Economist

About the author: The Economist is a weekly magazine covering economic and world events from around the world.

The use of performance-enhancing drugs is widespread in Olympic sporting events like track and field and swimming. While testing procedures to catch drug cheats have become more precise and intrusive, athletes have grown more skilled at beating the tests with help from savvy medical advisers. Skeptics maintain that drug testing in sports is an exercise in futility. They contend that performance-enhancing drugs are just another way of gaining an advantage in an inherently unfair activity. In addition, they argue that such drugs should be legalized and officially regulated. However, legalizing the use of performance-enhancing drugs would turn athletes into guinea pigs and send the wrong message to impressionable children.

It was a flash of sporting...