Do the names Arnold Schwarzenegger, Roger Clemens, Aaron Rodriguez, and Barry Bonds ring a bell? All these famous people have tried to get ahead in an illegal way. Some would say they have cheated in order to make more money.  They “get ahead” by using performance enhancing drugs, anabolic steroids being the most common form. These types of drugs are wrong to use because they have great risks, both mental and physical, and are immoral. We need to change the disfigured views of athletes, fans, and youth around the USA.

Using steroids can be detrimental to your health. Steroids affect you both physically and mentally. Taking any form preformance enhancing drugs can stunt your growth, cause acne, and even make you go bald, and those are only the effects on the outside of the body. On the inside is where the real problems occur. Abusing anabolic steroids leads to great organ damage. Your liver takes a big hit and so does your heart. Brain cells are messed with and can cause stroke (Egendorf 6). Sharing injection needles is also a great risk. Sharing with different people can lead to HIV or AIDS (Egendorf 42).  Mentally your risks are anxiety, sleep apneia, depression, and extreme paranoia (Fitzhugh 41). Also, everyone has heard stories of people with Roid Rage. Despite what others say, Roid Rage is a real problem. The violence that is caused from Roid Rage has been linked to many domestic violence, rape, robbery, and attempted murder cases (Fitzhugh 43). Why would anybody want to take these risks?

 But the truth of the matter is that athletes do, and they ruin the point of competition. Players have an unspoken social contract, "to have a fair contest” (Dillingham 1). The use of steroids causes athletes to gain more muscle mass than the average person can by themselves. With all this extra muscle mass players become faster, stronger, and bigger than everyone participating. There is nothing fair about using illegal drugs to have an advantage over your competitors. People who use performance enhancing drugs cheat others who work hard and have natural talent. In sports, there should be no shortcuts to success. It's not even worth it to cheat because the consequences are great. Getting caught using steroids can get you a $250,000 fine at the least. Getting caught with possesion of any illegal drug can get you up to 5 years in a state federal prison (Silive 1). Adding on to that list of prediciments, having a record of drug abuse is a big no no when applying for a job. Nobody will want to hire any drug user to work for them. 

 Despite all these things previously stated, actors and athletes still abuse preformance enhancing drugs. These are the people whose America's youth look up to. These people are supposed to be examples, and are influencing the views of citizens. Highschoolers are starting to see steroid abuse as an okay thing to do. Teens start to use steroids because they feel like they don't fit in or don't look like everyone else. But a big factor in the beggining of steroid abuse is athletes wanting to get into good colleges and to get scholarships. Now 5% of highschoolers admit to using anabolic steroids. About 1/3 of teens use unhealthy ways to gain muscle. 65% of steroid users are under the age of 19. Only 1/2 of teens say steroid abuse is wrong(Silive 1). These statistics are  shocking and jaw dropping. We need to raise awareness about the issue of steroid abuse and preformance enhancing drugs so our future athletes are real players, not juiced up cheaters.