ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the specific risks and harms of performance enhancement practices, what causes them, and what could be done to reduce these risks and harms. It deals with some reflections on the facts and myths of doping-related harms. The war on doping is accompanied by strong rhetoric on the excessive dangers of performance-enhancing drugs. Harms of doping for the athletes can be divided into consequences directly related to the effect of the performance-enhancing substances or methods, or indirect consequences. Performance enhancement in the larger sense of the word may be seen as an increasingly ‘normal’ societal phenomenon. Access to medical care should be made possible; physicians should be knowledgeable and have a non-judgemental attitude towards performance-enhancing substances and methods. When discussing harm reduction in the realm of doping in sport one has to look at the risks and harms that doping in sport causes or may cause.