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.
The sport risk environment is that in which various risk factors interact across micro and macro levels to increase the potential for harm to athletes engaging in doping (Hanley Santos & Coomber, 2017; Rhodes, 2002). By shifting the focus from the individual athlete to the sporting context, we can see how harms to doping athletes are socially produced (c.f. Rhodes, 2002). Such an approach seems more or less impossible to combine with the cultural beliefs and discourse around values of fair-play and sportsmanship in the elite sport context. While harm reduction strategies and interventions for recreational drug use have flourished, sport has remained stubbornly bullish on a detect and punish approach (Henning & Dimeo, 2018), not only in elite sport but also in recreational and non-competitive sport contexts.
Athlete biological passport
The sports medicine physician is clearly challenged in these situations, and hopefully the facts and data presented in this issue of Sports Health will aid the discussion and decision-making process. Sounds simple, but I don’t think it’s a question that is easily answered. Clearly, some gifted athletes can push themselves through almost anything. They can endure the discomfort of training and conditioning and seem to thrive on the discomfort and physical gain. Yet, other mere mortals can tolerate far less physical exertion and pain and dread eco sober house even the thought of those efforts.
Materials and methods
This is a serious medical issue that can have permanent consequences, such as brain damage and an increased risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease. To learn more about the use of prohibited substances in sport visit the Sport Integrity Australia website. Sport Integrity Australia is Australia’s national anti-doping organisation.
- Decades of draconian punishments have failed to eliminate, or even consistently lower levels of recreational drug use within the general population; there were more than a half million deaths related to illicit drug use in 2017 alone (United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime, 2019).
- Some scientists have questioned the passport’s efficiency – especially when complicating factors such as training at altitude are factored in – but also its sensitivity to micro-dosing, a little-but-often approach to doping.
- Narcotic analgesics and cannabinoids are used to mask the pain caused by injury or fatigue – but in practice can make injuries worse.
Russia
The main risk for athletes here is testing positive and receiving a sanction. This may result in further social and economic consequences, including being stigmatised as a doper or losing one’s position on a team or sponsorship deal. At the same time, as athletes are pressured to perform from family, teams, and sponsors, there may be increased pressure to use PEDs to gain an edge over non-doping competitors. In sport groups or organisations where doping is accepted and employment is tenuous or performance based, PEDs may become a normal working condition (Aubel & Ohl, 2014). This directly relates to economic risks, as income or sponsorships tied to performance present a fertile atmosphere for pushing doping boundaries.
While the goals of taking drugs — improving performance or recovery time — are largely the same across sports, the policies of major sports all vary considerably regarding their testing methods and penalties. does alcohol affect copd However, steroids and its related hormones have visible side effects, especially when taken at higher than medically safe doses. Men may experience prominent breasts, baldness, shrunken testicles, infertility, and impotence, as well as acne, an increased risk of tendinitis, liver abnormalities, high blood pressure, aggressive behaviors, psychiatric disorders, and more. Notice that roughly half of these suspensions are attributed to “undisclosed” substances. For first offenses, the Commissioner’s Office often keeps the substance involved undisclosed, putting the onus on the player to withhold or share that information with fans.
Harm reduction proposals for addressing doping have attempted to do so by advancing suggestions such as medically supervised doping, health checks, and threshold testing (Kayser et al., 2007; Kayser & Tollneer, 2017; Smith & Stewart, 2015). Utilising such strategies in a policy context may begin to help foster sport enabling environments that are so far available only through illicit doping systems. The enabling processes and environments represented by systematic doping demonstrate a dynamic interplay with the multi-layered risk environment structured by anti-doping policies and cultural stigma.
What is doping?
The fundamental principle of the athlete biological passport is based on the monitoring of selected parameters over time that indirectly reveal the effect of doping, as opposed to the traditional direct detection of doping by analytical means. This concept gained momentum as a result of questions raised during the 2006 Olympic Winter Games surrounding suspensions of athletes by their federations following health checks that reported high hemoglobin levels. An athlete’s passport purports to establish individual baseline hormone/blood levels, which are monitored over time for significant changes. A positive test result would consist of too dramatic a change from the established individual baseline. This solution focused therapy techniques approach is intended to protect athletes from false-positive tests resulting from naturally occurring high levels of endogenous substances, while catching those attempting to cheat by using naturally occurring substances.
By analysing known cases of systematic doping we can see how they employed strategies similar to those outlined in Table 2. The prevalence of doping is unclear, though there is a significant gap between prevalence estimated by researchers and the official testing results. It is difficult to determine the effect anti-doping policies have had on doping prevalence, as there were no baseline prevalence studies before WADA’s founding. However, the discrepancy between the positive test rate and even the lowest prevalence estimates indicate that a large number of athletes who report engaging in doping are not being detected, potentially exacerbating PED-driven inequalities between athletes. In this way, anti-doping policies may mirror the limited effectiveness of recreational drug prohibition in deterring consumption or punishing violations, lessons best illustrated in the case of the United States. Even within a far more circumscribed arena of enforcement – certain types of substance use within specific sporting competitions – it is unlikely doping-free sport (WADA, 2020) will be achieved through a strategy of random or targeted testing and harsh sanctioning.