The incredible world of sports that has given so much entertainment, so many memories, and so much to look forward to has recently been dominated by the performance enhancement scandals. Coming out of the midst of all the controversy, the world of sports can now be divided into two distinct categories: the users and the non users. Unfortunately the users have heavily out weighed the non users and it is an irreversible trend. Trying to fix the problem now is like fighting a war that simply cannot be won. With all that has gone on in recent years, the sports world that we know and love will never rid itself of the issue involving performance enhancement drugs and it will only get worse.
Performance enhancing substances have been used since sports became popular. Performance enhancing substances do just that, they enhance performance whether it be using anabolic steroids, human growth hormone, stimulants, or anything else that can give an athlete an unfair advantage.
English: Barry Bonds in action
Thomas Hicks running the marathon at the 1904 Summ...
List of Major League Baseball players suspended fo...One of the first known cases of an athlete using one of these substances was back in 1904 when Thomas Hicks won the gold medal in the St. Louis Olympics after mixing brandy with a drug called strychnine to aid in his victory. After the race he collapsed and nearly died but was revived hours after the collapse. Later in 1967, cyclist Tom Simpson died during the Tour de France after taking amphetamines to boost him during the race which caused the Tour de France to install a doping control policy (Timeline). However, the doping policies adopted by major sports were not enough to prevent the rapid incline of performance enhancing drug use.
The use of these substances has inclined since the popularity of them increased around 1970. From 1986 to 1995, steroid use among young adults...