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=**__Team Gold Star Alpha Policy Paper__**=

Michael Henley, Cece McCrary, Daniel Topping, Carson McDearis Ethics Mr. John Barich April 11, 2012 Go Bears!

__The Risks, Affects, and Consequences of Performance Enhancing Drugs__ As modern medicine advances further, we see how it conflicts with the way we view sportsmanship. Sportsmanship, by definition, means fairness in following the rules of the game, no matter what that game is. Steroids, are one example of these modern medicine advances, and have very negative effects towards the fairness of a game. They are appealing to athletes, promising strength and better performance, but because of this, they are unfair. Some of the more prominent steroids in high school sports include Creatine, Ephedra, and other steroid precursors and anabolic steroids. They provide much more than just temporary strength. They also come with hindering side effects, some even life threatening. That is why teens should be aware of the risks. All steroids are dangerous and should remain illegal in sports.

One of the more common and accepted steroid substance is Ephedra. Ephedra started off as an herb used in ancient Chinese medicine. It is a nerve stimulant that resembles adrenaline. When a person works out, their muscles tear, then grow back stronger. That’s why athletes feel sore every time they work out. It’s a good thing though, because that means the muscle is growing stronger. Ephedra speeds up this healing process, however, so athletes feel less pain and are able to work out more. It also opens bronchial passage, stimulates the heart, increases blood pressure, metabolic rate, perspiration, and urine production, and reduces the secretion of both saliva and stomach acids. It’s used medicinally for the relief of asthma, allergies, cold, hay fever, and rheumatism. However, it still has negative side effects such as heartburn, shakiness, flushing, insomnia, dizziness, restlessness, nausea, feeling warm, headache, and more seriously: heart palpations, anxiety, hypertension, arrhythmia, chest pain, tachycardia, allergies, bizarre thinking or behavior, and severe muscle pain. The FDA currently bans it. Creatine is the second most common among athletes. It does mostly the same things as ephedra when it comes to growing muscle, but its side effects could be considered just as dangerous if not more. They include: bloating, muscle cramps, dehydration, liver ailment, heart problems, high blood pressure, mood swings, depression, hair loss, formation of male breasts, allergic reactions, acne, and anger and aggressive behaviors. The last substances are steroid precursors and anabolic steroids, who share the same side effects. Those side effects include rapid weight gain, changes in body build, bloated face, increased acne, enlarged breasts in boys, smaller breast size in girls, high voice for boys, lower voice for girls, “roid rage”, blood clotting, liver abnormalities, addiction, increases in LDL (bad) cholesterol, and increased blood pressure. Not only can all of these substances ruin your body, but your mind as well.

Gold Star Alpha Academy (GSAA) does not, under any circumstance, allow any performance enhancing drugs to be used for school sports. This goes for all GSAA Football, Soccer, Basketball, Baseball, Softball, Golf, Track & Field, Swim, Lacrosse, and Crew teams. The Performance Enhancement drugs typically used are listed in order from least to most harmful and each has their own respective punishments. This is to ensure that students understand the consequences that they may have to undertake in case they choose to take performance-enhancing drugs. The consequences for use of each performance-enhancing drug at GSAA are listed in order from least severe to most severe. If you are caught with traces of one performance-enhancing drug such as anabolic steroids, steroid precursors, or ephedra in your system, you will be punished with an automatic suspension from GSAA for at least ten days depending on the amount found in the blood stream. If you are caught with traces of two performance-enhancing drugs, you will be punished with an automatic suspension for at least thirty days with automatic suspension from GSAA Sports for the rest of the season. If you are caught with traces of three or more performance-enhancing drugs, you will be punished with automatic expulsion from GSAA and you will be required to right the school a minimum five-page paper on drug abuse. Furthermore, your offense will be printed onto your transcript for the rest of your high school career. Drug abuse is not taken lightly here at GSAA and will be treated as so. As stated above, use of performance enhancing drugs at GSAA will not be tolerated and will result in severe consequences.

One of our main focuses is to make students aware of the very real dangers of performance enhancing drugs. Our policy paper has done just that. With such dangerous performance enhancing drugs such as steroids, ephedra, and creatine, out in the world right now, it is important that students are made aware of exactly how dangerous these drugs are. This is not only for their health, but also to preserve the fairness and moderation of sports in which we founded them. Steroids provide much more than just temporary strength. They also come with negative side effects, some that prove to be even life threatening. That is why teens should be made aware of the risks. All steroids are dangerous and should remain illegal in sports.

I liked that you gave a summary of each of the drugs, as well as the history and what it can be used for. You made a good argument for why the policy regarding drugs is so strict, and why the attitude should be "zero tolerance." I'm curious to hear how you plan on testing the athletes for all of these substances though. You mentioned that the punishment correlates to the amount of substance found in the blood stream, so would you be administering blood tests instead of a more traditional and simple urine test? Thanks! -Andrew Long
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