There's an interesting article by Radley Balko, one of the libertarians at Reason magazine, that asks whether performance enhancing drugs should be allowed in sports. Given that Balko is a libertarian you might be able to guess what his attitude is:
Let me start by saying that I believe private sports organizations should be able to set their own rules, and that they should be free to discipline in any manner they see fit the players who break those rules. I don’t think Congress should forcibly allow performance enhancing substances in sports any more than I think Congress should prohibit them.
He offers a few relatively convincing arguments in support of his position, which is more than many of his opponents on this issue can claim:
So what is this debate really all about?
I’d submit it’s about paternalism and control. A few luddites and prudes have successfully induced a full-blown moral panic over a set of substances that for whatever reason have attracted the ire of the people who have made it their job to tell us what is and isn’t good for us.
Our society has an oddly schizophrenic relationship with pharmaceuticals and medical technology. If something can be said to be “natural”, we tend to be okay with it. If it seems lab-made or synthetic we tend to be leery. But even synthetic drugs and manmade technology seem to be okay if the aim is to make sick or broken people whole again.It’s when we talk about expanding or transcending what we’ve come to consider “normal,” be it through psychoactive drugs, performance-enhancing drugs, or genetic or biomedical technology, that a certain uneasiness sets in.
But the cat is already out of the bag. Has been for a long time. Which is not to say that there should never be any limits, nor any conversation about these things, but "natural" and "normal" are an awfully slippery slope. Balko is absolutely right to suggest that our hypocrisy concerning steroids and hgh is troubling. You can read the whole thing here.
