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Information wanted please

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robocop

Bluelighter
Joined
Dec 13, 2005
Messages
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Hey everyone

I am going to be in a debate on tuesday against a team from another college from our university with the topic "Recreational drug use should be banned from all professional sports" and our team is against this. Now I am just wondering if any of you would like to share your felt opinions on this, or point me in the directions of any good information you have come across on this topic, as I think this could be a rather interesting topic.

I already have my own opinions, and am glad our college has been allocated to oppose the topic. any help at all would be appreciated, and thanks again. Only have until tuesday to prepare so speedy responses would be even more graciously appreciated.

Cheers
 
What kind of angle are you going to take?
you would have to examine what effect the recreational drug use has not only on their profesional lives but personal lives, if it un-motivates them etc.

Sounds like an interesting topic, are you going to post a copy when its finished?
 
In my opinion:

It sort of begs the question: Are professional sports players allowed to have a private life? ie. Can a sports player ever be out of the public eye?

When they are in the public eye, they are much more than just team players, whether they like it or not. In many cases they are aspirational motivation, role-models and national heroes (especially in a nation such as Australia where sporting is taken so closely to heart). In the public eye they can't be shown to be recreational drug-users because drugs are illegal, and that goes against the grain of society to allow someone to be athletically and financially successful while their behaviour flies in the face of all propaganda that has been so desperately disseminated over the last century.

If they are allowed to have a private life, then it's nobody's business what drugs they use when they're not on the field/court/etc. But the nature of the tabloid press and other such tall-poppy-cutters is to attempt to damage the reputation of role-models at any oppotunity... so a recreational drug-using sporting celebrity as such must take great pains to ensure that private life stays private.

If not, this places a huge responsibility on said celebrity to know more about their drugs and dosage limits than anyone else, because one slip = dramatic fall from grace (there are many examples in the past where a sporting great or someone in their company has required medical attention to get them out of a drug-induced emergency). So a drug-using sport hero must be a guru of harm reduction to avoid detection... perhaps. But how many actual professional sportpeople would have any idea where to get this kind of information in order to educate themselves enough to avoid difficulties, when they may feel as though they are invincible in the first place?

The way things are at the moment, the drugs are much easier to get than the information about their responsible use. That is a huge problem, but is far beyond the scope of whether sports players should be drugtested every week to find out if they took pills on the weekend.

BigTrancer :)
 
i think the main angle we wil be taking is that they should be allowd private lives, just like any other average joe, so yeah the privacy issue will be a big issue, stuff along the lines of the fact that if someone might have smoked a joint or did a pill on the weekend, which is giving them no competitive edge or advantage whatsoever in their chosen sport, then that is their business and their business only.

Also things like if professional athletes were to start getting tested all the time for rec drug use, than just what results this might turn up, i mean of course some sports stars might be seen as heroes to alot of people, and discovering someone does the odd pill would be detrimental towards their reputation amongst the masses who are against rec drugs....but the thing to remember is this would only be an issue IF testing was brought in, which in my opinion there is no need to be

but yeah keep the opinions coming guys, much appreciated!
 
the one reason the australian armed forces is so depleted is due to drug tests. i wonder if sport would succumb to the same problem.
 
I can see a parallel between this issue and police checks for people who work with children. A police check may turn up prior convictions, but if they are nothing to do with harming children, it is inappropriate for the employee to be penalised, or even for the employer to be informed. Just as a drug test in relation to a specific sport may find many different drugs, but the only ones that should be an issue are those drugs that involve or influence that specific sport.

In both cases it seems unethical to penalise someone for something that is discovered inadvertently and is unrelated to what they are actually being assessed for.
 
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