It also follows recent actions at the federal and state levels on cannabis. President Joe Biden last month officially moved to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous subtance, a major shift in the country’s drug policy. And earlier this month, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore announced more than 175,000 pardons of marijuana convictions, one of the country’s largest acts of cannabis clemency. Anabolic steroids, used to improve the ease and efficiency of building muscle, became a mainstay among weightlifters and bodybuilders in the 20th century. The history behind negative effects of drugs in sport goes as far back as ancient times, claiming that doping might have been present as far back as the ancient Olympic Games.
Level of Evidence:
One in-depth analysis of a doping risk environment was by Hanley Santos and Coomber (2017), in which the authors examined how anabolic steroid use was socially situated. The authors interviewed individuals who use steroids who accessed a safer injection facility and analysed how broader social, cultural, and political contexts were related to and impacted on their individual behaviours. They argued in favour of expanding harm reduction services and taking account of the range of contextual factors that impact use practices (Hanley Santos & Coomber, 2017). For its consideration of harm reduction and service interventions, this does not directly examine the sport enabling environment. As such, we so far have little understanding of enabling factors in sport, how enabling environments are created and maintained, or how these environments are co-constituted with risk environments.
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At the adolescent and collegiate level, successful athletes may find that they are regularly invited to social gatherings where alcohol or other drugs are provided. Athletes old enough to go to bars, clubs, and other public establishments may find that other patrons are eager to socialize with them, including purchasing https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/how-alcohol-affects-your-kidneys/ their drinks. Additionally, a club or bar owner may provide free drinks to athletes of a certain stature to encourage their patronage. Basic behavioral economics principles indicate that the likelihood of substance use will increase with lower price and greater availability (Murphy, Correia, & Barnett, 2007).
Study Selection:
The official definition accepted by most sport organisations and athletes is that doping is the violation of one of the anti-doping rules laid out in the World Anti-Doping Code. The WADA Code (2019) includes as its fundamental rationale the promotion of athlete health. Ostensibly, this is related to the perceived health risks of doping substances, though it is also related to broader war on drugs style policies and politics (Coomber, 2014; Dimeo, 2007). Though there is a range of motivations for engaging in doping (Henning & Dimeo, 2014), a primary one at the elite level is winning.
How is doping detected?
- As Duff (2010) observed, it is tempting to understand the two separately, or as the former leading to the latter.
- Before 1998, debate was still taking place in several discrete forums (IOC, sports federations, individual governments), resulting in differing definitions, policies, and sanctions.
- One approach of athletes to get around regulations on stimulants is to use new designer stimulants, which have not previously been officially prohibited, but have similar chemical structures or biological effects.
- Anti-doping has responded with increased levels of athlete surveillance, increased penalties, and developing new methods of detecting doping.
- This is why injury prevention programs are fundamental especially at the youth level when focusing on proper technique to minimize the effects of soft and hard tissue trauma.
Involving athletes at the heart of strategy and planning would help create values and processes that other athletes could buy into. Building trust by reducing systematic doping through targeted efforts would build confidence and a better sense of purpose. A more realistic and accepting attitude to accidental doping cases can avoid unethical and unfair impacts on athletes’ lives.
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The social, economic, and policy risks to athletes in both cases are minimised through the harm reducing processes that ensure use remains undetected. Though anti-doping is predicated on promoting athlete health, the current approach has been criticized as being paternalistic (Kayser & Smith, 2008) or ignoring social and sport realities of substance use (Smith & Stewart, 2015). Proposed models of doping harm reduction have focused on centring athlete health, though have differed in their overall approach. One liberalized approach by Savulescu, Foddy, & Clayton (2004) advocated health checks for athletes.
Leveraging sport for substance use prevention: reviewing the evidence at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs
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- The MINORS score consists of 8 items for non-comparative studies and an additional 4 items for comparative studies, with each item scored from 0 to 2, for maximum scores of 16 and 24, respectively.21 Higher scores indicate better methodological quality.
- This resulted in a marked increase in the number of doping-related disqualifications in the late 1970s,24 notably in strength-related sports, such as throwing events and weightlifting.
- What physicians may not recognize are the potential adverse effects of novel, investigational drugs that are being used as doping agents.
- Coe, who has been a strong defender of the IAAF’s record, has pledged to set up an independent anti-doping agency for the sport, admitting there is a perception that in-house drug-testing creates «conflicts» and «loopholes».
- In 1998, police found a large number of prohibited substances, including ampoules of erythropoietin, in a raid during the Tour de France.25,26 The scandal led to a major reappraisal of the role of public authorities in anti-doping affairs.
