Thursday, April 28, 2011

Steroids: The Antidote to The Epidemic

          The Human Experiment is the process of changes humans have made to our bodies and minds from the beginning of civilization. Due to societal pressures and influences we have required many tools throughout history. The most bizarre and detrimental tool of all in “The Human Experiment” is the anabolic steroid. The anabolic steroid first prevalently used in the 1950’s by athletes in the Olympics, has started a terrorizing chain reaction to present day professionals and youth players in all sport fields. Steroids have now become an epidemic effecting hundreds of thousands of Americans every year.  Within this article I have proposed a new approach that is a cost effective, and is a quintessential antidote to cure the poison of anabolic steroids.
After intense research over the past several decades, there has been a unanimous conclusion that steroid use is extremely harmful to not only the body but the mind.  Now you may ask yourself are steroids really a serious problem? And if they are why are they so widespread? The answer is that society through the use of advertisements and other vices like media, have manipulated us into believing that we must be a certain way, dress a certain way, and look a certain way. As an effect of media and its influences, we have acquired personality disorders like muscle dysmorphia, a disorder that is the opposite of anorexia and makes the person believe that they are never muscular enough no matter how much they workout. We strive to become what society wants us to become and in doing so we undergo experimentation.
 The effects of steroids on the human body are what we have become familiar with. At a first glance, men who use steroids are shown to become mammoths, with size and incredible strength in a short period of time. When you examine the effects of steroids on the body closely, you will realize that these amazing benefits come with a price that is much higher.  With the great strength come high risks of vulnerability to injury. In men steroid use can cause decreased fertility of sperm, breast development, shrinking of the testicles and male-pattern baldness. In Women it can cause enlargement of the clitoris excessive growth of body hair and male-pattern baldness. In both men and women it can lead to tendon rupture, cancer of the liver, tumors, infection, heart attacks, stroke and high blood pressure.
Now your probably asking who the hell would use something that would do this too you? It is because of the societal pressures that people are under to look the best and perform the best in sports, and everyday life no matter what it takes. Some leagues like the IFBB or International Federation of Bodybuilding, do not even enforce an anti steroid use rule. Even some famous athletes in American sports have been caught using steroids like Barry Bonds, and David Ortiz.  These players are idolized by the youth and are their role models. When the professionals use steroids and succeed without being caught, the younger athletes will and have followed in their footsteps.  In 2005 alone, 660,000 students (14 to 17 years of age) admitted to steroid use and those numbers only include the use being reported! (http://www.steroidabuse.com/steroid-statistics.html)
Steroid Use is a real problem affecting our children in the United States everyday. Curing this epidemic is something that hasn’t been instituted or even focused on within society. Most sports do not even test consistently to see if these drugs are being used. This leaves a state of unidentified steroid users, the cheaters, mixed with those who are actually playing the game naturally, free of performance enhancing drugs.

My proposal is simple; to remove the use of steroids through the same vices they are promoted; the professional league owners, the players, and the media. The combination of these three elements will create a powerful anti-steroid campaign. The funding of this campaign will not be extravagant and will be easily accessible. The owners of teams will do anything to preserve the image of their league and ultimately their profits. Each owner of each team will provide the necessary funds for random screenings of drugs testing which will only cost about $42 per person. (http://www.aclu.org/drug-law-reform/drug-testing-public-assistance-recipients-condition-eligibility) When these teams are earning millions of dollars each year in profit, this a very insignificant cost. The next factor of the campaign involves the players. If the very people who are looked up too, whose actions are followed religiously by younger fans and players, demote the use of steroids, the demand to use them will significantly decrease.


With the drug tests being administered as I mentioned before, players who voluntarily agree to the random screenings of drug testing, the counter argument of player’s privacy being violated becomes nonexistent. Ultimately the responsibility is in the hands of the professional players, because even the media aspect of the problem is reflective of them. If the players are voicing their concern of illegal steroid use the message will reciprocate in advertisements and commercials. Anti-steroid ads will supersede commercials of men and women with unnatural chiseled bodies promoting diet pills and supplements that are the gateway drugs to steroid use. Ads for natural products will become the new fad and become the new major market industry for bringing in money as opposed to million dollar black market steroid industry.
(http://abcnews.go.com/WN/FedCrimes/story?id=3802782&page=1) 


1 comment:

  1. Actually I read it yesterday but I had some thoughts about it and today I wanted to read it again because it is very well written. beginner steroids

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