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C00002 00002	ban[s88,jmc]		Banning drugs in athletics
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ban[s88,jmc]		Banning drugs in athletics

	Let's consider banning drugs under the general heading of
restricting competitive practices.  There are three headings.

	1. Banning what society regards as immoral.  Imagine that
it was known that using marijuana had no effect on athletic performance.
Some people would still want to ban it if they regarded using
marijuana as immoral for other reasons.  They might cite Coubertin's
Olympic ideal of a meeting of the finest youth of the world, etc.
Most intellectuals today would consider themselves above banning a
drug for that reason.  ``How is it relevant to athletics?'', they would
say and make fun of the concept of the ``the finest youth'' or however
Coubertin phrased it.  However, for many people this merely represents
only a change in the fashion of censoriousness.  They aren't any less
censorious than their great grandmothers; they're only censorious
about different things.  Banning South Africans is ok.  Some want
to ban events that seem sexist.  Let's leave this one aside.

	2. Banning practices risky or injurious to the athlete.
Depending on the endeavor, it may turn out that the way to win
involves behaving in a way that is dangerous, either to oneself
or one's competitors.  It is customary to try to modify the
sport to avoid this.  Boxing gloves were introduced to reduce
injury from bare knuckle fighting, and now many believe boxing
itself should be eliminated because of long term injury.
The flying wedge is forbidden in football.  Most sports have
fouls.  It is now thought that long distance running, especially the
marathon, is bad for children, and it seems to me that there is
some evidence that it's somewhat bad for everyone.  Namely,
running a world class marathon puts the runner into bad shape
for a few months.  However, present standards consider some
sacrifices of health as ok for a competitor.

	3. Banning advantage regarded as unfair, especially
those that involve winning by spending unlimited money.
Bicycling bans exotic bicycles.  Sailboating has to live with
the fact that the most straightforward way to make sailboats
fast is to make them as big as possible.  The $100 million
boat would beat the $20 million boat if unlimited size were
allowed.  I believe the America's Cup banned using metals
stronger than steel or lighter than aluminum.  As one who
appreciates technological ingenuity more than athletic skill,
some of the bans irk me.  Not being a fan of riches per se,
I don't mind restrictions primarily aimed at limiting cost
but don't like bans that limit inventiveness.  The solution
is to have different kinds of competitions.  I don't mind
if there is a billionaire's cup in some sport.  In fact I
think I'd find such a competition worth following, although
I suppose those who find the existence of billionaires
immoral would want to ban it.

	Whatever be the motivation, bans become complicated
when violation is difficult to detect.  As Les Earnest explained,
some drugs were banned totally when large amounts proved dangerous.
Moreover, an ideology developed that regarded the drugs as
immoral per se and not because they are harmful.  This differs
from the fact that some yachting competitions ban carbon
fiber masts as unfair but don't regard them as immoral per se,
and might allow them if they become cheap.

	My own opinion about drugs is that the appropriateness
of bans, in sports and otherwise, is entirely a function of
the concrete technological and social situation.  Here are some
illustrations.

	1. Suppose that a certain dose of anabolic steroids
were calculable for each individual that would produce the
desired effects without side-effects, although more would
win competitions at the cost of harmful side-effects.
Suppose further that whether the dose without side-effects
had been exceeded was readily measurable.  Then I would
see no objection to a weight lifters' competition class
that permitted such doses.

	Imagine that there were people who lifted weights solely for the
fun of it, i.e. they never let anyone else know how much they lifted.  If
it was more fun to lift weights after a non-dangerous course of anabolic
steroids, that would be fine.

	In my view the same even holds true for cocaine and heroin.
If people could use them and still fulfill their social responsibilities,
it would be ok with me.

	It seems to me that the drug class whose ban did the most
harm is that of amphetamines.  They had a long history of mostly
appropriate use before abuses by a subset of users excited the law.
Many people function a lot better with appropriate doses of
amphetamines and don't suffer harmful side-effects.

	It doesn't necessarily follow that the ban on amphetamines
is wrong, although I suspect it is.  Maybe the potential for addiction
is so great and there is no possibility of allowing appropriate
use without a social disaster from inappropriate use.