Performance-Enhancing Drugs and Sports

Reading a new piece in Outside magazine, I was interested to find that one of the long-time leaders in the drug-testing field thinks that the cheaters will always beat the tesing regime, always staying one step ahead of the tests available.

My sense is that this will undermine elite sports, more and more over time. But in my view, this is a positive development. If people would stop watching sports and start participating in physical activity, we would all be better off. The correct response here is to emphasize that athletic endeavor is something that we can all do, and thus the emphasis our culture puts on being the fastest, the strongest, etc., is wrong-headed. If we re-focus on participation and away from Barry Bonds's inflated homerun numbers, we might start to address problems like childhood obesity.