Iron Game

Veteran
Steroids and other pharmaceuticals – the difference

Steroids are basically enhancing drugs which are manufactured using testosterone. These drugs are used to improve on performance usually in the sports arena and are also used to better appearance. Steroids are also used medically in the treatment of skin allergies and asthma.
Many people use steroids for different purposes. Just like some of the common drugs have side effects but are still used due to the overall advantage they enjoy in treating ailments, similar is the case in the use of steroids. It is suggested that the use of steroids to treat ailments and for non medical purposes have different effects on the human body.

Some of the steroids in the market are Parabolin, Therabolin, Bolasterone, and Equipose to name a few. How are steroids taken? Like any other medicine they can be swallowed as tablets, taken in liquid form or in the form of injection. People who use steroids take them for a while and let go for some time. This is a process which is known as “cycling” or in other words given a gap in the usage of the steroid. Sometimes steroids are taken in combination with other drugs. Steroids are used either for medical treatments or for personal uses such as improving appearance or enhancing performance in the sports field.

Let us take the example of Ritalin and Provigil. These are drugs that enhance performance. It has been argued that if a student were to take Ritalin before the exams to enhance the performance at the examination, has something wrong been done? We are all living in a society where each and every other individual is striving to better their performance to lead a more meaningful life. This taking steroid like Ritalin and Provigil constitute wrong doing? This has been a heated debate with many people of repute arguing that consumption of steroids is a personal choice and the limited use of these performance enhancing drugs have less negative effects on the body as compared to smoking or drinking.

The main difference between steroids and the other pharmaceutical drugs lies in the fact that normal drugs don’t help in improving performance. They also come with some side effects such as drowsiness that may be caused due to the drug consumption. Does that make the consumption of such drugs non-ethical? Steroids main purpose is to create enhanced ability in a person to execute the job being done in a better way.

Many leading persons of repute in the medical and biological sciences have been reported to have said that the negative effects about consumption of steroids have been overdone. Steroids just help one to perform better much like the normal drugs that help to cure an ailment. Steroids are drugs too and are also used in medical treatments. However the greater percentage of users of steroid avail it to improve their performance capabilities.
It can be a different approach to club steroids along with drugs and highlight the principle difference between them as that being one of curing ailments and the other enhancing performance levels at work.
 
I think one of the reasons people decry the use of steroids for an equal playing field is that under current laws (which was so even before the steroid acts were passed), steroids are/were not freely available to everyone who wanted to use them. While the act of obtaining a substance such as Ritalin may be not freely available either, the intent of use can be argued as a valid medical need far more readily than the use of steroids, even if the end user is really obtaining Ritalin for enhancing performance.
 
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