Why Care About Steroids?

On one level, I'm aghast at the whole steroid situation in professional sports. It's cheating, it's warping the fairness of the game, it has to be stopped. But like any good technocrat, I have a strain of defiant libertarianism in me (Oddly crossed with raving at the mouth liberalism but I'm a bit odd.) that makes me question just why steroids are so problematic to begin with.

I don't, for one, buy the argument that they need to be banned because they're so harmful. Or the related argument that because the pros use them our children are going to be lining up to jab each other in the butt with the 'roids. I'm pretty much against such drug war line of reasonings and favor legalizing, well, everything (And, of course, regulating and taxing the hell out of it. But that's where the liberalism comes in, I suppose.). Steroids and other performance enhancing drugs do have an effect on the body, for sure, but is it that much worse than drinking alcohol or smoking? Why is it those substances are okay while others aren't? The people taking steroids should be aware of the consequences but they're rational adults who can look after themselves, if they want to bear the risks then it's their call.

The difference there, I suppose is that booze and smokes would be performance degrading while steroids would improve an athletes capabilities. And that gives them an advantage that an athlete who's not juicing wouldn't have which would violate the basic fairness of an athletic contest. But not all athletes are created equal, there are already imbalances – the playing field is level, the players on it aren't. In terms of talent, sure. But also in terms of training. We live in a day and age where sports are professional. Where they're an industry. And millions of dollars go into developing the equipment and training techniques to bring out the most in an athlete. Look at how our Olympic athletes are treated, tested, and trained. They don't go off to a secluded cabin and pull around a sled, no, they get measured and prodded just as much, if not more, than Drago ever did. Given all sorts of supplements, medicine, and other legal drugs to help them recover from injury or build muscle mass or whatever else. We're past the point where we're using technology to improve our athletes. We're long past the point where our athletes are amateurs who just happened to wander by the field and are displaying their natural talents.

So why is there a difference between the fairness for an athlete who juices versus one who doesn't compared with an athlete who trains in a hyperbaric chamber – simulating high altitude which promotes stronger lungs, for one - versus one who doesn't? Both have access to advantages the other lacks, both have made a choice the other is unwilling to make. One's risking their health while the other is spending a lot of money and rearranging their lifestyle but where do you draw the line? Does someone who have the money to buy the best shoes, the best stick, the best skates, the best equipment have an edge over someone who doesn't? Indisputably, yes. It's not going to automatically result in a decisive edge but they're better equipped the same way that someone who makes the most of modern technology can be better trained. And not every is willing or able to keep pace.

This crops up in online gaming, too. Some people have better computers, better connections, that mean they have less lag, for one, before you even get into the issue of individual skill. They have an advantage that others lack. They've imbalanced the playing field. But there's nothing you can really do about it because there are always going to be differences in the network and the systems people use, among many other factors. Perfect fairness is a myth. You can't ever reduce things to a level where you're testing the skill, the talent, alone.

All of which would argue, I think, for allowing players to use steroids. Taken to the logical extreme, though, it also means we should be investigating turning our athletes into cyborgs. Staple on more mechanically efficient limbs, replace their hearts with hyper oxyginating devices that will let them run longer and farther than ever before. After all, if we're going to allow our technology to influence the game then why not really get serious about it? It's already started, after all. But, no, there has to be a line drawn somewhere. A place where we, as a society, as a culture, say this is what we are and this is what we aren't. I'm not sure it needs to be drawn with steroids – I'm not a doctor or a trainer and I don't really understand their effect on the human body so I'll leave it up to those with more expertise than I – but there has to be a point where we say this is what allowable for humans to do if they want to participate in a sporting contest. And this is what's not because, otherwise, they've gone beyond the limits of fair play that sports are supposed to be about.

Ah, but professional sports have long ceased to be about fair play, about noble contests. They're about money. Making lots of it. And to do so, they have to cloak themselves in the righteousness of sport, convince their customers that their games are unbiased. So I think I've just found why steroids were ignored before and are a huge scandal now.