Steroids destroy careers, ethics, balls
Melissa Mary Smith, Jambar Contributor
Issue date: 11/8/07 Section: Campus Life
- < prev Page 2 of 2
For the more serious cases, abusers can experience early heart attack, stroke and kidney failure.
Steroids can also cause psychological problems such as mood swings, increased aggression that might escalate to violence and, in some cases, depression.
As anabolic steroids can be injected (and taken orally), the practice of needle sharing also increases users' risk of contracting HIV and hepatitis.
Anabolic steroids can only legally be prescribed medicinally for developmental and impotency problems and in muscle loss prevention cases for AIDS patients.
While drug testing is effective to a certain extent, Wathen explains that it has become increasingly difficult to detect new performance-enhancing drugs, or lab constructed designer steroids, and human growth hormones because of their ever-changing compositions.
The NCAA updates its drug testing and policies and procedures yearly and has taken a firm no-drug stance for college athletes across the country.
"If your only motivation is winning — winning at all costs — there's not a whole lot you can do for those people in terms of changing their ideas on steroids. If it is to win properly, ethically, morally, then you won't use steroids," Wathen said.
Wathen said he feels steroid use is a sad commentary on both sports and society alike. The only true way to solve the dilemma of steroid abuse in sports is if society as a whole goes back to a more moral and ethical state.
Steroids can also cause psychological problems such as mood swings, increased aggression that might escalate to violence and, in some cases, depression.
As anabolic steroids can be injected (and taken orally), the practice of needle sharing also increases users' risk of contracting HIV and hepatitis.
Anabolic steroids can only legally be prescribed medicinally for developmental and impotency problems and in muscle loss prevention cases for AIDS patients.
While drug testing is effective to a certain extent, Wathen explains that it has become increasingly difficult to detect new performance-enhancing drugs, or lab constructed designer steroids, and human growth hormones because of their ever-changing compositions.
The NCAA updates its drug testing and policies and procedures yearly and has taken a firm no-drug stance for college athletes across the country.
"If your only motivation is winning — winning at all costs — there's not a whole lot you can do for those people in terms of changing their ideas on steroids. If it is to win properly, ethically, morally, then you won't use steroids," Wathen said.
Wathen said he feels steroid use is a sad commentary on both sports and society alike. The only true way to solve the dilemma of steroid abuse in sports is if society as a whole goes back to a more moral and ethical state.
Be the first to comment on this story