Nowadays the news is filled with stories about athletes who use drugs to give them an advantage over their competitors. However, there aren’t enough stories about athletes who use “performance killing drugs” or PKDs.
The PKD of choice for many professional athletes is marijuana. In 1998 snowboarder Ross Rebagliati was stripped of his Olympic gold medal because a blood test revealed that he had THC in his blood stream. He was later given his gold medal back after the International Olympic Committee decided that marijuana couldn’t possibly have helped him achieve greatness.
Why haven’t other professional sports organizations adopted the same policy towards PKDs? Is it because they are scared they will give kids the wrong idea? The “bad influence” argument is understandable, but if the purpose of drug testing is to keep the game fair, why conduct tests for PKDs in the first place? Nobody ever hit a 500ft homer that was directly linked to the gravity bong hits they were taking out of the whirlpool before the game.
Committing a federal crime right... now.
Professional athletes are often presented with high expectations while competing, but also when they aren’t. To enhance their lives on the field, they might use some HGH (or in Roger Clemens’ case, B-12 and Lidocaine). To enhance their lives off the field, they might drink, smoke weed, or snort some cocaine.
This off the field behavior commonly penalizes the athlete without any punishment from their respective sports organization. The tragic story of Len Bias is the prime example of an athlete who paid the ultimate price for his poor decisions. After being selected 2nd overall in the 1986 NBA draft, Len decided to celebrate with some blow. Just 48 hrs later, he suffered a heart attack and died.
Despite tragic incidents like the case of Len Bias, professional sports organizations shouldn’t monitor an athlete’s recreational drug use. After all, it’s the athlete who will ultimately be hurt if their consumption gets out of hand, not the league.
Some legendary PKD users and their drug of choice:
Michael Phelps: Marijuana (preferably out of a high quality bong)
Darryl Strawberry: Cocaine, Ice, Blow, Crack, etc.
Charles Barkley: Alcohol (preferably before driving).
Chris Anderson: Who knows, but I’m sure it was high quality shit.
Babe Ruth: Hot Dogs.
Ricky Williams: Tons of weed used to combat social anxiety disorder. News flash…. Weed doesn’t help with social anxiety.
Bill Walton: LSD (you don’t go to over 650 Grateful Dead shows without trying it).
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Comments
I agree, except on one point: a player’s drug use affects his team and their fans, not just himself. When Len Bias died, he killed the future of the Celtics for the next 10 years. He ruined their #2 draft pick at least, and a few championships at most.
I agree completely, but thought that it would be impossible to keep your attention for another paragraph, since you were stoned out of our mind when you read it. In all honesty I did it to protect you and make you feel alright about your own use of PKDs.
Robert Parrish! 00! Busted for a basement full of weed!
Umm… Former Cowboys Pro Bowler Nate Newton was busted in 2001 with 213 pounds if weed, got bailed out of jail by Michael Irvin, and then got caught five weeks later with 175 pounds of weed. That will forever be the best drug story in sports history.
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