“Nothing was being done to help the non-dopers, to encourage or support them. Even the clean riders like myself and Moncout knew how easy it was to cheat the tests" (Millar). In Jeremy Rozansky's article "How to Think About Our Steroid Supermen" he discusses the use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) in sports and how the use of these drugs is unethical because it goes against the sportsmanship spirit of the game. Rozansky also talks about the many ways doping is dangerous and can compromise the health of the athletes involved. He states his opinion that doping in sports sends a bad message to children-that drugs make champions. While these are valid points, However, if PEDs in sports were allowed and regulated, not only would it help the athletes improve performance, it would also make doping safer for the athletes as limits could be set on how much an athlete can use/have in their system. By regulating doping in professional sports, not only would this help keep athletes from injuring themselves, it also has the potential of improving the entertainment of spectating the sports by leveling the playing field even more and allowing for even greater spectacular feats to occur. Lance Armstrong was a role model. Not only did he survive cancer, despite having brain and lung metastases, he came back to win the most grueling race in sports, the Tour de France, a record 7 times. He was an icon, but that time has passed. In Rozansky's article he argues that Lance, and other athletes like him, by choosing to use performance-enhancing drugs choose to participate not in sports but in a spectacle that bears only a mocking resemblance to true athletic achievement. As such, we cannot induct them into our temples of grand sportsmen, nor can we consider them the best sportsmen in a corrupted era (Rozansky). I would agree with most of what Rozansky said, if sports were only about competing to see who's the best. Perhaps that’s all it is to the spectators, but for the competitors it's a lot more. A professional athletes sport is their livelihood, their job, and if they can't be the best or come close, that means these sportsmen don't get to be a media star, and no media time means they no longer get sponsors that support them and their families and give them a next season. And in cycling you don’t even stand a chance to be triumphant if you are not doping. Doping is or was widespread. Of 21 podium finishers in the Tour de France for the period 1999-2005, 20 of them have been directly linked to doping. Many others have gotten away with it too. Estimates vary but go up to implication that 90% of riders were doping with EPO (Erythropoietin, a hormone produced by the kidney that promotes the formation of red blood cells in the bone marrow) at that time. When the EPO test was first made, it was tested on 102 urine samples from the 1998 Tour de France, with 28 found to be at levels that were above the regular range(Smith). EPO has a short range of detectability, so it is not certain that this test would have caught all users. In Rozansky's article he also states that steroids are dangerous. "We don’t want our athletes to experience liver cancer, mood swings, drug dependence, high blood pressure, or infertility just to entertain us." While this can be true, isn't it also true that the very nature of athletic sport is to push the athlete to their extreme, which can be dangerous? Professional sports causes more deaths, both in practicing and competition, than steroids do, and it also results in millions of crippling injuries every year. Young men end up paralyzed for life from playing football. If a performance enhancing drug is significantly less hazardous than the training for that sport, or than actual contending in it, then the dangers of the drug are so low that it makes them irrelevant. Anabolic steroids are nothing more than the synthetic variety of the natural hormone, testosterone. In its natural form it is a byproduct of intense training, and many of its worst side-effects like immune deficiency, enlarged ventricles in the heart, and depression are also common symptoms of overtraining(Smith). In this situation, steroids are still dangerous, but perhaps not much more dangerous than hard training. The biggest problem with anabolic steroids is that they are acquired illegally, and then self-administered in secret by athletes who are not trained to identify overuse or to scale their doses appropriately. Like many prescription drugs, steroids can be taken safely but it is not safe to take them on your own. It would be much safer to take steroids for performance improvements if they could be administered by a doctor. But what about the children? In Jeremy Rozansky's piece he states do we want these role models encouraging youth to risk the side effects that come from steroids and other PEDs. While I wouldn’t condone drug use for children, even in sports, I can provide an ulterior way to look at the situation. There are many things which are legal for adults but not legal for children such as drinking alcohol and driving. This is an expression of the risks involved and the requirement for maturity and capability in handling those risks. The same message is valid to performance enhancing drugs. Secondly, there are only limited resources for the war on drugs. It is far better to use our resources to avert the use of performance enhancers in children and the use of those which are extremely unsafe or against the spirit of a particular sport, instead of spreading them sparsely over the whole sport. Doping will always be present in sports. A zero tolerance policy will always fail. The zero tolerance ban on drugs in sport is an example of the victory of ideology, wishful thinking, and naivety over moralality and common sense. Human beings have limitations. Lance Armstrong and other sportsmen are not gods, but also not demons. We should choose the guidelines which best promotes the values of wellbeing, spectator interest, enforceability and fair competition. That is a policy of regulated access to performance enhancing drugs. My hope is that someday this will be implicated and that the subject of PEDs in sports will not be looked upon in such a black and white fashion.