The controversial issue of drug cheats has been once again thrown open as India have ordered a government inquiry into the case of woman weightlifter, Monika Devi. Devi has highlighted the problem surrounding the current drug testing system as she was excluded from the Beijing Olympics over a positive dope test only to be later cleared. Devi had originally tested positive for performance-enhancing substances and was withdrawn hours before her flight to Beijing. To make matters worse for the Indian Olympic team there was no suitable replacement and they were left without a competitor in the event.

Monika Devi has fervently denied the allegations and has insisted on her innocence. She has also been backed by the Indian Weightlifting Federation who argued that she had been tested almost 30 times in the last year and a half, all of which had been negative.

The controversy surrounding drug testing, in particularly the accuracy of the results, is a common argument in the sporting world and a highly controversial argument has emerged supporting the use of drugs in sport

“Far from being unfair, drugs that enhance performance actually promote equality.” That’s the message of a controversial leader in the British Journal of Sport Medicine, who goes on to report:

"The use of performance enhancing drugs in the modern Olympics is on record as early as the games of the third Olympiad, when Thomas Hicks won the marathon after receiving an injection of strychnine in the middle of the race. The first official ban on ‘stimulating substances’ by a sporting organisation was introduced by the International Amateur Athletic Federation in 1928. Using drugs to cheat in sport is not new, but it is becoming more effective. Yet despite the health risks, and despite the regulating bodies’ attempts to eliminate drugs from sport, the use of illegal substances is widely known to be rife. It hardly raises an eyebrow now when some famous athlete fails a dope test. In 1992, Vicky Rabinowicz interviewed small groups of athletes. She found that Olympic athletes, in general, believed that most successful athletes were using banned substances. Much of the writing on the use of drugs in sport is focused on this kind of anecdotal evidence. There is very little rigorous, objective evidence because the athletes are doing something that is taboo, illegal and sometimes highly dangerous. The anecdotal picture tells us that our attempts to eliminate drugs from sport have failed. In the absence of good evidence, we need an analytical argument to determine what we should do."

"We are far from the days of amateur sporting competition. Elite athletes can earn tens of millions of dollars every year in prize money alone, and millions more in sponsorship and endorsements. The lure of success is great. But the penalties for cheating are small. A six-month or two-year ban from competition is a small penalty to pay for further years of multimillion dollar success. Drugs are much more effective today than they were in the days of strychnine and sheep’s testicles. Studies involving the anabolic steroid androgen showed that, even in doses much lower than those used by athletes, muscular strength could be improved by 5-20%. Most athletes are also relatively unlikely to ever undergo testing. The International Amateur Athletic Federation estimates that only 10-15% of participating athletes are tested in each major competition. The enormous rewards for the winner, the effectiveness of the drugs, and the low rate of testing all combine to create a cheating ‘game’ that is irresistible to athletes. Drugs such as erythropoietin (EPO) and growth hormone are natural chemicals in the body. As technology advances, drugs have become harder to detect because they mimic natural processes. In a few years, there will be many undetectable drugs."

"The goal of ‘cleaning up’ the sport is unattainable. Further down the track the spectre of genetic enhancement looms dark and large. So is cheating here to stay? Drugs are against the rules. But we define the rules of sport. If we made drugs legal and freely available, there would be no cheating."

"Human sport is different from sports involving other animals, such as horse or dog racing. The goal of a horse race is to find the fastest horse. Horses are lined up and flogged. The winner is the one with the best combination of biology, training and rider. Basically this is a test of biological potential. This was the old naturalistic Athenian vision of sport: find the strongest, fastest or most skilled man. Drugs that improve our natural potential are against the spirit of this model of sport. But this is not the only view of sport. Humans are not horses or dogs. We make choices and exercise our own judgement. We choose what kind of training to use and how to run our race. We can display courage, determination and wisdom. We are not flogged by a jockey on our back but drive ourselves. It is this judgement that competitors exercise when they choose diet, training and whether to take drugs…Far from being against the spirit of sport, biological manipulation embodies the human spirit – the capacity to improve ourselves on the basis of reason and judgement."

"By allowing everyone to take performance enhancing drugs, we level the playing field. We remove the effects of genetic inequality. Far from being unfair, allowing performance enhancement promotes equality."

To read the full article detailing the argument to allow drugs in sport subscribe to peak performance!

One of our regular contributors to peak performance has written a response to this article

 "Let athletes take drugs, but I don’t want them in my club – or at my Olympics" and goes on to argue:

"This article makes a carefully argued case for the abolition of the doping regulations, with the single important exception of ensuring that anything that is – or may be – harmful to the athlete’s health should remain outlawed. This, of course, raises a large problem. Many of the drugs that athletes use, and certainly most of the ones that are effective in improving performance, come with a significant risk. By the time the health affects – the cancers, liver damage, coronary abnormalities etc – are detectable, they are irreversible, so health screening of athletes before competition is not the answer. Often, there is no advance warning, as with the amphetamines that killed British cyclist Tommy Simpson."

"No one really knows how many athletes die each year as a consequence of the abuse of performance enhancing drugs, but there is ample evidence that such cases are not unusual. If we are going to say that the use of drugs that pose a health risk is to be prohibited, then we need the whole paraphernalia of doping lists to identify and exclude those drugs, in- and out-of-competition testing to detect their use, athlete education programmes and everything else that goes with it."

"I have no difficulty if athletes want to take (legalised) performance enhancing drugs. But I don’t want these athletes at my club, and I don’t want them in my Olympic Games. The point about competing in sport is that many of the rules are arbitrary: examples might include the offside rule in football, the prohibition on low punches in boxing, or the penalty rules for fouling in basketball. The aim is to compete within the rules and that is the ethos of sport."

"The IOC’s Lausanne Declaration on Doping in Sport (4 February, 1999) says that ‘...doping is defined as the use of an artifice, whether substance or method, potentially dangerous to athletes’ health and/or capable of enhancing their performance’. Of course, the rules are not perfect, but they are the rules. Some performance enhancing substances are not prohibited (caffeine and creatine, for example). Athletes are free to use these if they wish. Anabolic androgenic steroids are banned: athletes caught using these will be penalised.

The reality is that the playing field never will be level."

To read both of these articles in full and range of other topics subscribe to peak performance.

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Watch news story of Devi's withdrawal from Olympics in the video below: