Performance Enhancing Drugs Essay

Performance enhancing drugs, or PEDs, have been around in professional sports for quite a bit of time. They give athletes a significant advantage in building muscle and muscle mass. People have always debated whether it is wrong, or socially evil, to use these to get that advantage in their sport they play. This topic is important because of how much money goes into professional sports. I believe it is not a social evil because people are just trying to perform at the highest ability they can. However, most people will say it is evil for numerous reasons and I plan on providing a breakdown of many of these reasons and an explanation of how they are each not socially evil. Some examples of these reasons are the relationship between performance

Pantuosco discusses in depth of how performance enhancing drugs relate to salaries of players in the MLB, or Major League Baseball. Pantuosco discusses the issue of gaining an advantage by using performance enhancing drugs and first addresses this from a marginal benefit and marginal costs perspective. Then using career data from the 2005 season, Pantuosco used regression analysis is performed to estimate the effect of steroids on player salaries. The analysis focuses on whether players are encouraged financially to consume performance enhancing drugs. His results revealed “a positive relationship between PEDs and salaries” (Does It Pay to Be Unethical…). While this result is interesting, the interpretation of the performance enhancing drugs' specific impact on salaries is difficult to estimate. In further in his research Pantuosco also determined that “slugging average and performance enhancing drugs were positively correlated, as were PEDs and all-star appearance.” This would make perfect sense because slugging average is based on how many extra base hits you get (doubles, triples, homeruns) and the theory is that the stronger you are the more extra base hits you’ll get. Also, the better your slugging average is the more likely you’ll be in the all-star game. This is notable because a better slugging average and more all-star appearances can lead to a higher salary paid to the player. The money that goes into player salaries in professional sports is one reason people believe that performance enhancing drugs are a social