This is more of a general sports than Broncos specific post. Still, I think it's relevant in that it's unlikely that no Bronco is using performance enhancers to gain an edge, make the team or heal an injury.

Every year, when baseball rolls around, we have to deal with a spike in stories about steroids and other performance enhancing drugs (PHD). Mostly that's because MLB had done a terrible PR job around the issue and left itself open to charges of stupidity and hypocrisy. The NFL, on the other hand, has done a good job with their PR overall. They at least look like they are doing the best they can to keep the sport clean. That said, we all know that HGH and cutting edge steroids aren't always detectable, that players generally know how to cycle their use to get both benefit and avoid being caught, and that the NFL has quietly structured their testing to allow players to "sneak" use. The NFL still has players caught and gets some bad press because of it.

Having said all that, I don't want to rehash what should be done to clean up the game, at least not using a traditional argument. I feel that public discourse on the issue is all about revealing scandal and speculation on improving enforcement of PHD bans while little critical discussion occurs around underlying assumptions regarding PHD use. I've wanted to bring this topic up on MHR for awhile because y'all are (by far) the most critical thinking online sports community I've run into.

In the words of South Park's Mr. Mackey, the primary assumption that shapes our social approach to PHD seems to be, "Drugs are bad, m'kay." We are told that PHDs are horrible for long term health, they are clearly a way to cheat your natural human limitations, and they aren't fair to those athletes that choose to follow the rules. I agree with the last, but I am less certain about the first two. My contention is that it may be time to figure out how to integrate steroids and other PHDs into sport rather than fighting a losing battle to ban them.

First point, and a very short one. As with all technologies, once PHDs are out there you can't get the toothpaste back in the tube. Athletes are going to use steroids to get an edge. Management is going to allow as much leeway as possible for teams to compete. Trainers are going to procure the stuff, recommend how to administer, and give tips on dodging detection. None of this is going to go away because there is too much money and esteem available in pro sports for people not to pursue every method to capture both. Is it right? I don't know, but it's a fact. PHDs are not going away, so unless we decide to approach them differenently we'll be hearing about this all our lives, not to mention new "cheating" technologies. How will sport deal with performancing enhancing cybernetic implants in fifty years?

Second point, and I would love to hear from the MD members on this, is that PHD use may not be as physically harmful as we are led to believe. Certainly the shrill proclamations of the MSM on the topic sound like the scare tactics of D.A.R.E. when it comes to illegal recreational drugs. While I believe that someone on LSD once thought they could fly and jumped out a window, I also believe that thousands upon thousands of people have taken the drug without adverse consequences. Similarly, I believe that PHDs have had negative health effects for some athletes, including severe consequences like cancer. At the same time, I have not run into compelling evidence through mainstream discourse that demonstrates that negative health consequences are the rule when it comes to steroid use. I will admit that I am not an MD and don't have the time to go through the academic literature on the subject, but I'm sure if there was undeniable proof the PHD use was universally bad ESPN probably would have said something :).

Further, I want to suggest that potential negative health consequences could be mitigated by closely monitered use in an environment of accepted PHD use. I have a hard time believing that doctors and other trained professionals couldn't run PHD use programs that were nominally dangerous as compared to the circumstances that come with clandestine use. Think about it this way. If I took 100 heroin addicts and let them indulge their habit under professional supervision with the institutional backing of an organization with access to billions of dollars, I'm guessing the adverse effects they experience from their use would be far fewer than those experienced by 100 addicts doing the drug in the current climate of illegality. In the same way, I believe that above ground and monitered use of PHD in sport would be far less likely to have adverse affects on athletes if institutionally supported by the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, IOC, etc. etc. etc. Isn't it possible that accepted PHD use might actually be healthier for players than trying to ban them?

I'm sure a number of you are thinking, "Wow, very interesting, but that's not the point. Steroids are CHEATING you idiot!!!" My question is, why are they cheating? The answer, IMO, is that they are cheating because they are banned. The reason PHD can give a competitive advantage is that some players are using while others are not. If Mega-linebacker is crushing regular running back or beating out regular linebacker because he is using and they aren't, that is clearly unfair and compromises the integrity of the sport.  However, the reason he is able to do that is he can't use the drug without the knowledge of others. If PHD were integrated into sport then all the players would have the option of using in a monitered environment and everyone would know who is using what. It seems to me that would cancel the competitive advantage by giving it to everyone. Now mega-linebacker is always competing with mega-guard and mega-pitcher is always competing with mega-hitter. Now we're back to fair.

Further, above board use would solve the issue of "tainted eras" in the record books. If PHDs were integrated and used legally, then we would know that an era of players has a competitive advantage and could properly evaluate that era's achievements in relation to non-using eras. Also, if we had monitered use and a genetically gifted athlete that doesn't use breaks a record we can give him credit for doing it as a "natural" rather than enhanced human.

And that brings me to my last point. There is an underlying assumption, IMO, that juiced athletes are somehow not real. That they are cheating their "natural" place in the athletic order by using technology to raise their potential beyond it's "natural" limits. Not to get too philosophical here, but I think this exposes a bias in what we think of as human and invites a discussion of what humanness is or can be. Right now there is a bias toward the as-God-intended-it/as-Nature-constructed-it model of acceptable humanity. Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man is still the ideal of physical humanity. It is an unadorned, unmodified and genetically natural human perfection. It implies that modified physicality is unnatural and that unnatural is bad. In terms of the use of PHDs this philosphy translates into a negative interpretation of the modified athlete achieving over the genetically natural athlete. Is this a fair interpretation, or is it a kneejerk and uncritical acceptance of a bias toward unmodified physicality.

Human beings are, by evolutionary development and genetic construction, techonolgical animals. One of our greatest gifts is to modify either our environment or ourselves in ways that allow us to adapt quickly to changes. We an go into space because we are capable of taking our environment with us. We are able to create optimum natural athletes through the understanding and development of regimented exercise, managed nutrition and so on. It seems to me that PHD are simply an extension of this technological ability and that they express a different part of natural humanity. In that sense, a modified athlete is as natural as an unmodified athlete and is an equally astounding representation of what nature can achieve. Our technology is an outcome of our natural development and therefore technolgical enhancement is natural, not a perversion. We just need to change our interpretation of what is acceptable humanity to move beyond our current negativity about PHD.

I also want to add one more thing. There is a bias against PHD because they offend the American work-ethic. They are seen as a way to get something for nothing. This is really not the case. In order to gain the maximum benefits of most steroids and HGH, you have to work just as hard as you would to maximize your genetic potential. In fact, achieving a maximum enhanced potential is still a natural gift in that some people may be more genetically amenable to outside enhancement than others. It's just a different expression of humanness. 

So I say it's pretty much time to integrate what can't be banned and adjust our understanding of athletic prowess rather than trying to irrationally force athletics to fit our biases about acceptable humanity.

I do realize that I am going to get slammed from at least one quarter on this analysis. While pro and probably high level NCAA programs would have the ability to implement monitered, mostly safe use of PHD, what about lower level college and high school or younger athletes who don't have access to large amounts of institutional resources. They are still going to use steroids, and may even be compelled to do so in order to reach their dreams of competing at the higher levels. Also, the acceptance of use at more elite levels may indicate approval for their use at lower levels, even if unmonitered. I'm not sure how we could deal with that problem, though I'm pretty sure that clanestine use is already a big problem that may or may not have potential to be a bigger problem.