Patrick Arnold Criticizes Government War on Steroids in Sports

Patrick Arnold criticized the federal government’s war on steroids in sports in an article posted today on his website. He feels the ongoing steroid-related prosecutions targeting famous athletes such as Barry Bonds and Lance Armstrong are a waste of taxpayer funds that will accomplish little more than the humiliation of the athletes involved. Arnold shares his “views on how our taxpayer dollars are spent and how much beating this long dead horse really matters to our society.”

So why is the federal government – in our times of unprecedented fiscal crisis – unquestionably pouring money into this expensive trial that pretty much lost all its relevance years ago?

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But we get it already.  Doping is bad.  A ton of athletes have been doing it for decades.  They were breaking the rules.  We have digested this and assimilated it into our brains.  Time to move on.

I also read about Lance Armstrong today.  Apparently there is more evidence surfacing regarding his performance enhancing drug usage.  Yeah, whoopee.  Of course he doped.  Everyone doped in the field of elite cycling.  They still probably do, at least to whatever extent that they still can.  This is reality.   Prosecuting Lance Armstrong will not change that reality.  Prosecuting all the dopers that he beat back in the day will not change that reality.  So why spend millions to prosecute him for whatever incidental crimes that may have been committed as a consequence of his doping?  How does that help society??

I have a solution.  Let’s take all these millions that we are inevitably going to spend to publically humiliate all these athletes – and lord knows there are more to come – and spend them on logical and ethical anti-doping research and development efforts?

The article can be read in its entirety on Patrick Arnold’s blog.

About the author

Millard

MESO-Rx | Website

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.