, but it's unpredictable.

Q: How many baseball players were you seeing?

A: Baseball players were only a small part. There may have been others than the five, but I don't remember over 15 years. I helped people who had legitimate needs.

The investigation was dead until the baseball steroids scandal kicked up. They hadn't looked any deeper than the surface.

Q: What about other athletes?

A: Nothing in football or hockey that I am aware of.

Q: Prosecutors allege you didn't see many of your patients. Did you see them?

A: That may seem terrible, but that's how it is. I have caught things in hours with people on the phone that other doctors wouldn't catch.

Some patients are important to see. I am not going to treat a diabetes patient from 2,000 miles or arthritis by telephone. I need to see someone with that.

A: Four of the five baseball players that you treated said they had significant side effects because of their steroid use. Scott Schoeneweis said that he had an infection on his leg because of an injection. Jorge Piedra said that he had an elevated level of cholesterol. Ismael Valdez said he had nipple pain. Greene said that he had fertility problems. That seems pretty significant.

A: That's very rare. I am surprised at how rare it is. Injection-site infections are not common if you wash your butt. At this point, my memory is Swiss cheese, so I don't know.

I am saying there are some side effects of steroids, but most are minor or can be treated. In the end, they are the safest drugs. Testosterone causes low sperm count because it shuts down your natural production. Who has died from anabolic steroid use? Ten thousand people die a year from aspirin.

Q: Children have died from using steroids, like Taylor Hooton, who committed suicide because he experienced significant depression - a side effect of steroid use.

A: I have no experience with that. You are making a big leap. You can be depressed and use steroids, and that doesn't mean you died from using steroids. If we had 3,000 children in America taking steroids and committing suicide I can see that, but one? My heart goes out to their family, I know they want to put a cause on this.

Q: Do you think you will have to go to prison?

A: I have been prepared for it for a very long time. This is one thing I talked to God about in 2006. He told me he didn't think it was going to happen. Talking to God is a funny thing. I couldn't tell during this conversation if it was me talking to me or me talking to the entity. It was such a startling conversation I have to believe it was me talking to him.

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Questions and Answers With Ramon Scruggs

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Q: What's the status of your case? A: America is a settlement system. To not settle anything, you need the right kind of lawyer and lots of money. I have a very good lawyer, but I don't have enough money and my lawyer is working out a plea agreement with the government.

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To excel in athletic competition is admirable. Most high school, college, amateur and professional athletes participate in sports for the opportunity to pit their abilities against those of their peers, and to experience the satisfaction that comes from playing to their potential.

Others do so to satisfy a desire for recognition and fame. Unfortunately, that creates some atheletes who are determined to win at any cost. And, they may use that determination to justify the use of anabolic steroids, despite evidence that these drugs can inflict irreversible physical harm and have significant side effects.

Anabolic steroids, commonly called "roids," juice, hype or pump, are powerful prescription drugs. They are controlled substances that people abuse in high doses to boost their athletic performance. Anabolic steroids are not the same as steroid medications, such as prednisone or hydrocortisone, that are legitimately used to treat asthma and inflammation of the skin or other parts of the body. Anabolic means body building tissue. Anabolic steroids help build muscle tissue and increase body mass by acting like the body's natural male hormone, testosterone. However, steroids cannot improve an athlete's agility or skill. Many factors determine athletic ability, including genetics, body size, age, sex, diet and how hard the athlete trains.

Anabolic steroids are a chemical derivative of testosterone, the "male sex hormone." Properly used, anabolic steroids can aid in the treatment of blood disorders, connective tissue disease, some cancers, intractable arthritis, some sexual dysfunctions and other serious illnesses. But, because of their potentially serious side effects, they must be prescribed and used only under close medical supervision. Under both federal and New York State Law, anabolic steroids may only be prescribed by an authorized prescriber after a face-to-face examination of a patient.

The number of athletes who abuse anabolic steroids is unknown. Many athletic associations ban their use, including the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Olympics, so few athletes are willing to admit that they use these drugs. The NFL tests its athletes for illicit use. Players who test positive face suspension and, upon testing positive a second time, are expelled from the League. MLB players are tested once a year, and if they test positive they can be suspended for up to ten days. If a player tests positive after the first test, they can be suspended without pay for up to one year. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Sports Medicine condemn the use of anabolic steroids for enhancement of sports performance or body building.

Why Some Athletes Abuse Anabolic Steroids

Believing that anabolic steroids can improve competitiveness and performance, uninformed or misguided athletes, sometimes encouraged by coaches or parents, abuse these drugs to build lean muscle mass, promote aggressiveness, and increase body weight.

Some athletes frequently take two or more anabolic steroids together, mixing oral and/or injectable types, and sometimes adding other drugs, such as stimulants, painkillers, or growth hormones. This is called "stacking." The athlete believes that different drugs will produce greater strength or muscle size than by using just one drug. What they don't know, or choose to ignore, is the damage to the body that abuse of these drugs can cause.

Supplements

Over the counter dietary supplements, such as creatine, should be used with caution. Manufacturers claim they can build muscles and improve strength without the side effects of steroids. Taken in small doses, nutritional supplements may not be harmful. Before taking any over-the-counter nutritional supplements or adding them to your regimen, talk with your doctor. When taken in large doses and combined with alcohol or aspirin, or when combined with stimulents such as caffeine or ephedrine, nutritional supplements may become dangerous.

Creatine can cause short-term cramping and diarrhea. While less is known about long-term use, creatine has been linked to muscle injury and kidney problems.

Creatine and other dietary supplements are gaining popularity. Manufacturers claim they can build muscles, and improve strength and stamina, without the side effects of steroids. Dietary supplements are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and are not held to the same strict standards as drugs. If abused, they can have harmful effects. Creatine and certain other dietary supplements are banned by the NFL, NCAA and the Olympics. New York State law bans the sale of dietary supplements containing the stimulent ephedra.

The Dangers of Anabolic Steroid Abuse

When improperly used, anabolic steroids can cause serious health problems such as high blood pressure and heart disease; liver damage and cancers; and, stroke and blood clots. Other side effects of steroids include: nausea and vomiting, increased risk of ligament and tendon injuries, headaches, aching joints, muscle cramps, diarrhea, sleep problems and severe acne.

While the total impact of anabolic steroid abuse is not known, health care providers have observed the following problems:

Blood

Development of cholesterol patterns associated with coronary heart disease, obstructed blood vessels, or stroke

Heart

Increased cholesterol

Increased blood pressure

Liver

Impaired liver function

Peliosis hepatitis (blood-filled cysts that can rupture and cause liver failure)

Tumors

Skeleton

Stunted growth, caused by premature closing of cartilage-like growth plates in adolescents

Increased reate of muscle strains/ruptures

Skin

Appearance of, or increasing acne and other skin rashes or ailments

Male pattern baldness

Edema (water retention/swelling)

Striae (stretch marks)

Immune System

Hep B or Hep C, HIV infection (if needles are shared)

Psychological

Mood swings

Aggressive, even violent behavior

Depression

Psychotic episodes

Addiction

Because anabolic steroids are derived from testosterone, they can have profound effects on the hormone levels of both male and female abusers.

These effects can cause any or all of the following problems in men:

Temporary infertility or sterility (reversible)

Altered sex drive

Prostate enlargement, and increased prostate cancer risk

Irreversible breast enlargement

Painful erections

Shrinkage of the testicles

Reduced levels of testosterone

Abnormal sperm production

Increased levels of estrogen

Health care providers have reported the following problems in women:

Increased risk of cervical and endometrial cancer

Increased risk of osteoporosis

Temporary infertility or sterility (reversible)

Altered sex drive

Birth defects in future children

Changes in fat distribution

Growth of facial and body hair

Deepening of the voice

Shrinkage of the breasts and uterus

Clitoral enlargement

Menstrual irregularity

Changes in the male reproductive system are often reversible, if anabolic steroids have not been abused for a long period of time. Unfortunately, some of the changes in women are NOT reversible.

Prolonged abuse of anabolic steroids very often results in physical addiction. Abusers must undergo a strict, medically-supervised withdrawal program.

HIV/AIDS Risk

Sometimes, athletes who use anabolic steroids may share the needles, syringes or other equipment they use to inject these drugs. By sharing needles, syringes or other equipment, a person becomes a high risk for HIV transmission. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS.

If a person shares needles, syringes and other equipment to inject steroids into the vein (IV), in the muscles or under the skin, small amounts of blood from the person infected with HIV may be injected into the bloodstream of the next person to use the equipment.

HIV attacks the body's defense system, making the body less able to fight off infections and cancers. There's no vaccine or cure for HIV or AIDS. People who may have been exposed to HIV should be tested. If they find out they have the virus, they can start treatment early.

You can't tell just be looking at someone if he or she has HIV. And, since someone can be infected with HIV for many years without having any symptoms, some people may not know they have HIV. Anyone who has ever shared a needle to shoot any drugs -- even once -- could become infected with HIV and should be tested.

For more information about HIV/AIDS and HIV testing, call the New York State Health Department's AIDS hotline:

English 1-800-541-AIDS
Spanish 1-800-233-SIDA
TDD (deaf) 1-800-369-AIDS

To receive free copies of HIV/AIDS brochures and booklets, write to:

New York State Health Department
Box 2000
Albany, New York 12220

Ending the Abuse of Anabolic Steroids

There are many ways to increase your strength and improve your appearance. If you are serious about your sport and health, keep the following tips in mind:

Train safely, without using drugs.

Eat a healthy diet.

Get plenty of rest.

Set realistic goals and be proud of yourself when you reach them.

Seek out training supervision, coaching and advice from a reliable professional.

Avoid injuries by playing safely and using protective gear.

Talk to your health care provider about nutrition, your health, preventing injury and safe ways to gain strength.

The abuse of anabolic steroids by high school, college and other amateur athletes is a dangerous practice. Participants in amateur sports must be made aware of the physical and emotional dangers associated with steroid abuse. The "win at any cost " attitude embraced by some athletes must be redirected and replaced by personal dedication to the sport; a thorough knowledge of the sport's physical demands and requirements; maintenance of a healthy lifestyle; and, an appreciation of the satisfaction that comes from participation.
For more information, go to www.nyhealth.gov
1210 03/08

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Anabolic Steroids and Sports: Winning at any Cost

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This article tells you what happens when someone wants to test an athlete for doping and how they can defend themselves. This also has some the Amendments of the Doping Agency. It also has the team sports Regulations and what they do if one is caught doping.

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Drug use by athletes has been a controversial issue for many years. Athletes often use artificial stimulants to give them a physical and mental advantage over their opponents. The use of performance- enhancing drugs can be traced to the ancient Olympic Games where fame and fortune were rewarded, just as today, for athletic success. Drug testing of athletes is becoming common in all sports to one degree or the other. This raises constitutional issues including the right to privacy and due process protections from illegal searches and seizures, particularly since testing involves an analysis of a sample from urine or blood. Performance-enhancing drugs are substances athletes inject or consume to increase the human body's ability to perform during training sessions and sports contests. This includes common, over-the-counter muscle-building supplements, recovery products, and endurance-enhancing blood doping. Performance-enhancing drugs might be consumed orally or via needle injection.

When the government or a governmental entity such as a public school or public college desires to test a student-athlete for drugs, this constitutes state action. There is no state action for private sports leagues, and therefore the fourth, fifth, and fourteenth Amendment issues are generally not applicable in such context unless such testing is established by contract. Federal laws that regulate drug use and distribution include the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 1990. Steroids are artificial and synthetic forms of hormones, such as testosterone, that improve muscle building, growth, and repair. Since the government (state) desires to invade the privacy of athletes by testing their urine or blood for drugs, athletes have constitutional safeguards that allow a challenge to such a test on the grounds of its constitutionality. Numerous challenges to such policies have failed, and recently courts have given support to the use of mandatory, suspicion- less testing. Still, private organizations have their own testing policies that usually require consent to such policies (including appeals) as a condition for participating in that league.[1]
Fourth Amendment
Any time a governmental agency tests an athlete for drugs, it must comply with the Fourth Amendment, which states:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons things to be seized.
While many athletes now understand that being tested is a necessary part of the nature of competition, numerous cases have reached the courts to determine whether or not an individual athlete has a legitimate expectation of privacy when it comes to drug testing.[2]

In a decision involving Oklahoma high school's drug testing policy, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Vernonia School District v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646 (1995) that high school athletes have a lower expectation of privacy than the public in general, and that mandating testing policies nationwide are valid as a condition for participating in high school sports. Additionally, though there may not be probable cause per se in testing high school athletes, the Supreme Court affirmed that public school districts do have special needs. The Court held that random drug testing was valid since such programs serve a compelling interest in public systems to deter the use of drugs.
Fifth Amendment
Another constitutional consideration for drug testing of athletes is the Fifth Amendment, which provides:
No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
An athlete should be granted a process for a hearing and appealing a positive drug test result. The right to go to school or participate in athletics is a property right.[3]
NCAA Regulation
Intercollegiate athletes must sign a consent form in order to play college sports under the National Collegiate Athletic Association's policies. The NCAA established its own drug testing program in 1986 and comprehensively tests for both illegal street drugs and performance-enhancing drugs. Whether the NCAA is a state actor [4] is subject to debate, though the answer seems to be that it is not and therefore is characterized as a private actor.[5]
Professional Sports
Major professional sports in the United States coordinate their own drug testing and use policies through collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) or consent from the professional athletes from their individual professional contract. The major aim of professional sports and drug testing appears to be treatment for the offender rather than punishment. Such a policy is much different than the Olympic Games where punishment and future deterrence appears to be the primary concern. [6]

One of the major concerns with drug testing in professional sports is that there is no uniform standard that applies to the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB. Each has different testing for a variety of drugs and punishments and treatment are different in each league. Additionally, there is confusion as to what drugs should be banned since the spectators themselves could legally purchase certain performance-enhancing training supplements at the local supermarket while the athletes could be punished for using the same supplements. Drug testing issues in professional sports center on contract and consent issues rather than constitutional issues.[7]
National Football League
The National Football League prohibits the illegal use of drugs and the abuse of prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs, and alcohol. This applies to all players who have not yet retired from the league. However, the NFL's collective bargaining agreement sets the sole and exclusive means of testing for drugs and treating those players who have positive results. The National Football League's program is called the Intervention Program and purportedly establishes the appropriate levels of discipline. However, NFL players are only tested for cocaine, marijuana, amphetamines, morphine, codeine, and PCP. All players are tested in April and August, during the preseason.[8]
The Olympic Games
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has taken a more proactive stance on the prevention of the use of performance-enhancing drugs than any other organization in the world. In 1968 the IOC established the first testing of 40 International Olympic Committee athletes in Grenoble, France's Winter Olympic Games. One of the more famous cases involving an Olympic athlete was the use of illegal steroids by Canadian track star Ben Johnson in 1988 during the Seoul, Korea, Games. The Olympic Movement has set the standard for both competition drug testing and out of competition testing. However, enforcement is often the sole responsibility of each country's national Olympic committee (NOC) and the particular national governing body (NGB) for that particular Olympic sport.[9]
International Olympic Committee Policies
While many top U.S. Olympic caliber athletes have been drug tested throughout their careers, few have truly understood the drug testing process. The ever-changing rules and regulations, as well as the increase in number of doping control programs, while appearing to assist in the fight against doping in sport, have proven to be confusing and sometimes inconsistent. Many organizations cannot interpret their own rules, nor do they fully understand the jurisdictional issues that arise with respect to every sample taken until they are caught in a crisis.[10]

The collection process of drug testing includes dividing a urine sample into two (2) containers, respectively known as the "A" sample and the "B" sample. The "A" sample is always analyzed first. The "B" sample is only analyzed in the event the "A" sample reveals the presence of a prohibited substance.

Drug testing of athletes is becoming common in all sports to one degree or the other. This raises constitutional issues including the right to privacy and due process protections from illegal searches and seizures, particularly since testing involves an analysis of a sample from urine or blood. Performance-enhancing drugs are substances athletes inject or consume to increase the human body's ability to perform during training sessions and sports contests. This includes common, over-the-counter muscle-building supplements, recovery products, and endurance-enhancing blood doping. Performance-enhancing drugs might be consumed orally or via needle injection.

Each sport within the Olympic Movement has a national federation, which is responsible for coordinating the activity for that particular sport in the country. In the United States these federations are known as national governing bodies (NGB). The USOC has set forth a "due process" checklist and each NGB is required to comply with this list. It includes:

notice of the specific charges,

reasonable time between the receipt of notice of charges and the hearing,

the right to have the hearing conducted at a convenient time and place,

the right to be assisted in the presentation of one's case at the hearing before a disinterested and impartial body of fact finders,

the right to call witnesses and present both written and oral evidence,

the right to cross-examine, the right to a record of the hearing,

the right to a written decision, and

the right to written notice of appeal procedures.[11]

When the government or a governmental entity such as a public school or public college desires to test a student-athlete for drugs, this constitutes state action. There is no state action for private sports leagues, and therefore the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment issues are generally not applicable in such context unless such testing is established by contract. Federal laws that regulate drug use and distribution include the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 1990. Steroids are artificial and synthetic forms of hormones, such as testosterone, that improve muscle building, growth, and repair. Since the government (state) desires to invade the privacy of athletes by testing their urine or blood for drugs, athletes have constitutional safeguards that allow a challenge to such a test on the grounds of its constitutionality. Numerous challenges to such policies have failed, and recently courts have given support to the use of mandatory, suspicion- less testing. Still, private organizations have their own testing policies that usually require consent to such policies (including appeals) as a condition for participating in that league.

[1] Sports Law at p. 164 by Adam Epstein, Delmar Leaning (2003)

[4] The term state actor is used in United States civil rights law to describe a person who is acting on behalf of a governmental body, and is therefore subject to regulation under the United States bill of rights including the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, which prohibit the federal and state governments from violating certain rights and freedoms

[5] Sports Law at p. 179 by Adam Epstein, Delmar Leaning (2003)

[7] Id. at pp. 179-180

[10] A Journey Through Olympic Drug Testing Rules: A Practitioner's Guide to Understanding Drug Testing Within the Olympic Movement, submitted by: Jill Pilgrim and Kim Betz, The Sport Journal, United States Sports Academy, http://www.thesportjournal.org/article/journey-through-olympic-drug-testing-rules-practitioners-guide-understanding-drug-testing-wi

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Drug use by athletes has been a controversial issue for many years. Athletes often use artificial stimulants to give them a physical and mental advantage over their opponents. The use of performance- enhancing drugs can be traced to the ancient Olympic Games where fame and fortune were rewarded, just as today, for athletic success.

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Michaela Mannel The Economics ofCorruption in Sports: The Special Case of Doping 

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Michaela Mannel The Economics ofCorruption in Sports: The Special Case of Doping 

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http://ethics.harvard.edu/blog/economics-corruption-sports-special-case-doping This article is about corruption in professional sports. It listed the methods and ways sports can be corrupt, doping, bribing officials, and fixing a game. It also lists the negative effects of doping, like bad health, cheating the sport, and facing consequences when found out.

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http://jse.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/05/28/1527002515587441.abstract This article is short but it talks about the statistics regarding fan attendance at basketball home games after a player was suspended for doping.
(Taylor Wilmot)

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This website has an article on why performance enhancing drugs should be allowed.

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The legalisation of drugs in sport may be fairer and safer

In 490 BC, the Persian Army landed on the plain of Marathon, 25 miles from Athens. The Athenians sent a messenger named Feidipides to Sparta to ask for help. He ran the 150 miles in two days. The Spartans were late. The Athenians attacked and, although outnumbered five to one, were victorious. Feidipides was sent to run back to Athens to report victory. On arrival, he screamed "We won" and dropped dead from exhaustion.

The marathon was run in the first modern Olympics in 1896, and in many ways the athletic ideal of modern athletes is inspired by the myth of the marathon. Their ideal is superhuman performance, at any cost.

DRUGS IN SPORT

Using drugs to cheat in sport is not new, but it is becoming more effective. In 1976, the East German swimming team won 11 out of 13 Olympic events, and later sued the government for giving them anabolic steroids. Yet despite the health risks, and despite the regulating bodies' attempts to eliminate drugs from sport, the use of illegal substances is widely known to be rife. It hardly raises an eyebrow now when some famous athlete fails a dope test.

In 1992, Vicky Rabinowicz interviewed small groups of athletes. She found that Olympic athletes, in general, believed that most successful athletes were using banned substances.

Much of the writing on the use of drugs in sport is focused on this kind of anecdotal evidence. There is very little rigorous, objective evidence because the athletes are doing something that is taboo, illegal, and sometimes highly dangerous. The anecdotal picture tells us that our attempts to eliminate drugs from sport have failed. In the absence of good evidence, we need an analytical argument to determine what we should do.

CONDEMNED TO CHEATING?

We are far from the days of amateur sporting competition. Elite athletes can earn tens of millions of dollars every year in prize money alone, and millions more in sponsorships and endorsements. The lure of success is great. But the penalties for cheating are small. A six month or one year ban from competition is a small penalty to pay for further years of multimillion dollar success.

The enormous rewards for the winner, the effectiveness of the drugs, and the low rate of testing all combine to create a cheating "game" that is irresistible to athletes. Kjetil Haugen investigated the suggestion that athletes face a kind of prisoner's dilemma regarding drugs. His game theoretic model shows that, unless the likelihood of athletes being caught doping was raised to unrealistically high levels, or the payoffs for winning were reduced to unrealistically low levels, athletes could all be predicted to cheat. The current situation for athletes ensures that this is likely, even though they are worse off as a whole if everyone takes drugs, than if nobody takes drugs.

Drugs such as erythropoietin (EPO) and growth hormone are natural chemicals in the body. As technology advances, drugs have become harder to detect because they mimic natural processes. In a few years, there will be many undetectable drugs. Haugen's analysis predicts the obvious: that when the risk of being caught is zero, athletes will all choose to cheat.

The goal of "cleaning" up the sport is unattainable. Further down the track the spectre of genetic enhancement looms dark and large.

THE SPIRIT OF SPORT

So is cheating here to stay? Drugs are against the rules. But we define the rules of sport. If we made drugs legal and freely available, there would be no cheating.

Would legal and freely available drugs violate this "spirit"? Would such a permissive rule be good for sport?

Human sport is different from sports involving other animals, such as horse or dog racing. The goal of a horse race is to find the fastest horse. Horses are lined up and flogged. The winner is the one with the best combination of biology, training, and rider. Basically, this is a test of biological potential. This was the old naturalistic Athenian vision of sport: find the strongest, fastest, or most skilled man.

Training aims to bring out this potential. Drugs that improve our natural potential are against the spirit of this model of sport. But this is not the only view of sport. Humans are not horses or dogs. We make choices and exercise our own judgment. We choose what kind of training to use and how to run our race. We can display courage, determination, and wisdom. We are not flogged by a jockey on our back but drive ourselves. It is this judgment that competitors exercise when they choose diet, training, and whether to take drugs. We can choose what kind of competitor to be, not just through training, but through biological manipulation. Human sport is different from animal sport because it is creative. Far from being against the spirit of sport, biological manipulation embodies the human spirit-the capacity to improve ourselves on the basis of reason and judgment. When we exercise our reason, we do what only humans do.

The result will be that the winner is not the person who was born with the best genetic potential to be strongest. Sport would be less of a genetic lottery. The winner will be the person with a combination of the genetic potential, training, psychology, and judgment. Olympic performance would be the result of human creativity and choice, not a very expensive horse race.

Classical musicians commonly use β blockers to control their stage fright. These drugs lower heart rate and blood pressure, reducing the physical effects of stress, and it has been shown that the quality of a musical performance is improved if the musician takes these drugs. Although elite classical music is arguably as competitive as elite sport, and the rewards are similar, there is no stigma attached to the use of these drugs. We do not think less of the violinist or pianist who uses them. If the audience judges the performance to be improved with drugs, then the drugs are enabling the musician to express him or herself more effectively. The competition between elite musicians has rules-you cannot mime the violin to a backing CD. But there is no rule against the use of chemical enhancements.

"You go to see Michael Jordan play for the same reason you went to see Astaire dance, Olivier act or the sun set over Canada. It's art. It should be painted, not photographed.It's not a game, it's a recital. He's not just a player, he's a virtuoso. Heifetz with a violin. Horowitz at the piano."

Indeed, it seems reasonable to suggest that the reasons we appreciate sport at its elite level have something to do with competition, but also a great deal to do with the appreciation of an extraordinary performance.

Clearly the application of this kind of creativity is limited by the rules of the sport. Riding a motorbike would not be a "creative" solution to winning the Tour de France, and there are good reasons for proscribing this in the rules. If motorbikes were allowed, it would still be a good sport, but it would no longer be a bicycle race.

We should not think that allowing cyclists to take EPO would turn the Tour de France into some kind of "drug race", any more than the various training methods available turn it into a "training race" or a "money race". Athletes train in different, creative ways, but ultimately they still ride similar bikes, on the same course. The skill of negotiating the steep winding descent will always be there.

UNFAIR?

People do well at sport as a result of the genetic lottery that happened to deal them a winning hand. Genetic tests are available to identify those with the greatest potential. If you have one version of the ACE gene, you will be better at long distance events. If you have another, you will be better at short distance events. Black Africans do better at short distance events because of biologically superior muscle type and bone structure. Sport discriminates against the genetically unfit. Sport is the province of the genetic elite (or freak).

The starkest example is the Finnish skier Eero Maentyranta. In 1964, he won three gold medals. Subsequently it was found he had a genetic mutation that meant that he "naturally" had 40-50% more red blood cells than average. Was it fair that he had significant advantage given to him by chance?

The ability to perform well in sporting events is determined by the ability to deliver oxygen to muscles. Oxygen is carried by red blood cells. The more red blood cells, the more oxygen you can carry. This in turn controls an athlete's performance in aerobic exercise. EPO is a natural hormone that stimulates red blood cell production, raising the packed cell volume (PCV)-the percentage of the blood comprised of red blood cells. EPO is produced in response to anaemia, haemorrhage, pregnancy, or living at altitude. Athletes began injecting recombinant human EPO in the 1970s, and it was officially banned in 1985.

In the early 1990s, after EPO doping gained popularity but before tests for its presence were available, several Dutch cyclists died in their sleep due to inexplicable cardiac arrest. This has been attributed to high levels of EPO doping. The risks from raising an athlete's PCV too high are real and serious.

In addition to trying to detect EPO directly, the International Cycling Union requires athletes to have a PCV no higher than 0.5. But 5% of people naturally have a PCV higher than 0.5. Athletes with a naturally high PCV cannot race unless doctors do a number of tests to show that their PCV is natural. Charles Wegelius was a British rider who was banned and then cleared in 2003. He had had his spleen removed in 1998 after an accident, and as the spleen removes red blood cells, its absence resulted in an increased PCV.

There are other ways to increase the number of red blood cells that are legal. Altitude training can push the PCV to dangerous, even fatal, levels. More recently, hypoxic air machines have been used to simulate altitude training. The body responds by releasing natural EPO and growing more blood cells, so that it can absorb more oxygen with every breath. The Hypoxico promotional material quotes Tim Seaman, a US athlete, who claims that the hypoxic air tent has "given my blood the legal 'boost' that it needs to be competitive at the world level."

There is one way to boost an athlete's number of red blood cells that is completely undetectable: autologous blood doping. In this process, athletes remove some blood, and reinject it after their body has made new blood to replace it. This method was popular before recombinant human EPO became available.

"By allowing everyone to take performance enhancing drugs, we level the playing field."

There is no difference between elevating your blood count by altitude training, by using a hypoxic air machine, or by taking EPO. But the last is illegal. Some competitors have high PCVs and an advantage by luck. Some can afford hypoxic air machines. Is this fair? Nature is not fair. Ian Thorpe has enormous feet which give him an advantage that no other swimmer can get, no matter how much they exercise. Some gymnasts are more flexible, and some basketball players are seven feet tall. By allowing everyone to take performance enhancing drugs, we level the playing field. We remove the effects of genetic inequality. Far from being unfair, allowing performance enhancement promotes equality.

JUST FOR THE RICH?

Paradoxically, permitting drugs in sport could reduce economic discrimination. The cost of a hypoxic air machine and tent is about US$7000. Sending an athlete to a high altitude training location for months may be even more expensive. This arguably puts legal methods for raising an athlete's PCV beyond the reach of poorer athletes. It is the illegal forms that level the playing field in this regard.

One popular form of recombinant human EPO is called Epogen. At the time of writing, the American chain Walgreens offers Epogen for US$86 for 6000 international units (IU). The maintenance dose of EPO is typically 20 IU per kg body weight, once a week. An athlete who weighs 100 kg therefore needs 2000 IU a week, or 8600 IU a month. Epogen costs the athlete about US$122 a month. Even if the Epogen treatment begins four years before an event, it is still cheaper than the hypoxic air machine. There are limits on how much haemoglobin an athlete can produce, however much EPO they inject, so there is a natural cap on the amount of money they can spend on this method.

Meanwhile, in 2000, the cost of an in competition recombinant EPO test was about US$130 per sample. This test is significantly more complex than a simple PCV test, which would not distinguish exogenous or endogenous EPO. If monetary inequalities are a real concern in sport, then the enormous sums required to test every athlete could instead be spent on grants to provide EPO to poorer athletes, and PCV tests to ensure that athletes have not thickened their blood to unsafe levels.

UNSAFE?

Should there be any limits to drugs in sport?

There is one limit: safety. We do not want an Olympics in which people die before, during, or after competition. What matters is health and fitness to compete. Rather than testing for drugs, we should focus more on health and fitness to compete. Forget testing for EPO, monitor the PCV. We need to set a safe level of PCV. In the cycling world, that is 0.5. Anyone with a PCV above that level, whether through the use of drugs, training, or natural mutation, should be prevented from participating on safety grounds. If someone naturally has a PCV of 0.6 and is allowed to compete, then that risk is reasonable and everyone should be allowed to increase their PCV to 0.6. What matters is what is a safe concentration of growth hormone-not whether it is natural or artificial.

We need to take safety more seriously. In the 1960s, East German athletes underwent systematic government sanctioned prescription of anabolic steroids, and were awarded millions of dollars in compensation in 2002. Some of the female athletes had been compelled to change their sex because of the large quantities of testosterone they had been given.

We should permit drugs that are safe, and continue to ban and monitor drugs that are unsafe. There is another argument for this policy based on fairness: provided that a drug is safe, it is unfair to the honest athletes that they have to miss out on an advantage that the cheaters enjoy.

Taking EPO up to the safe level, say 0.5, is not a problem. This allows athletes to correct for natural inequality. There are of course some drugs that are harmful in themselves -for example, anabolic steroids. We should focus on detecting these because they are harmful not because they enhance performance.

Far from harming athletes, paradoxically, such a proposal may protect our athletes. There would be more rigorous and regular evaluation of an athlete's health and fitness to perform. Moreover, the current incentive is to develop undetectable drugs, with little concern for safety. If safe performance enhancement drugs were permitted, there would be greater pressure to develop safe drugs. Drugs would tend to become safer.

This is perhaps best illustrated by the case of American sailor Kevin Hall. Hall lost his testicles to cancer, meaning that he required testosterone injections to remain healthy. As testosterone is an anabolic steroid, he had to prove to four separate governing bodies that he was not using the substance to gain an advantage. Any tests that we do should be sensitive to the health of the athlete; to focus on the substances themselves is dogmatic.

Not only this, but health testing can help to mitigate the dangers inherent in sport.

Sometimes, the treatments for these conditions will raise the performance of an athlete beyond that which they could attain naturally. But safety should come first. If an archer requires β blockers to treat heart disease, we should not be concerned that this will give him or her an advantage over other archers. Or if an anaemic cyclist wants to take EPO, we should be most concerned with the treatment of the anaemia.

If we are serious about safety in sport, we should also be prepared to discuss changes to the rules and equipment involved in sports which are themselves inherently dangerous. Formula One motor racing, once the most deadly of sports, has not seen a driver death in over six years, largely because of radical changes in the safety engineering of the tracks and the cars. Meanwhile, professional boxing remains inherently dangerous; David Rickman died during a bout in March 2004, even though he passed a physical examination the day before.

CHILDREN

Linford Christie, who served a two year drug ban from athletics competition, said that athletics "is so corrupt now I wouldn't want my child doing it". But apart from the moral harms to children in competing in a corrupt sport, should we withhold them from professional sport for medical reasons?

The case where the athletes are too young to be fully autonomous is different for two important reasons. Firstly, children are much less capable of rejecting training methods and treatments that their coach wishes to use. Secondly, we think it is worth protecting the range of future options open to a child.

There is a serious ethical problem with allowing children to make any kind of choice that substantially closes off their options for future lifestyles and career choices. If we do not consider children competent for the purposes of allowing them to make choices that cause them harm, then we should not allow them to decide to direct all of their time to professional gymnastics at age 10. The modifications such a choice can make to a child's upbringing are as serious, and potentially as harmful, as many of the available performance enhancing drugs. Children who enter elite sport miss large parts of the education and socialisation that their peers receive, and are submitted to intense psychological pressure at an age when they are ill equipped to deal with it.

We argue that it is clear that children, who are not empowered to refuse harmful drugs, should not be given them by their coaches or parents. But the same principles that make this point obvious should also make it obvious that these children should not be involved in elite competitive sport in the first place. However, if children are allowed to train as professional athletes, then they should be allowed to take the same drugs, provided that they are no more dangerous than their training is.

Haugen's model showed that one of the biggest problems in fighting drug use was that the size of the rewards for winning could never be overshadowed by the penalties for being caught. With this in mind, we can begin to protect children by banning them from professional sport.

CLIMATE OF CHEATING

If we compare the medical harms of the entire worldwide doping problem, they would have to be much less than the worldwide harms stemming from civilian illicit drug use. And yet, per drug user, the amount of money spent on combating drugs in sport outweighs the amount spent on combating civilian drug use by orders of magnitude.

We can fairly assume that if medical harms and adherence to law were the only reasons we felt compelled to eradicate doping, then the monetary value we placed on cleaning up sport should be the same, per drug user, as the monetary value we place on eradicating recreational drug use. And yet it is not.

Because of this, it should be obvious that it is not medical harms that we think are primarily at stake, but harm to sport as a whole, a purported violation of its spirit. It is a problem for the credibility of elite sport, if everyone is cheating.

If it is this climate of cheating that is our primary concern, then we should aim to draft sporting rules to which athletes are willing to adhere.

PROHIBITION

It is one thing to argue that banning performance enhancing drugs has not been successful, or even that it will never be successful. But it should also be noted that the prohibition of a substance that is already in demand carries its own intrinsic harms.

Even when prohibition leads to a decrease in consumption, it often leads to the creation of a black market to supply the continuing demand, as it did in the Greenland study of alcohol rationing. Black markets supply a product that is by definition unregulated, meaning that the use is unregulated and the safety of the product is questionable.

The direct risks from prohibiting performance enhancing drugs in sport are similar, but probably much more pronounced. Athletes currently administer performance enhancing substances in doses that are commensurate with the amount of performance gain they wish to attain, rather than the dose that can be considered "safe". The athletic elite have near unlimited funds and the goal of near unlimited performance, a framework that results in the use of extremely unsafe doses. If athletes are excluded when their bodies are unsafe for competition, this kind of direct consequence from prohibition would be reduced.

THE PROBLEM OF STRICT LIABILITY

Lord Coe, a dual Olympic champion, has defended the doctrine of "strict liability", as it is currently applied to athletes who use a banned substance:

"...The rule of strict liability-under which athletes have to be solely and legally responsible for what they consume-must remain supreme. We cannot, without blinding reason and cause, move one millimetre from strict liability-if we do, the battle to save sport is lost."

The best reason for adhering to this rule is that, if coaches were made responsible for drugs that they had given to their athletes, then the coach would be banned or fined, and the athlete could still win the event. In this situation, other athletes would still be forced to take drugs in order to be competitive, even though the "cheat" had been caught.

But the doctrine of strict liability makes victims of athletes such as those of the East German swim team, who are competing in good faith but have been forced to take drugs. It also seems dogmatically punitive for athletes like British skier Alain Baxter, who accidentally inhaled a banned stimulant when he used the American version of a Vicks decongestant inhaler, without realising that it differed from the British model.

It seems that strict liability is unfair to athletes, but its absence is equally unfair. Our proposal solves this paradox-when we exclude athletes only on the basis of whether they are healthy enough to compete, the question of responsibility and liability becomes irrelevant. Accidental or unwitting consumption of a risky drug is still risky; the issue of good faith is irrelevant.

ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES

Michael Ashenden proposes that we keep progressive logs of each athlete's PCV and hormone concentrations. Significant deviations from the expected value would require follow up testing. The Italian Cycling Federation decided in 2000 that all juniors would be tested to provide a baseline PCV and given a "Hematologic Passport".

Although this strategy is in many ways preferable to the prohibition of doping, it does nothing to correct the dangers facing an athlete who has an unsafe baseline PCV or testosterone concentration.

TEST FOR HEALTH, NOT DRUGS

The welfare of the athlete must be our primary concern. If a drug does not expose an athlete to excessive risk, we should allow it even if it enhances performance. We have two choices: to vainly try to turn the clock back, or to rethink who we are and what sport is, and to make a new 21st century Olympics. Not a super-Olympics but a more human Olympics. Our crusade against drugs in sport has failed. Rather than fearing drugs in sport, we should embrace them.

In 1998, the president of the International Olympic Committee, Juan-Antonio Samaranch, suggested that athletes be allowed to use non-harmful performance enhancing drugs. This view makes sense only if, by not using drugs, we are assured that athletes are not being harmed.

Performance enhancement is not against the spirit of sport; it is the spirit of sport. To choose to be better is to be human. Athletes should be the given this choice. Their welfare should be paramount. But taking drugs is not necessarily cheating. The legalisation of drugs in sport may be fairer and safer.

The legalisation of drugs in sport may be fairer and safer

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Why we should allow performance enhancing drugs in sport

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The legalisation of drugs in sport may be fairer and safer In 490 BC, the Persian Army landed on the plain of Marathon, 25 miles from Athens. The Athenians sent a messenger named Feidipides to Sparta to ask for help. He ran the 150 miles in two days. The Spartans were late.

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In the discussion part of this article they talk about how doping is bad and not only is it the players fault it is also the coaches fault because they don't try to stop this. They said, " These substances, once only abused by elite athletes, are clearly spreading into our schools and health clubs worldwide. They are being accepted by a whole new generation of young customers who see reports daily in the newspapers of sports icons accused of abusing drugs only to continue playing, breaking records and claiming fortunes." So it is also the media's fault as well in some cases.
(Ben Janusz)

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https://www.wired.com/2012/09/sports-and-doping/ This website is mainly about the good things about doping but I thought they mad a good point when they said "We as spectators push athletes to be the absolute best, and in the process create the culture where doping is needed to reach those heights. It increasingly feels difficult to reconcile the purity of asking athletes to do whatever it takes to win as long as that isn’t going beyond an arbitrary definition of “natural”." Basically this paragraph is saying that fans are putting to much pressure on unrealistic expectations for the athletes. They also talk about how doctors are to blame for not knowing what drugs players are allowed to use.
(Taylor Wilmot)

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Michaela MannelShould Performance Enhancing Drugs (Such as Steroids) Be Accepted in Sports?

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Michaela MannelShould Performance Enhancing Drugs (Such as Steroids) Be Accepted in Sports?

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http://sportsanddrugs.procon.org/ Diese Website hat EINEN absatz daruber, warum einige Leute denken, Doping ist in Ordnung, und andere meinungen und Fakten über sterben negativen Doping auswirkt.

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Inside a Tempting World of Easy Steroids

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Inside a Tempting World of Easy Steroids

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"These players benefited from restoration, not performance enhancement," Scruggs said in a telephone interview. "Steroids don't make someone a good or bad athlete; they make you stronger, but they don't make you a better athlete."
This article is about a couple baseball layers who were on steroids and it tells why they used them. It also has the doctor's side of the story.

(Madi Skinner)

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Even after Major League Baseball and its players union bowed to pressure and started a testing program in 2003, the All-Star third baseman - Troy Glaus of the Anaheim Angels - and the worn-down pitcher - his teammate Scott Schoeneweis - said they continued using steroids. (Steroids had been banned in baseball since 1991, but there was no way to enforce the ban until 2003.)

Glaus said he was "willing to take the risk" because he needed to play, according to a report written by the federal agent who interviewed him. Schoeneweis said he knew when players were tested because he was his team's union representative, according to the report, though Schoeneweis said in an interview last month that the agent misinterpreted him. A basic tenet of effective drug testing is that the element of surprise is essential.

The accounts of Glaus, Schoeneweis, catcher Todd Greene and pitcher Ismael Valdez were written by federal agents who interviewed the players as they gathered evidence in the case of Ramon Scruggs, an anti-aging doctor who was indicted last year on charges that he illegally wrote prescriptions for steroids and human growth hormone to the players, business executives, police officers and others.

A lawyer affiliated with the doctor's case was given much of the evidence by federal prosecutors and allowed a reporter for The New York Times to review the documents on the condition he not be identified.

Glaus, Schoeneweis and Valdez were named in connection with a 2007 investigation into an Internet-based pharmacy as receiving shipments of performance-enhancing drugs; Greene had never been identified as using steroids.

Scruggs, 62, no longer has a medical license and said his lawyer was negotiating a plea agreement. Nevertheless, he is unapologetic about the players' use of steroids.

"These players benefited from restoration, not performance enhancement," Scruggs said in a telephone interview. "Steroids don't make someone a good athlete or a bad athlete; they may make you stronger, but they don't make you a better athlete."

Baseball has toughened its drug-testing program several times since the program started in 2003, and officials point to the low number of positive tests - only three in 2008 - as proof that drug use has been curtailed. In fact, one Scruggs client, a backup outfielder named Jorge Piedra, become the second major league player suspended after baseball imposed suspensions for first-time offenders in 2005.

Still, skeptics wonder whether players have found new ways to cheat - suspicions fueled by revelations like Alex Rodriguez's admission in February that he used steroids from 2001 to 2003.
An Injury for Glaus
It was in 2003 that Glaus, a four-time All-Star and the most valuable player of the 2002 World Series, went on the disabled list for the first time in his career. He injured his right shoulder while trying to field a bunt in July and a month later received a diagnosis of a partly torn rotator cuff and fraying labrum. He missed the rest of the season.

Frustrated with his rehabilitation, Glaus contacted Scruggs, whose only request was for a blood sample to see whether Glaus's testosterone levels were low enough to warrant a prescription for steroids. Medical files seized from Scruggs's office show the steroids were sent before Scruggs reviewed Glaus's blood test.

Asked by the investigators whether he was concerned that Scruggs did not ask to see him, Glaus was quoted in the report as saying: "I just wanted to get better, it didn't alarm me. I just wanted to get better and play."

In a phone interview, Scruggs acknowledged he often dealt with patients via telephone: "That may seem terrible, but that's how it is. I have caught things in hours with people on the phone that other doctors wouldn't catch."

It was also through phone calls that Scruggs taught Glaus how to inject himself, according to the investigators' report.

Starting in November 2003 and for the next three months, Glaus injected himself once every four days with the steroids nandrolone and testosterone, the investigators say he told them.

"It worked, and I was getting better," Glaus is quoted saying.

Glaus and Greene testified before a federal grand jury that they were referred to Scruggs by their agents, Mike Nicotera and Gene Casaleggio, according to people with knowledge of the testimony who insisted on anonymity because the information was sealed by a court order.

Nicotera and Casaleggio are the senior partners for the Sparta Group of Parsippany, N.J., and their Web site says they represent roughly two dozen current and former major league players and about the same number of minor leaguers.

Nicotera and Casaleggio did not respond to several telephone and e-mail messages and other attempts to reach them.

Greene, who is now a quality control coach for the Tampa Bay Rays, declined to comment, as did a spokesman for the federal prosecutors in California. Glaus did not respond to a message left with the St. Louis Cardinals.
Union Is Scrutinized
Scruggs began working with Schoeneweis after the 2002 season. Schoeneweis told Scruggs he had little energy after playing exhibition games in Japan following the Angels ' World Series victory. Scruggs prescribed steroids.

Once the testing program began, though, Schoeneweis was concerned about getting in trouble, the investigators wrote.

"Schoeneweis stated that he only used steroids one time during the season, and because he was a player representative, he knew when players got tested," their report says.

The notion that union officials tipped off players to tests in the first two years of the program has been raised several times before, including in the Mitchell report.

Schoeneweis, a 10-year veteran now with the Arizona Diamondbacks, said in an interview during spring training that he was simply stating that all players knew they were going to be tested in 2003. He said he never received advance notice about a test.

"Player reps know the information to tell the rest of the players union, the rest of the body and the league," Schoeneweis said. "We were knowledgeable ahead of time about what the testing program was going to be because we were negotiating it, O.K.? That's it."

Donald Fehr, the executive director of the players union, said in a statement that player representatives had never been told when particular players would be tested.

Greene said that he contacted Scruggs in 2001 because "he felt he was at a critical point in his career and, being married and having two kids, he was concerned that he would not be able to make a living playing baseball," according to a report from an interview authorities conducted with him in 2005.

There was a buzz about Scruggs's name at the Texas Rangers ' spring training facility when Valdez, the pitcher, arrived after signing as a free agent before the 2002 season.

Valdez told the investigators he had pain in his shoulder and knee, and contacted Scruggs, who mailed him syringes filled with steroids.

Valdez told the investigators he already had experience with steroids; he said a doctor with the Angels injected him with testosterone in 2001.

"Valdez said the Anaheim Angels doctor told him that his testosterone levels were low," the federal agents wrote in their report. The report did not specify the doctor who injected Valdez.

Tim Mead, a spokesman for the Angels, said in an e-mail message that team doctors never prescribed or injected players with performance-enhancing drugs.

Marc Carlos, a lawyer for Valdez, said in a phone interview that he would review his notes from Valdez's meeting with authorities and call a reporter back. Afterward, he did not return several telephone messages.

Valdez may indeed have had low levels of testosterone, a condition that afflicts an estimated 1 in 250 men between ages 25 and 35, but low levels of testosterone can also be a symptom of steroid use.

Documents seized from Scruggs's office showed that Valdez was already using a veterinary steroid he had obtained from Mexico when he contacted Scruggs.

Valdez had struggled from 2000 to 2002, compiling a 19-34 record.

After contacting Scruggs, he rebounded in 2003 and 2004, when he went 22-17. In 2005, he was injured and pitched in only 14 games, and he has not pitched in the majors since.
Ups and Downs
Glaus's career also rebounded.

In an MLB.com article published in January 2004, Nicotera, the agent, lauded Glaus's rehabilitation, saying: "In the long run, I think this injury was a blessing in disguise for Troy. He is in the best shape of his life right now."

Nicotera added, "He also got himself a little more educated on nutrition."

Through the first 29 games of the 2004 season, Glaus led the American League with 11 home runs.

But his right shoulder betrayed him again. On May 21, he had surgery to repair his labrum and rotator cuff and turned to Scruggs.

"Glaus said that he said he only had one chance to 'get it right' and continued on the same prescriptions he had previously," the investigative documents say.

"Glaus admitted that he knew it was 'illegal in the game,' but the bottom line was he needed to play and wanted to play baseball," the document says.

Twelve players tested positive that year - the second for the program - but it is not known if Glaus was among them because one-time offenders remained anonymous.

Glaus said he stopped using steroids at the end of August 2004. He returned to the lineup for the final 29 games and hit seven home runs, then he hit two more in the Angels' three-game loss to the Boston Red Sox in the A.L. division series.

That December, he signed the largest contract of his career, a four-year, $45 million deal with the Diamondbacks.

He was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays in 2006 and made the All-Star team again. Before last season, he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals and hit 27 homers with 99 runs batted in.

But his shoulder problem flared and, in January, Glaus again underwent surgery. After a setback during rehabilitation, he is expected to miss the first two months of this season.

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Inquiry Sheds Light on Baseball's World of Steroids

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Even after Major League Baseball and its players union bowed to pressure and started a testing program in 2003, the All-Star third baseman - Troy Glaus of the Anaheim Angels - and the worn-down pitcher - his teammate Scott Schoeneweis - said they continued using steroids.

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Michaela Mannel CNN has an article about pro athletes using performance enhanncing drugs

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Michaela Mannel CNN has an article about pro athletes using performance enhanncing drugs

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http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/06/us/performance-enhancing-drugs-in-sports-fast-facts/ This article explains the science behind steroids and how they help athletes perform, while providing examples of cases of scandals with pro athletes using them.

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MLB covers Manuel Ramirez suspension from the LA Dodgers because of illegal drug use.

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MLB covers Manuel Ramirez suspension from the LA Dodgers because of illegal drug use.

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Manuel Ramirez said that the drug prescribed by his physician was illegal to use by the drug policy that MLB follows. This causes a problem because Ramirez nor his physician looked under the drug policy to see if it was legal. "Manny" Ramirez agreed by stating, " Under the policy that mistake is now my responsibility".

(Bella Moore)

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The Official Site of Major League Baseball