Matt Barnard

About the author: Matt Barnard writes for the New Statesman, a news magazine.

The moral crusade against the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports is being waged by international athletic associations and their corporate sponsors, who publicly maintain that drugs violate the moral borders of clean athletic competition. However, in their quest for fans and profits, these organizations covertly encourage drug use by demanding ever higher standards of achievement from athletes, only to condemn the few athletes who get caught. Fans, on the other hand, have demonstrated a willingness to support drug-aided athletes like major league baseball player Mark McGwire, who broke the home run record in 1998 while admitting steroid use. It is time to recognize that the use of performance-enhancing drugs is here to stay and that elite athletes...