Dear future President, 

Drug use in sports is wrong for many reasons. As an athlete I look up to professional athletes and hearing about them doing drugs makes me sad and is setting a bad example. Why use drugs when you can just work harder to gain strength or relieve stress? Why risk getting suspended from the sport you love just to look or feel better? There are other solutions to getting better at a sport rather than using drugs.

My audience should listen to me because I am an athlete and athletes are supposed to be role models and looked up to.  According to LA Times, “a Chinese swimmer, a Polish weightlifter and a Bulgarian steeplechaser on Friday were expelled or suspended from the Olympics for doping, the first athletes sanctioned after failing drug tests at the Games.” I think that it is good that they were suspended because if they weren’t, then kids would look up to them and think that it is okay to use drugs. I think there are alternatives to relieving stress, instead of doing drugs to feel relieved, you could easily talk to a counselor or therapist to feel better or even take your stress out in the weight room.  Another example is according to LA Times it says, “with A-Rod getting slammed with a 211 game suspension last week for using performance enhancement drugs, we take a look at some of the most infamous athletes who were either stripped of their accomplishments or banned from the sport they loved (or both)." I think that it is good that he got suspended also because if not he would continue to do drugs and then think it is okay to do them and damage his body at the same time.

I also think my audience should listen to me because being athletic should be something natural; it shouldn’t be something that you need to take drugs to be good at. You should only take drugs if they are prescribed to you. According to Thad Morgan, on Foul Play, “more and more, our society views winning as something more important than the game itself. Success in competition brings status, popularity and fame, not to mention college scholarships. Today's athletes are looking for an advantage over the competition that will help make them winners. Unfortunately, the adolescents of today are caught up in this high stakes competition frenzy. Because of this reality, teenage use of performance enhancing drugs is growing ever more popular.” I think that this habit of using the performance enhancing drugs can end up being a lifetime problem especially when you start doing it as a teenager, the earlier you start a bad habit like this, the more it will affect you in the long run. I think that there are ways to prevent young kids or teenagers from taking drugs. Professional athletes should stop using performance enhancing drugs because teenagers are looking up to them and starting to do them.

Lastly, my audience should listen to me because things like alcoholism cause depression, and depression could lead to drinking more and affecting how athletes play. On “30 Famous Athletes Who Have Battled Drug Addiction”, it says “Olympic goalie Pelle Lindebergh died by driving his car into a wall while drunk.” This situation could have been solved by simply not drinking and driving in the first place. There could be many different reasons behind why they were drinking and driving but at the end of the day, it  wasn’t the best decision to make. Before you go out to drink you should always think about the situation you’re in so you know what to do after you’re under the influence. There also could be many solutions or other things you could do like get a ride from a friend, parent, or even a cab.

Overall, I think athletes should not use drugs under any circumstances and they can do a bunch of different things to your body and there are also other routes to take other than immediately going to drugs.

Sincerely,

Sarah 

Work cited:

Morgan, Thad. Foul Play: Athletes Who Have Been Banned and Busted. 

://www.biography.com/news/a-rod-suspension-httpbanned-athletes

30 Famous Athletes Who Have Battled Drug Addiction. 

http://drugabuse.com/30-famous-athletes-who-have-battled-drug-addiction-and-alcoholism/

Seeking an Unfair Advantage”

Professor and Director of the Medical Ethics Program at the University of Wisconsin

http://sportsanddrugs.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=0“02352