Performance-enhancing drugs have rocked professional and amateur sports from its foundations. It’s not only put into question the integrity of competition and sports records, but it also pokes a stick at the always fresh wounds of racism.

Regarding the latter issue, you can debate it until the cows come home. Some people say that Barry Bonds, the best power hitter in the history of baseball (at least on paper), has been subject to a much worse witch hunt than some of his white peers who have either admitted to using steroids (like Jason Giambi), or are just as suspicious in their denials.

As with most things in life, there is a little truth in both sides of the argument. Is Bonds being hunted harder than others? Sure. But he’s also an easy target. For one, he now owns arguably the most beloved record in Western sports: the most home runs. It’s a symbol of raw power and part of what at least used to be America’s game. Shorter attention spans, competitive imbalance, and many more options for your free time have dropped baseball down the pecking order.

There is plenty of circumstantial evidence. And while it’s not conclusive, comparing his physique now in his 40s to when he was a rail of a young player with the Pittsburgh Pirates, it’s compelling. It’s also counterintuitive to think that a baseball player’s skills improve with age, and that’s what happened with Bonds’ slugging statistics.

Even though pitching ace Roger Clemens flatly denies the accusations that he is using performance-enhancing drugs, it comes back to the same suspicion. How does a player, a power pitcher no less, stay at the highest skill level into his mid-40s? It’s conjecture, but not a crazy assertion. If the public steps back and takes a collective deep breath, they will see that Barry Bonds is only one cog in the steroid machine.

It’s becoming more and more apparent that it’s practically institutionalized in baseball. Like the “thin blue line” in the police ranks, baseball players almost to a man do not rat out their fellow players. There are a few exceptions, the most notable being Jose Canseco. A steroid user and whistle blower, he helped the domino effect we are seeing in baseball today. Since his admissions, a congressional investigation has produced a long list of suspected dopers, exposing a drug culture that the public suspected existed for years. Another player not afraid to speak his mind is pitcher Curt Schilling. “If you get caught using steroids, you should have everything you've done in this game wiped out for any period of time that you used it,” Schilling said. While there may be similar resentment from other players, rarely will you hear them verbalize it.

Steroids infest all of sports. Barry Bonds may have the highest profile of the accused, but there are plenty of other notables and even some surprises. The single most infested of all sports is professional wrestling. Whether you think it’s a sport or just low-brow entertainment, there is no doubt that professional wrestling has a troubling steroid problem. In wrestling, there is a growing list of users who have died, most likely as a result of their use. Dave Meltzer, a journalist who has covered wrestling for over 30 years, has calculated that since 1997, 65 wrestlers have died under the age of 50. That is a staggering number.

There are over 100 kinds of anabolic steroids, a synthetic derivative of testosterone. Anabolic steroids promote muscle growth. It’s, in theory, possible to do steroids and not see adverse health side effects. The problem is, there is a lot of murkiness as to when and where you will see unhealthy effects, which makes it all the more dangerous. Anabolic steroids have legitimate medical uses, like for bone marrow and child growth stimulation. What people on the sympathetic side of the steroid issue forget is that it’s illegal to use steroids without a prescription. So, you can debate about the philosophical points of whether or not we should just accept modern methods of supplementing workouts. But the fact remains, athletes aren’t just breaking a sport’s rules, they are breaking the law of the land.

Steroid abuse can cause many side effects. People who use steroids to improve athletic performance take doses as high as 100 times larger than those used for medical conditions.

Side effects are serious, so they shouldn’t be taken lightly. But, some of them are ironic, given the macho and superficial motives of some people:

- Infertility, baldness and breast development in men

- Masculinization of the female body

- Acne and cysts

- Heart attacks and stroke

- Liver cancer

- Mood changes, irritability and aggression

Performance-Enhancing Drugs - An Ancient Tradition

Performance-enhancing drugs are not new. In fact, they are quite literally ancient. Ancient Mayans are believed to have chewed cocoa leaves to help them through the game of Pok-a-tok, a sport not entirely unlike modern-day basketball (they had to shoot a ball through a hoop). Cocoa leaves are known to delay fatigue and increase strength. There are many differences between Pok-a-tok and basketball, not the least of which is that losers could be sacrificed to the gods with Pok-a-tok. So, it was probably a good idea to get some sort of performance edge.

At about the same time, 3,000 years ago on the other side of the globe, Greek Olympians drank mushroom and herb concoctions to give them an edge. Some athletes resorted to what’s called organotherapy - eating animal organs - which included testicles from man or beast!

Other Sports Fight Steroid Problem

Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson broke records at the 1987 World Championships in Athletics and in the 1988 Summer Olympics, where he won a gold medal. And with it he ushered in the modern steroid era. The gold medal was rescinded after officials found Stanozolol - a synthetic anabolic steroid - in Johnson’s urine. Johnson was bitter, stating that he had to use performance enhancers to keep up with competitors who did the same. He proudly proclaimed “I did something good in my life. My mom and dad saw me run faster than any human, and that’s it. Better than a gold medal.”

Johnson went on to try a comeback in later years, to no avail. And on a couple of stranger notes, he ended up endorsing an energy drink (an odd choice by the company to chose a convicted doper); and even stranger, coached the son of controversial Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi in soccer.

While Johnson brought steroids to light in recent years, in actuality it took the death of a Tour de France cyclist in 1967 to make sports officials take action. British cyclist Tom Simpson’s autopsy revealed high levels of methamphetamine in his system. As a result, the International Olympic Committee and member federations began to establish doping-control programs. The unfortunate truth is, health risks don’t seem to be a deterrent.

Underdog cyclist Floyd Landis captured the imagination of sports fans everywhere by winning the 2006 Tour de France. But sadly, his title was rescinded when tests came out positive for high levels of testosterone. He continues to deny the charge, even though a second test showed the same results. While it has been unproven, Lance Armstrong has also fought doping allegations through the years.

There is certainly no gender line with taking steroids. The ladies are just as susceptible to the allure of enhancing one’s performance in ultra-competitive sports. Olympic Track and Field medalist Marian Jones was stripped of her medals after she perjured herself under oath regarding her steroid use. That and check fraud charges sent her to jail for 6 months.

At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, steroids shoulder nearly all the responsibility for the American public’s cynicism about sports, and probably bear the greatest burden for the loss of innocence and idealism that we’ve placed in our country’s past-times.

But if we look at it with a pragmatic eye, it’s highly doubtful that no matter what testing officials do in a crusade for justice, we will always have steroids in sports. Whether we want to accept this fact and swallow that bitter pill is another story.