If Everything Is a Drug, Then Nothing Is a Drug

I saw Harry Edwards on Jim Rome on Showtime argue that we are in no position to judge athletes for using performance-enhancing drugs since we’re all drug addicts, taking our coffee, aspirin, wine, sleeping pills, Cialis, etc. 

I concede we medicate ourselves with all those things, including TV and sugar, but if we say everything is a drug and make a moral equivalent to all “drugs” we consume, then the idea of “drug” and “addiction” become meaningless.

There must be a scale or hierarchy in which we determine magnitude and application of a product and how we use or misuse it.

If, for example, an organization says an even playing field is produced by banning Substance X, then that substance is illegal and can’t be compared to coffee.

In these kinds of arguments, I find inflexible moral relativism as useless as inflexible moral absolutism.

 

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Comments

[Chip]

Okay, yes we all take drugs. BUT, athletes are doing it with one thing in mind.....MONEY, a lot of money and there 15 minutes of fame. They want to be faster and better to be able to get that enormous paycheck. Nothing more in my opinion. It is a cash driven business. It isn't like what there doing is saving mankind, saving a infant from a burning building or curing cancer. They going out to run faster and abuse there bodies by taking punishing blows slamming into each other on the field. It's all strictly for the MONEY, the momentary GLORY and FAME. IT'S just a business pure and simple. Nothing wrong at all with wanting to be the best at what you do. Good. But, pumping themselves up with drugs to enhance themselves to be more marketable ( $$$$$)and news worthy, whatever. Then what they achieved was bogus, chemically enhanced. Simply NOT there real selves. Bogus. Just the way I see it.

[herculodge]

I agree and this greed doesn't compare to someone who has a coffee habit.

[StarHalo]

But coffee is illegal in many sporting events, and the related question is if the coffee addict lived on a quiet secluded island with no schedule, would they still drink the coffee? Aren't they also taking something to give themselves a slight advantage, or at least to try to even things up?

I think Americans are strongly in denial about the magnitude of drugs, legal and otherwise, and addictions; so much of what constitutes society these days is related to either. The leading cause of death, food addiction. The pervasive problem in modern sports, steriods. The largest corporations on Earth, pharmaceuticals. The health care system, celebrity deaths, drunk driving, etc. et al. ad inf..

[herculodge]

I agree we are a country of addicts but how big are we going to stretch the definition of addiction and at what point do that make it impossible to regulate sports.

[StarHalo]

I don't see that regulation of sports is possible at all at this point, the Lance Armstrong example illustrates this nicely; an international sports agency investigated and reinvestigated his case time and again, and despite Armstrong's essentially physically impossible winning streak, nothing was ever found.

I would wager that sports historians in the future will view it in two parts - up-to-20th century, and 21st century and-later..

[herculodge]

Ratings go up even as drug use is rampant. Consumers of sports don't care. They just want spectacle.

[jonnybardo]

As far as sports go, I don't know the answer although I suppose I would create clear rules and then do more with education - have every pro athlete watch the "Lyle Alzado Story" or some such.

I like your post, StarHalo. The main problem is that the drugs that are legal and condoned by our culture are in many ways more dangerous than many that are illegal, or at least the legal ones have less possible positive benefits (like visionary experience) than many illegal ones. I'm not talking about heroin, crack, etc, but plant-based psychotropics like peyote, ayuhuasca, and psylocibin. As the late great Terence McKenna used to say, alcohol is the most boring of all drugs.

I'm of the mind, though, that all substances should be legal - each (adult) human should be free to experiment with their body and mind as they choose to, unless of course it directly impacts others in a negative manner. But human beings have been exploring altered states of consciousness for tens of thousands of years, whether with natural plant substances or meditative or shamanic practices. All of the drugs that are currently legal are those that basically support our consumerist culture.

[Bethany]

What about all the money that the food companies make by outing enhancing drugs into animals in order for a hen to maybe produce more eggs and cows to produce more milk for "better" milk? All the sugar that countless food companies put into their foods is all to get you addicted so they can sell more and make more. This world is run by money so the argument that it is wrong for athletes to use performance enhancing drugs on the playing field to make more money is invalid.