Many athletes of all ages are turning towards performance enhancing drugs as a way of improving their performance by giving them that extra edge. This is not only wrong but its cheating and harmful to the athlete.
             Performance enhancing drugs have been around for hundreds of years. The Incas of the South America country Peru used the burned leaves of coca trees to give them great amounts of energy when faced with battles, hunts, ect. Even today they use coca leaves as a way of giving them the energy to do a full days work. Today we know that the ashes of the coca tree's leaves actually contained cocaine. The " first recorded drug related death in sports"{1} was of a European cyclist in 1886. The drug responsible for the cyclist was a "mixture of heroin and cocaine"{2} nicknamed the speedball. Tom Hicks of the U.S. collapsed after winning the marathon in the 1904 Olympics. It was later found that "Hicks had drunk a mixture of brandy and strychnine {Dolan 1986}."{3} As you can see, the use of drugs to try to enhance performance is not a new idea; athletes have been experimenting with drugs for years.
             Probably the most recognized performance enhancing drugs are anabolic steroids. Steroids have been used in medical practice for years. As with most drugs, steroids can be helpful when used under medical supervision. The muscle-building capabilities of steroids were soon discovered by the athletic world. Steroid use by athletes were already under way by the mid 1950's. Steroids were first introduced to the U.S. by the late Dr. John Ziegler. Along with "being a physician and scientist, he was also an athlete"{4}. He was a "leading weight lifter"{5} in the U.S. In 1956 he traveled to Vienna, Austria for a wrestling meet. While he was there, he talked to a Russian trainer who told him that "Russian athletes had discovered a miracle drug"{6}, anabolic st...