Another question...

[rosalind]

my mate once said it would be cool to have sports where drugs where allowed, whatever you like- and see how fast people could go!

Do you feel sport my have to take this option sometime in the late future due to superior development of drugs in comparison to drug detection if the gap grows larger? It's possible. And yes, could be very interesting, though "sport" would never be the same again.

[mharky]

Having had to write and essay on pretty much the same subject for a tutorial, I would say: do your own homework.

[SJ]

I think that it will always depend partly on the nature of the individual. Some/many/most?? athletes do their sport because they love it and would rather do it than anything else. Taking drugs, for them, would quite possibly take the enjoyment out of it although it may enable them to win more often and get more money out of it. (Although if all professional athletes were purely interested in money then could it possibly be easier to find another career in many cases?)

They may also care about their sport (like those who teach to kids or help otherwise with promotion like in orienteering) so taking drugs would be hypocritical and risk giving their sport a bad reputation.

However under immense pressure to win it might just be the case that athletes succumb to temptation.

Also, I agree that the fact that substances are banned is probably the main thing that stops people from using them as lots of things that aren't banned but potentially beneficial are used - eg lucozade, coca-cola, vitamin tablets!

[SJ]

Having had to write and essay on pretty much the same subject for a tutorial, I would say: do your own homework.

I would say: ask people who have done an essay on pretty much the same subject if you're stuck