Sports organizations have, for years, fought to maintain the integrity and fairness of professional sports. While the industry has strived to achieve an ethical and fair playing field, professional athletes have not always abided by these standards and policies. Many athletes have sought to take cheaper routes to conquering triumph, and one of the most common instances of this type of misconduct is through the use of Performance-Enhancement Drugs, better known as PEDs.
PEDs are frequently used to offer physiological boosts that improve athletic performance and physical stamina, giving athletes a competitive advantage over their opponents. Testosterone boosts are one example in which athletes gain an increase of physical strength and endurance. These advantages give players a significant edge in competition, an aspect that negatively affects the integrity of sports. Almost all sports have banned the use of PEDs, acknowledging it as a form of cheating and misconduct. PEDs offer unnatural physical boosts that can unfairly catapult professional players to high levels of success.
While the use of PEDs and violation of ethical sports protocol seems like a morally black-and-white issue, there have been many cases in which doping has been inadvertent. Many supplements and foods contain similar ingredients that are often found in Performance-Enhancement Drugs. The levels of doping intoxication are sometimes slight, with the low usage offering no physical benefits at all. In cases like these, it is significantly apparent that the consumption of a PED is not being used to aid performance but rather taken out of negligence and lack of proper attention to supplemental ingredients.
This sparks a debate that has been the subject of intense discourse within the professional sports industry—should all athletes be held equally accountable for the use of PEDs—or should punishment vary on a case-to-case basis?
Not every case is clear, making it incredibly difficult to determine which instances are incidental and which instances are innocuous. In many sports leagues, a board of officials review cases to determine whether or not the use of drugs was intentional, and athletes await the verdict of these trials to face their potential consequences. Many athletes have fallen victim to accidental drug consumption and have been suspended despite clear evidence showing that the amount of consumption would have offered no real physical advantages or benefits. It is important for these cases to be properly reviewed and examined so that fair consequences are placed on athletes based on contextual factors. As a result, athletes are held accountable for unsportsmanlike behavior while given grace in situations where they make inadvertent mistakes.
