Preview

How Do Drugs Affect Sports In The 1980s

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
405 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
How Do Drugs Affect Sports In The 1980s
The 1980s was a decade of excess. Ronald Reagan was just elected President in what was known as the greatest prosperous years in American history. As America became richer drugs became more popular amongst the poor and the rich alike. The stock market was booming, and Wall Street was filled with a new breed of achievers, called yuppies. People were making money and lots of it, which prompted a more drug fueled lifestyle. That influx of drugs in the population affected sports in many ways.

HIV in the 80s marked the end of what has been called the golden age of promiscuity. The first sign of aids began with California when certain groups of people became sick with pneumonia like illness. As more people in the community came down

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    1980's Film: The 1980s

    • 646 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The 1980’s was also a big year for assassinations/ assassination attempts. The decade started off with the assassination of John Lennon in 1980 and then an assassination attempt on the Pope and President Reagan in 1981. NASA had it’s share of excitement in the 80’s too, even though some events weren’t things to celebrate. NASA sent Sally Ride as the first woman to Space on June 18th, 1983, but in 1986 things took a bad turn around for NASA when the space shuttle “Challenger” exploded shortly after lift-off on January 28th (Jennifer Rosenberg). On top of all those events; between 1981 and 1983, 1,450 people were infected with AIDS (most of them being gay/bisexual men or excessive drug users. The disease was originally labeled as GRID until 1985 when the heterosexual actor Rock Hudson died from the disease. In that same year, the AIDS movement would find its way into the film/theatre industry through one dedicated activist (Susan Myllykangas).…

    • 646 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Mitchell, George J. Report to the Commissioner of Baseball of an Independent Investigation into the Illegal Use of Steroids and Other Performance Enhancing Substances by Players in Major League Baseball. Document. Unknown: DLA PIPER US LLP, 2007.…

    • 1691 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Athletics have shaped the American society for centuries. While whites previously dominated a majority of sports, now members of all races and ethnicities have equal opportunity to succeed in the sports world. With this increase in athletes, also arises a heightened level of competition. Numerous athletes are now relying on performance enhancing drugs to better themselves in their sports. Many athletes use these drugs to increase their running and strength abilities. Some athletes are starting to believe that the only way to become successful in their sport is to take advantage of these drugs, but that is simply not the case.…

    • 1508 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Along with the different rules and regulations that the different levels of sports follow, in the professional sports such as, the MLB, NFL and NBA they have their own methods of punishments as well. If an athlete is caught and tested positive for using performance-enhancing drugs in the MLB, they can be punished. For the first time they are caught using they can be banned for fifty games. The second time they are tested positive for using drugs they will be banned for one hundred games. If the athlete continues to use the drugs then they can be banned from the MLB for life. On the other hand in the NFL if the player is caught using drugs for the first time they will have a four game suspension, for the second time they are caught, the player…

    • 239 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Should Steroids be legalized in professional sports? Steroids are one of a large group of chemical substances classified by a specific carbon structure. There are several types of performance-enhancing drugs: anabolic steroids, stimulants, human growth hormone and supplements. The use of drugs to enhance performance in sports has occurred since the time of the original Olympic Games from 776 to 393 BC-2015.The origin of the word 'doping' is attributed to the Dutch word 'dope,' which is a viscous opium juice, the drug of choice of the ancient Greeks. Many sports associations are now involved in monitoring and testing players for banned PED use. An important issue regarding this topic, is whether steroids should be legalized in professional sports? The major arguments are the following: are steroids safe? Are the penalties fair and consistent? And are steroids beneficial? After careful examination, it will be proven that steroids should be illegal in all professional sports because of major health issues.…

    • 496 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    From the eyes of many sports fans there is no straight answer to the question “do drugs ruin sports”; Some fans might say yes because it morally wrong, other fans say no because faster stronger players are more fun to watch. In professional sports the best players are paid the best and there is a lot of competition out there to be the best; some people believe hard work and dedication is the way to get to the top while others believe there are shortcuts to get there. Most professional sport organization have some form of anti-drug policy and conduct test on it’s athletes to ensure they abide by the rules, when players fail to comply with league policies they are faced with consequences for their actions. There are many leagues and organizations that don’t formally have a anti-drug policy so the athletes can get away with using performance enhancers which makes a unfair playing field for those who don’t.…

    • 890 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    AIDS During The 1980s

    • 1991 Words
    • 8 Pages

    In the 1980s, the words “AIDS” and “HIV” were not on the radar for most of American society. The words were just something people might occasionally hear when someone passed away, but these the deaths almost never occurred close to home. America would quickly become confronted with the threat of AIDS as a very serious health epidemic. If one were to ask someone during the 1980s their thoughts, they might reply with a vague response that AIDS was just a marginal disease affecting a remote section of the world. Discovery of AIDS was not the biggest news that happened in America, for they saw it more as an outside threat that they would not believe that AIDS to spread into the United States.…

    • 1991 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Origins of AIDS in America: AIDS first appeared in the United States in 1968 in a sixteen year old teenager named Robert Rayford, but did not start an epidemic until the early 1980s (Hunter,…

    • 996 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Drug Testing in Athletes

    • 857 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Many people do not see the severity of drug use in professional and High School athletics. Drug use in professional athletics is looked upon as somewhat of a serious problem, but also very discrete and low key. Every once in a while and individual might see a prominent figure in a certain sport being reprimanded for the use of an outlawed drug. However , that athlete may just be one of the many who happened to get caught. Athletes today seem to find no moral problem with using performance-enhancing drugs, or in other words, cheating. Athletes feel that because they are "stars" there should be no repercussions for their illegal activity. Today, drug use in sports has reached enormous proportions in society and destroying athletics from the ground up. The use of steroids and other performance enhancement drugs also effects athletes at the high school level. It does not matter how good the athlete is, a zero-tolerance policy should be in place at all levels of competition.…

    • 857 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The world has kinda revolved around cheating as Tirado said “Which among you is not looking for an advantage to do better in this game called life right now? We have become a society of cheaters, and as much as we want to pretend that we're all goody two-shoes and living a perfect life, we are all guilty of looking for shortcuts at one point or another. We actually glorify it in business, politics and education, but god forbid we see it in sports." (Stephen Nolan) If you get caught taking these drugs you don't just hurt your reputation you hurt the sport's reputation and how people look upon the…

    • 969 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    What if people used performance enhancing drugs in sports? Are there any side effects from using PEDs? Should professional athletes use them? What if I use them just to be a little better in sports? Many people would argue that legalizing performance enhancing drugs will make professional and recreational sports better. They think sports as a whole will be raised to the next level of entertainment. Despite this belief, sports can only be brought down from the use of these drugs; if an athlete has no skill or natural ability performance enhancing drugs will only hurt them.…

    • 838 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport has become a huge issue in all modern codes of sport. In the recent 2012 Olympic games in London, it was suggested that as many as 60% of the athletes were taking illegal drugs. You only have to open the newspaper or turn on the television to discover a new batch of professional athletes that have been caught ‘doping’. Although athletes are regularly drug tested, there have been multiple cases where athletes have been able to cheat the system and return negative results. Australia has been a front-runner in the fight against sports doping, and has even established a…

    • 1676 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Essay On Drugs In Sports

    • 1171 Words
    • 5 Pages

    When watching someone participate in any sport, the audience thinks about how much effort was put into practicing, and not what the player smoked to gain their superhuman stamina. In sports, the competitors need to practice to become better, not default to who has the money to buy the best drugs. Performance enhancing drugs may help during a couple of games, but it’s not worth putting so many lives at risk. Forest Tennant JR., who is an NFL drug adviser, has estimated that half of all professional athletes have been exposed to drugs in their careers.…

    • 1171 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Doping In Sports

    • 355 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Nearly one in every ten retired NFL players has admitted to using steroids or “doping” during their professional career. Numerous other competitive sports have athletes repeatedly pumping strength-building substances into their bodies from day to day. The harsh consequences and possible suspension from the game does not faze them as they continue to put themselves in danger of the deadly side effects.…

    • 355 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    It always raises an eye when an average athlete suddenly becomes the fastest or the strongest in their sport; in many cases they have stopped depending on talent and now rely on a performance- enhancing drug for success. Substance abuse in sports is shown to be common because of their benefits, various scandals in the media, and new polices companies have now had to implement. The act of "doping" or the use of an enhancing-drug has become a social norm though out all sports.…

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays