According to the Mitchell Report, the use of anabolic steroids by athletes is not simply an ethical problem or a health problem. Cheating with the use of performance enhancing drugs is a “broader and more nuanced activity” that can seriously threaten the integrity of baseball.
Baseball players who use anabolic steroids are vulnerable to being victimized by gamblers:
[D]rug dealers could blackmail a player to alter the outcome of a game in exchange for maintaining the secrecy of the player’s substance use. Such threats to the integrity of the game are as serious as gambling.
The knowledge that a player… uses drugs is a fact which illegal gamblers clearly want to know. Drug dealers who supply baseball personnel can dilute a drug or combine it with other substances so as to affect performance and could ultimately place the user in a position of dependence upon both the drug and its source of supply. The results, of course, could be devastating.
Such scenarios do not seem very likely to me, but represents yet another reason why the Mitchell Report believes the steroid problem in baseball is serious.
About the author
Millard writes about anabolic steroids and performance enhancing drugs and their use and impact in sport and society. He discusses the medical and non-medical uses of anabolic-androgenic steroids while advocating a harm reduction approach to steroid education.
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