Risk and enabling environments in sport: Systematic doping as harm reduction PMC
Sporting duloxetine and alcohol Integrity Australia works closely with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), an international agency set up to monitor the code. Players who come forward with their drug problems receive league-funded counseling from the Life Extension Institute, a 24-hour counseling center funded jointly by the NBA and the NBPA. Glorifying “natural” playing in sports only encourages more injuries and, thus, short careers. Sports “ain’t never been clean,” says Charles Yesalis, former Pennsylvania State University professor and long-time performance-enhancing drug researcher.
- While far from aligning with hegemonic ideals of sport and anti-doping, systematic doping has provided a way of protecting athletes from the risks and harms produced by anti-doping within the sports environment.
- There is variable evidence for the performance-enhancing effects and side effects of the various substances that are used for doping.
- As noted above, online doping forums may be seen as a form of user-led, ‘grassroots’ harm reduction communities, although such venues may focus on the maximisation of physical or performance benefits.
- Harm reduction proposals for addressing doping have attempted to do so by advancing suggestions such as medically supervised doping, health checks, and threshold testing (Kayser et al., 2007; Kayser & Tollneer, 2017; Smith & Stewart, 2015).
- Athletes did still suffer harms within these systems, often at the hands of central organising individuals or groups in the forms of bullying, coercion, and extortion.
What is doping?
Taking an approach that understands substance use as socially (and spatially) situated, we can look more broadly at the interplay of physical, social, cultural, economic, and policy factors across levels (micro to macro) to understand how these influence use behaviours. There has been quite a bit of research attention given to risk environments in which social or recreational drug use occurs (see Duff, 2009; 2010; McLean, 2016; Rhodes et al., 2003). This has pushed forward understandings of how the context in which use occurs in many ways influences use behaviours. Rhodes (2002, 2009) saw the goal of understanding risk environments as the production of enabling environments in which harm reduction occurs.
Why are some drugs and substances banned in sports?
With the athletes’ perspectives in mind, marijuana is grouped with amphetamines, anabolic agents, and other PEDs in the graphic below. In Major League Baseball, 47 players have been suspended for using banned substances (including steroids, HGH, testosterone, and amphetamines) since 2005, with penalties ranging from ten-day suspensions to 162 games (or the entire regular season) in the case of famed infielder Alex Rodriguez. Of the 47 suspensions, 12 were for a mere ten days, while 19 were for 50 games; only three were for 100 games or more. In general, the long-term effects of performance-enhancing drugs haven’t been studied enough. Doping with anabolic steroids is banned by most sports leagues and groups.
Using drugs to improve performance in sport may lead to an athlete being banned and may also harm their health. The frequency with which players are tested also varies greatly among professional leagues. In the NFL, all players are tested at least once per year, and the policy allows for targeted testing. Ten players per team are randomly tested each week, which continues during the playoffs for teams in the postseason. Meanwhile, in the NFL, teams vary widely in the amount of drug-related suspensions enforced by the team. By comparison, only 3 games have been missed by Pittsburgh Steelers players due to suspension, while the Indianapolis Colts dwarf that number with 54 games missed.
How are drugs in sport regulated?
The reports on Russia also included evidence that athletes had been extorted by various members of the Russian sport apparatus in exchange for keeping their doping and/or positive anti-doping tests from becoming public (McLaren, 2016b). This article will use secondary literature in order to review and analyse known cases of signs of being roofied systematic doping through the risk and enabling environment frameworks. We begin with a background on doping and anti-doping, risk and enabling environments, and sport risk and enabling environments. We then present a theoretically explorative discussion on the specific anti-doping risk/doping enabling processes and environments, using known cases of systematic doping as illustration.
Products such as morphine and oxycodone are banned but the opiate-derived painkiller codeine is allowed. Since then, there have been numerous further allegations of doping in athletics.
Diuretics and masking agents are used to remove fluid from the body, which can hide other drug use or, in sports such as boxing and horse racing, help competitors „make the weight”. Then there are stimulants, which make athletes more alert and can overcome the effects of fatigue by increasing heart-rate and blood flow. But they are addictive and, in extreme cases, can lead to heart failure. Doping means athletes taking illegal substances to improve their performances.
Kayser & Tolleneer (2017) proposed a step-change approach towards an anti-doping system that would reduce the number of banned substances to only those that present a high risk to health and include health monitoring, but that would retain a testing system to ensure athletes used PEDs only at defined levels. This model goes beyond the others to include several levels of ethical concern (self, other, play, display, humanity) and acknowledges the complex reality of implementing changes to the existing system. These latter models offer specific recommendations for how sports policy may adapt to allow for harm reduction.
An athlete’s passport purports to establish individual baseline hormone/blood levels, which are monitored over time for significant changes. A positive test result would consist of too dramatic a change from the established individual baseline. This approach is intended to protect athletes from false-positive tests resulting from naturally occurring high levels of endogenous substances, while catching those attempting to cheat by using naturally occurring substances. This resulted in a marked increase in the number of doping-related disqualifications in the late 1970s,24 notably in strength-related sports, such as throwing events and weightlifting. In 1998, police found a large number of prohibited substances, including ampoules of erythropoietin, in a raid during the Tour de France.25,26 The scandal led to a major reappraisal of the role of public authorities in anti-doping affairs.
There are health risks involved in taking them and they are banned by sports’ governing bodies. There is a research base demonstrating that many doping agents are in fact performance-enhancing. However, some substances (eg, selective androgen receptor modulators, antiestrogens, and aromatase inhibitors), used in an effort to enhance performance, have little data to back up their effectiveness for such a purpose.
In countries where anabolic steroids are strictly regulated, some have called for regulatory relief. Anabolic steroids are available over-the-counter in some countries such as Thailand and Mexico. Drug abuse in athletes is a significant problem that has many potential underlying causes. The drive to be the best in sport dates to ancient times, as does the use of performance-enhancing substances. With the ever-mounting pressures faced by athletes, it is not surprising that drug abuse by athletes exists across essentially all sports and age groups.
Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents are widely utilized12 in sports and are reasonably safe if used properly. Nevertheless, the potential gastric and renal complications are well-known. Creatine seems to help muscles make more of an energy source called adenosine triphosphate (ATP).
Suspensions related to substance abuse saw a sharp uptick in the NFL beginning in 2012, jumping to 82 suspensions in 2012 from 21 suspensions in 2011. Note that, in the map below, ‘third strikes’ are calculated as 16-game bans. This represents the minimum term for a third offense under the NFL’s old policy, which was replaced in 2014. The substances discussed in this issue probably all have a legitimate role in treating pain in various medical conditions. Even the cannabinoids can be justified in those dealing with terminal, painful conditions.
It’s used for activity that involves quick bursts of movement, such as weightlifting or sprinting. But there’s no proof that creatine helps you do better at sports that make you breathe at a higher rate and raise your heart rate, called aerobic sports. Doping with erythropoietin may raise the risk of serious health problems. Some drugmakers and workout magazines claim that andro products help athletes train harder and recover faster. Learn how prednisone can you drink alcohol these drugs work and how they can have effects on your health. There are two different types of controls that can be conducted in competition or in training.