Mokma 1 Brianna Mokma Professor Kimberly Ward English 101 16 September 2014 Why We Should Drug Test in Sports Collegiate athletes are the pride of a university. They are provided with the very best a school has to offer. Shouldn’t they in return provide the university with the best they have to offer? Partaking in illegal substances such as performance enhancing drugs, marijuana, and cocaine unlevel the playing field. They alter the athlete’s ability, mentally and physically. Mandatory drug tests would discourage, if not eliminate, athlete’s use of these illegal substances. Many would agree that if they were randomly approached and told to give a urine sample their first reaction would be to say, “No, that is none of your business” or “no, …show more content…
More than that, they are inaccurate because the drug-taker will always be a step or two ahead of the drug-tester. There are too many loopholes to be precise repetitively. New drugs and new masking agents keep appearing on the market (Worsnop). Masking agents are drugs that cover the performance enhancers in a chemical test. Therefore testers are reduced to playing a never-ending game of catch-up. This game of catch up is not cheap either. Every year over 100,000 drug tests are conducted worldwide at a cost of $30 million (Jost). The rewards do not warrant the …show more content…
If football players are required to take a drug test to play, then soccer players should be required to be tested as well. College athletes are adults and should be treated as such. If they want to take illegal drugs or performance enhancers they are already aware of the side effects and consequences. It then becomes their personal decision and is out of the coach’s hands. Norman Fost M.D., Professor of Pediatrics and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, reemphasizes that the player’s safety is their responsibility. While discussing banning drugs in the MLB he replies, “The commissioner says he also is concerned about the health and safety of the athletes. Then why doesn't he propose a lifetime ban for anyone using alcohol or tobacco? They account for 500,000 deaths each year in America, which is about 500,000 more than deaths due to anabolic steroids.” The point he is trying to make here is clear, yes, steroids and other drugs are bad for you, but not as bad as all the other negative habits people have such as smoking. A simple drug test is not going to make people quit; it will just make them