Introduction

It may be useful at the outset to make clear to the reader what this book is about and, equally importantly, what it is not about. It may also be useful to set out some of the conceptual and theoretical issues which underpin this book. First, we should make it clear that the focus of this book is consistently

on drug use in elite sport. We are of course aware of the fact that far more performance-enhancing drugs are consumed outside the context of elite sport, for example, in gymnasiums. We are also aware of the fact that the widespread consumption, particularly of anabolic steroids, by bodybuilders and many others who use such drugs for cosmetic purposes, constitutes a far more serious public health issue than does drug use by elite athletes, partly because of the much larger number of people involved – in 1994 it was estimated that in a city the size of London there may be as many as 60,000 regular users of anabolic steroids (Walker, 1994) – and partly because gym users and non-competitive athletes who use steroids are much less likely than are elite athletes to be using the drugs under medical supervision. We make some reference to the use of anabolic steroids outside the context of elite sport in Chapter 7, but this is not our primary concern in this book. Those who wish to examine these issues in more detail will find excellent starting points in the books by Monaghan (2001) and Lenehan (2003). Second, we need to draw attention to an important conceptual issue

concerning our use of the terms ‘doping’ and the ‘use of performanceenhancing drugs’. Dunning and Waddington (2003: 364) have suggested that ‘it may be useful to differentiate between these terms and to apply them to two rather different ways in which drugs may be used to affect sporting performance’. The first of these relates to situations in which athletes knowingly take drugs with a view to enhancing their performance, or in which they inadvertently take them, for example by consuming a legitimate medication which also contains a performance-enhancing substance, such as ephedrine, which is contained in some common cold remedies. In both cases, it is assumed under the rules of strict liability that the athlete can be held responsible for the consumption of the drug and it is on this basis

that sanctions may be applied. In other cases, however, the assumption of personal responsibility may not be valid, for substances which affect performance may also be administered without the knowledge or consent of the ‘competitor’. Dunning and Waddington deliberately used the term ‘competitor’ in

inverted commas because the most obvious example of drugs being used without the knowledge or consent of the ‘competitor’ concerns animal sports, where drugs may often be administered to animals not with a view to enhancing, but to hindering, their performance. However, they add that ‘there have been situations in which performance-enhancing drugs are administered to human athletes without their knowledge or consent and in situations in which it may not be appropriate to hold the drug-using athletes responsible for their consumption of those drugs’ (Dunning and Waddington, 2003: 365). In this regard, they cite the state-sponsored doping system in former East Germany, under which large numbers of athletes, many of them children, were given drugs without their knowledge or consent and they suggest that ‘it may be appropriate to regard those who were administered drugs under these circumstances not as criminal or cheats but – especially in view of the drug-related health problems experienced by some former East German athletes – ‘as “victims” or “dupes”’ (Dunning and Waddington, 2003: 365). They suggest that:

In the light of situations such as those outlined above, it might be useful to restrict the use of the term ‘doping’ to those situations in which drugs which affect performance are administered without informing, or securing the consent of, those who receive these drugs. Such situations may arise because the issues of providing information and securing consent are not relevant because those receiving the drugs are non-human, as opposed to human, animals. However, such situations may also arise, as in the case of athletes in East Germany, because the structure not only of the sport system but also of the wider socio-economic-political system – and in particular, the balance of individual and collective rights – is conducive to the administration of drugs to athletes without their consent. In contrast to these situations, it is our suggestion that, where an athlete him/herself is knowingly taking performance-enhancing drugs, or where he/she may be held culpable for not taking adequate precautions to avoid ingesting such drugs, even accidentally, it is useful to describe such behaviour not as ‘doping’ but as ‘behaviour involving the use of performance-enhancing drugs’. The central rationale for making this distinction is that situations in which people (or non-human animals) are ‘doped’ involve a very different pattern of social relationships from those in which athletes may be held responsible for their consumption of performance-enhancing drugs. In addition, the legal consequences are likely

to be very different, while the two situations are also likely to be morally evaluated quite differently.