Crashburn Alley

The Real Drug Issue Doesn’t Concern MLB

by Bill Baer on September 7th, 2007
Posted in MLB | Print | 4 Comments »

Two months to the day after Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron’s all-time homerun record — two months of steroid-free baseball conversation — the names of both Rick Ankiel and Troy Glaus became publicly linked to performance-enhancing drug use.

As ESPN.com writes regarding Ankiel:

The New York Daily News reported Friday that Ankiel received a 12-month supply of human growth hormone in 2004[...]

Ankiel’s HGH prescriptions, including Saizen and Genotropin, were signed by Florida physician William Gogan[...]

Ankiel has not been accused by authorities of wrongdoing, and stopped receiving HGH just before Major League Baseball officially banned it in 2005, The News reported.

Unless the authorities can prove that Ankiel did not use HGH for a legitimate health-related reason, Ankiel was within the rules of the United States and Major League Baseball, and therefore cannot be punished. Unfortunately for Ankiel, however, the court of public opinion can and will judge him, regardless of the ex post facto concept.

Troy Glaus was also linked to performance-enhancing drugs — steroids and testosterone, per ESPN.com:

[...]multiple shipments of Nandrolone, an anabolic steroid, and testosterone were sent to a Corona, Calif. address that corresponds with Glaus’ address. The shipments reportedly occurred between Sept., 2003 and May, 2004[...]

[...]both nandrolone and testosterone were on Major League Baseball’s banned substances list at the time the items were shipped[...]

Glaus isn’t so fortunate, as he was using the substances when they were both against MLB rules, and against U.S. drug policies.

While it is amusing to watch the same people who admonished Bonds for only allegedly using performance-enhancing drugs scramble for excuses to continue to behold Ankiel (Jayson Stark has a nice column about our double-standards), the more important issue, at least for me, is that performance-enhancing drugs are still illegal.

Steroids, HGH, and all of the other chemicals that athletes use to recover from injuries and build muscle, are no more performance-enhancing than the other tools they use. For instance, several Major League baseball players use Nike MAXSIGHT tinted contact lenses (Baltimore Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts, for instance). According to Bausch & Lomb’s website:

Nike MAXSIGHT is a soft contact lens that eliminates glare and increases contrast. The two tints, grey-green and amber, are tuned to different sporting needs. Grey-green is for sports played in bright sunlight, where visual comfort is a concern, and amber, is for sports like tennis that require tracking a fast-moving ball.

No matter what the game, athletes get crisp, clear vision. Nike MAXSIGHT lenses give any athlete more comfort, less glare, enhanced contrast, and substantially reduced exposure to UVA and UVB rays.

Is that not performance-enhancing, just like the chemicals? What about protein shakes, weight-lifting, and other legal means of enhancing one’s performance?

“Yes,” they say, “but those are not detrimental to the player’s health.”

And that brings me to my second point about the illegality of performance-enhancing drugs. If we’re so worried about the health of our athletes, why are they allowed to eat unhealthy foods, to smoke cigarettes, to chew tobacco, to drink alcohol, and to engage in dangerous activities (motorcycle riding, for instance)? It seems we only care about the health of our athletes when it comes to “drugs.”

Another reason for keeping steroids and HGH illegal is that, if legal, players would have to sacrifice the immediate and long-term health of their bodies just to keep up with the other drug-using athletes. But is that not true of Cortisone (a steroid), which athletes take to ease the pain of a nagging injury? Cortisone suppresses the immune system. It seems hypocritical that steroids and HGH are illegal, but Cortisone is still legal. Either they should all be illegal, or they should all be legal.

The latter is just a fleeting dream, however, because of the reality of the situation. Drugs aren’t illegal because of their negative health effects, or because they enhance one’s performance; they’re illegal because they are competition for the U.S. government, which is wholly owned by the pharmaceutical industry. What this means is that the pharmaceutical industry has lobbyists that both pay off and mislead our politicians on drug issues (vote for the issues that benefit the pharmaceutical companies, and against those that allow competition).

Consider the following statistics from Public Citizen:

The pharmaceutical and managed care industries spent a combined $141 million last year, according to Public Citizen’s analysis of newly released federal lobbying disclosure records. Drugmakers and HMOs hired 952 individual lobbyists in 2003 – nearly half of whom had “revolving door” connections to Congress, the White House or the executive branch. That’s nearly 10 lobbyists for every U.S. senator.[...]

In 2003, the drug industry spent a record $108.6 million on federal lobbying activities and hired 824 individual lobbyists – both all-time highs. In 2002, based on a more narrowly defined survey, the drug industry spent $91.4 million and hired 675 lobbyists.[...]

The Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), which represents more than 40 brand-name drug companies, shelled out more than $16 million last year on lobbying, a 12.5 percent increase from the year before. PhRMA alone hired 136 lobbyists.[...]

In all, 431 lobbyists employed by the drug industry or HMOs – or 45 percent of all their lobbyists – previously worked for the federal government. Among them were 30 ex-U.S. senators and representatives – 18 Republicans and 12 Democrats.[...]

At least 11 top staffers who left the Bush administration lobbied for the drug industry and HMOs in 2003. White House and administration insiders working as lobbyists on the Medicare bill included several former top advisers to Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy Thompson.[...]

• If Public Citizen seems too “leftist,” FOX News reports the following: “the [pharmaceutical] industry hired nearly 1,300 lobbyists, including dozens of former lawmakers and hundreds of people who worked for congressional committees or regulatory agencies.”

Where does all that fit in regarding performance-enhancing drugs in sports? Steroids, like marijuana, cure a variety of ailments, and thus are competition for the one-pill-per-issue scheme the pharmaceutical companies are using.

According to Wikipedia, anabolic steroids help with:

• Stimulating bone growth and appetite
• Inducing male puberty
• Treating cancer and AIDS
• Enhancing strength and physique

Wikipedia also lists the benefits of Human Growth Hormone here.

Steroids and HGH are still legal to use, but, as the New York Daily News describes, it is a long process to get your “situation” approved:

Unlike most drugs, federal law bans the use of HGH for off-label purposes: Physicians can distribute growth hormone only in connection with either treatment of a disease or another medical condition authorized by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. “You need a bona fide doctor-patient relationship and a bona fide disease to distribute growth hormone,” Wadler said.

To legally use HGH, you have to go through Health and Human Services, which is a Cabinet in the U.S. government, which is bought off by the pharmaceutical companies. How convenient!

For the same reasons steroids and HGH are illegal, other drugs, especially marijuana, also remain illegal. Per Wikipedia, marijuana is beneficial in treating:

• Cancer and AIDS
• Glaucoma
• Analgesia (pain relief)
• Epilepsy and bipolar disorder
• Tics in patients suffering from OCD or Tourette syndrome
• Preventing Alzheimer’s disease
• Preventing arterial blockage
• Reducing muscle spasticity from Multiple Sclerosis

There has only been one proven legitimate detrimental effect from marijuana, and that’s a 2% higher risk of psychosis. Consider the fact that marijuana has never been responsible for one single death, and then compare it to the laundry list of negative effects of tobacco and alcohol (both of which are legal in the U.S. and both of which have industries that also heavily lobby our politicians to sway their opinions via money and propaganda), and it’s all to clear why drugs are really illegal in the U.S.

It’s time to legalize drugs not just in professional sports, but in the United States. Time to divorce the pharmaceutical industry’s marriage with our politicians. Time to end the hypocrisy in allowing Cortisone, but barring other, equally as damaging steroids; the hypocrisy in citing health as the deciding factor, but covering our collective eyes at the rampant tobacco and alcohol use in our country that is responsible for more than 500,000 deaths per year.