Dear Future President,

A very small percentage of our population brings up a very big issue. Athletes and drugs. The rules of professional athletes being banned from using any drugs are fair and need to be enforced.

You can argue that there is no law that bans a professional athlete from “leveling out the playing field” with a few steroid shots. But, you have to keep in mind those athletes aren't doing that to make the game fairer. They are doing it to get an unfair advantage on other players. Some of the biggest names in history, Michael Phelps, Hope Solo, Alex Rodriguez, the people our next generation will look up to, have all been caught abusing illegal drugs. Many professional athletes have been caught with marijuana, meth, heroin, and cocaine. In an interview with Sports Illustrated: Olympic Issue, 98% percent of athletes interviewed said they would use performance enhancing drugs if they were guaranteed not to be caught and get into trouble. Performance enhancing drugs can increase an athlete's ability anywhere from 20-50 percent. That's not fair to the professional athletes that work extremely hard and train extremely hard to get to that level while others sit down in a chair and get injected with artificial chemicals. That is basically cheating, which is wrong. However many players get away with it, and that is why I propose that we pay more attention to this issue and enforce the rules of the game.The NFL, MLB, and NBA, all have rules in which prohibit the abuse of performance enhancing drugs. However, in the MLB, your first drug test that comes out positive, suspends you for only 15 days. In the NFL, it's a 4 game suspension. Corie Blount, a former NBA player, was caught just before the NBA playoffs, with 29 lbs of marijuana. That’s almost $40,000 worth of illegal drugs. Because of his position and importance on the Raptors, he “avoided trafficking charges” and was later fined for only $10,000, about ⅓ of what the marijuana he possessed was worth. According to LegalMatch, you can be sentenced to one year or more for possessing just a single marijuana cigarette, that is if it is illegal in that state. It is unfair that athletes get away with an unfair advantage from steroids but also get away with crimes. Lastly, the Federal Laws should apply to every United States citizen. We shouldn't single out a group of Americans that have more rights than others.

Professional athletes make up a very small percentage of our population, but that doesn't give them the right to cheating, or getting away with crimes. Each professional league has their own laws and rules about the abuse of drugs and they need to be enforced. No one should be able to get away with what we see more and more that professional athletes can, whether it's an unfair advantage or possessing illegal drugs, it's not gonna stop until someone does something to stop it. All you have to do is enforce the law and the rules of the game. Maybe the easiest thing you will have to do as President of the United States.

Sincerely,

Hannah.

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“- Drug Use in Sports - ProCon.org.” ProConorg Headlines, 8 Aug. 2016, http://sportsanddrugs.procon.org/view.answers.php.