the moral reasoning of student athletes and athletic training students

abuse in the Olympic Games by teams in the Soviet Union became public (Eichner, 1997). These
bizarre rituals and many others have been documented throughout the history of sport. Current
methods include the use of stimulants, narcotics, anabolic agents, beta blockers, diuretics and
hormones. Some athletes continue to use these substances as well as blood doping and even gene
doping in an effort to gain a competitive edge (Pincock, 2005; Catlin & Murray, 1996).
Collectively, the illegal use of substances or methods with the intention of gaining a competitive
edge is called doping. Doping is a concern for all national and international sport governing
bodies, as well as entities such as the United States Congress, for a number of reasons, including
the compromised safety of the athlete, the moral integrity of the sport, and the issue of fairness of
competition.
Safety of the Athlete
Most anti-doping researchers have argued that sport governing bodies should ban the use
of performance enhancing drugs in sport because of the real, potentially life threatening and nonlife
threatening negative health effects (Stoll, Gwebu, & Beller, 2006). They argue that because
each individual who uses these drugs will experience many of these negative side effects
performance enhancing substances should be banned. To better understand this argument we
must understand: 1) the different types of drugs and performance enhancing measures being
used, 2) who is using the different types of drugs, and 3) the negative health effects of these
drugs.
Types of Doping
Anabolic Steroids
Steroids are probably the most well-known form of all illegal and abused substances in
sport today. Drugs simply known as steroids are generally synthetic reproductions of the
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