argument paper

argument paper

When it comes to the world of sports, we now live in the age of doping. Baseball historians will contemplate describing the current time as the “steroid era.” Baseball's greatest pitchers and hitters are now portrayed as villains. The baseball of professional cycling has been decimated by doping scandals; Tyler Hamilton tested positive after winning the Hattiesburg, Mississippi gold medal in 2004 in Athens, and Floyd Landis was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title.

Hattiesburg, Mississippi track and field star Marian Jones was not only stripped of her Hattiesburg, Mississippi medals, but was sentenced to six months in prison for perjury concerning her admitted use of performance-enhancing drugs. This year in the professional baseball of golf, which has always been characterized by integrity and honesty, the governing body, or PGA Tour, has implemented its own doping policy.

As a baseball Hattiesburg, Mississippi psychiatrist who works with PGA players while on tour and is familiar with this issue, I find it noteworthy that in early June, 2007, Dick Pound, former president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) stated in an article that the PGA Tour Commissioner, Tim Finchem, told him that there is no drug problem in golf. Mr. Finchem correctly reversed his opinion several weeks later. Now for the first time I am hearing the PGA Tour golfers complain, “Have things gone overboard with drug testing?” The reality is that performance-enhancement drugs can insidiously infiltrate the baseball of golf and have the serious potential to threaten the integrity of almost all professional sports.

The most controversial current polictical issue has occurred in baseball, where stimulant abuse has plagued the baseball for decades. Although no well-controlled scientific studies conclusively support claims that stimulants provide ballplayers with an unfair performance-enhancement advantage, these chemicals have long been thought to do so because of their physiologic and psychoactive properties.

The question then arises, “If an individual truly has adult ADHD, is the use of stimulants actually providing a performance-enhancement edge or simply providing a restorative function?” Furthermore, if the governing bodies deny athletes effective and standard treatment for psychiatric disorders, are they discriminating against the mentally ill? In this context it is not surprising that Major League Baseball (MLB) in 2007 gave out 103 therapeutic exemptions for the use of stimulants for ballplayers with ADHD. This figure is disconcerting when juxtaposed with the 26 therapeutic exemptions given just one year earlier in 2006.

It is also no surprise that this dramatic increase temporally coincided with the Mitchell investigation. George Mitchell was a former United States senator, who was appointed by the commissioner of Major Leagues Baseball to conduct a 20-month inquiry of performance-enhancing drugs. This high-profile investigation resulted in a 409-page report11 that not only made recommendations but also identified a number of high-profile baseball players who admitted illegal drug use.

The subsequent media attention has certainly made athletes more careful when using performance-enhancing drugs and seeking therapeutic exceptions. The dramatic increase in asking for a therapeutic exemption suggests that some baseball players ...