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Matthew Ballaro
Kayla Miller
English 102
December 8, 2014
Steroids and Professional Sports
In contemporary society, anabolic steroids are a topical issue in the world of professional
sports. Steroids in general have had a negative affect on human health for as long as they’ve
been around. Steroids can lead to risks of death such as heart attacks, strokes and liver cancer.
With this in mind, some athletes are abusing it, using it to their advantage, harming themselves
and not getting the proper punishment for their actions. In general, athletes caught using steroids
are only getting suspensions from the league of association they play for. As dangerous as
steroids are to a person’s health, let alone an athlete’s health, these players should be getting
banned for life. Having a competitive edge is cheating and not fair to the athletes who aren’t
abusing anabolic steroids (Anabolic Steroids and Sports, 2008).
Steroids, in general, are becoming more and more of an issue because of how bad they
are for the athlete and the image they are painting on the athlete. Even though steroids give the
athlete the competitive edge, being caught using steroids only makes them look worse in the long
run. Honestly, this is a problem, especially for younger people that look up to athletes like this.
This is why these athletes need a more proper punishment. It is disturbing to think about
younger people looking up to an athlete who abuses drugs such as anabolic steroids. For now
though, it is not as big of a problem as it could be. In order for this to stop growing, athletes
should be permanently banned from the sport they play. This seems to be the only solution to
solving the issue at hand (Djerassi, 1990).
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Of course, it can be argued that steroids could have a positive affect on an athlete. Ac-
cording to doctors, steroids help muscles heal. Doctors also say that it is very difficult to track
the affects of steroids on an individual. In reality though, steroids in relation to this arguments
are causing a negative affect on both the athletes and the people around them (Hartgens, 2013).
Anabolic steroid use has been used most commonly in Major League Baseball players.
According to George F. Will, he believes that steroids should not be banned in baseball. He be-
lieves that even though anabolic steroid use is unfair to the sport, it still shouldn’t be banned
from baseball completely. He continues to say that players should agree to taking stricter tests to
