by Eric D. Johnson

Created on: January 22, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Should Drug Use Get a Professional Athlete Banned for Life?

No, a lifetime ban for anything seems harsh, and harsh penalties, no matter how well intentioned, rarely have the desire effect. We have had death penalties and all manner of extreme punishments, banishment, and exiles for centuries. Yet the problems of murder, theft and larceny continue to plague mankind. It is not that people don't fear the penalty; it's just that they are willing to accept the risk.

Professional athletes, like criminals, are constantly evaluating risk. They compete at games for a living so the risk of being caught is not only acceptable, it may even be a little exciting. Athletes make huge investments of time and energy to get good at what they do. They tend to make unusual sacrifices and put unusual burdens on people who support them. I doubt that the threat of a lifetime ban will deter a person from taking a chance at achieving a goal.

Being very good at what they do, athletes feel that they can overcome most risks by sheer physical ability. This feeling of invincibility may even be enhanced by steroids or the jolts of testosterone that they take to improve their performance. To paraphrase one young athlete, he felt strong normally but on steroids he felt like a monster. This athlete was a teenager who was given drugs by his father and his trainer. I doubt that a lifetime ban would negate the incredible competitive instinct that drives professional athletes and their handlers. These people are not planning on getting caught, they are planning on winning.

Professionals also make staggering amounts of money. They can afford to pay for designer drugs that are impossible to detect. Research laboratories invest millions of dollars to develop assays that detect specific antibodies in blood or urine. Drug companies are investing the same amount of time and money if not more developing new substances that resist detection. It is likely that doctors, trainers and locker room drug pushers who prescribe performance enhancing drugs will always be one giant step ahead of the medical technology firms who develop the tests.

Even when pros get caught with the proverbial smoking needle, they have the wealth and influence to obtain the kind of legal counsel that makes their obvious guilt hard to prove. Good lawyers understand that the likelihood of a harsh penalty actually being meted out decreases with the harshness of the penalty. It is a little difficult for most people to agree on a lifetime ban on the basis of a drug test. People dislike and distrust the smarmy characters responsible for supplying drugs to America's athletic heroes. It would not take Clarence Darrow to cast more than a shred of reasonable doubt on the testimony of these people who lack the ability to look anyone in the eye. People will want to be sure before they hand out that a lifetime judgment and very few people believe in the fiction of "the sure thing".

The point here is that it may be terribly expensive for society to exact that kind of revenge on a person for cheating. Millions of dollars will be spent trying to prove what Mr. Bonds and Mr. Clemens took and when they took it. The question is, is the answer really worth the cost. I doubt that it is.

Learn more about this author, Eric D. Johnson.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.