Following the thread:
>> Is there in fact general agreement that it's not a health issue
>> and it's not a moral issue? What kind of an issue is it?
>That's just it, there's no clear definition of what sort of issue it is.
>"It's wrong" seems the best attempt made thus far.
I'm sorry - is there a question over whether this is a health issue?
In fact, I think it's reasonable to conclude that the testing programs in
T&F have probably saved a number of athletes health and even lives, despite
what we perceive to be their general inefficiency.
There are some drugs which - through abuse - will make people much better
competitors.
And while the laws of diminishing returns certainly apply to overuse of
those drugs, diminishing returns does not equal NO returns.
And in a sport where championships are dependent on 0.01 seconds, or 1 cm,
diminishing returns can be very valuable indeed.
Meanwhile, we really don't even know the dose-response curves for adverse
effects. We don't know carcinogenicity or mutagenicity levels for use of a
lot of these substances. Particularly at the extreme, non-theraputic
levels that many athletes would end up using them at, if it weren't for the
deterrence that prohibition and testing creates.
"It's wrong" to institutionally force athletes to use potentially harmful
drugs to participate in the highest levels of international competition.
Meanwhile, I don't think that anyone here really doubts that lifting drug
bans would have exactly that effect.
Now, if you disagree with my premise above - and you don't think it's wrong
to support a system which blatantly compels athletes to use drugs at
potentially harmful doses - then there's not much more we can say to each
other that will make sense. We're going to be left talking on parallel
planes, with no hope for convergence.
To me, this echoes a political argument I've heard lately. For a long
time, everyone has known that the US has targeted certain geopolitical
leaders in ways that have skirted, to be polite, international law. Now,
we've clearly dropped that pretense, and the US government feels very
comfortable declaring any figure to be an "evil" who demands immediate
extermination, outside of any international legal framework. While many
consider the old way to be a farce that we're better off without, you can
also view the previous charade (if you will) as a useful tool, to still
allow dialogue between partners who otherwise would not be able to sit in
the same forum.
If you believe that dialogue, even with some level of hypocracy, can make
the world safer by still leaving open pathways to diffuse conflicts before
they escalate into warfare, you probably can understand why even a flawed
testing program can make T&F more civilized.
Phil
