Reasons for Drug Prohibition in Sports
Question 2. Reasons for Drug Prohibition in Sports
Arguably, drug prohibition dates back to 19th century with products such as coffee, alcohol, and marijuana being on the top list. The prohibition remains high through supported interventions from religious groups, medical practitioners, government institutions, non-governmental bodies, sports agencies, and other lobby groups due to increased rate of substance abuse and addiction. For instance, in the USA, Approximately 14% of the total population from 12 years uses illicit drugs making an equivalent of 35 million people. In the UK, 10% of her population under the age brackets 16-59 use illicit drugs. This is approximately 3.2 million people. Cocaine use has reported the highest percentage among the drugs being abused with USA and Europe taking the lead of 16%, New Zealand 4%, and Netherland 1.9%. Marijuana is commonly used in the USA were it records 42.4% usage rate and 19.8% among the Dutch population (Edelfield & Moosa, 2011). A Plagiarized Student Sample: ORDER YOUR PAPER NOW
The fundamental reason for prohibition of drugs is to protect the people. Illicit drugs are associated with dangerous and risk behaviors exposing one to dangerous harm either directly or psychologically. For example, violent behavior, erratic and unpredictable individuals define drug users (Haerens & Zott, 2013). These characteristics when exhibited during sports events risks the lives of participants as well as other people around them. It is also unfair to win what is not rightly contested in sports since drugs give extra energy influencing the results. Secondly, prohibition helps in protection of moral values that are otherwise abused by sports personnel who engage with drug abuse thus protecting the society from distortion caused by harmful effect of drug abusers. Lastly, prohibition saves sports men and women the risk of addiction which is growing at an alarming rate. Addiction is no longer a matter of personal choice but a disease.
Trends and Subtle Changes in Drug Policy
New developments have taken place within the federal laws as far as drug policy is concerned. To begin with, addiction is seen as an aspect of morality, poor character, and lack of will power. This new take in addiction is rather assumed to be a disease that affects all human population irrespective of their race, age, religion, class, and other factors. For example, in a study, the findings acknowledged that addiction which was presumed to be at high rate among the youths is now affecting all ages. Statistics showing that age between 12 years to older age are victims of substance abuse. Similar study showed that 60 percent of victims were Hispanic, 21 percent non-Hispanic African Americans. The central focus of drug policy is on prevention and treatment of victims who fall into drug abuse as a result of addiction. Additionally, the new drug policy lays emphasis on the need of treatment of addicts. However, these efforts have not been fully met and only 2.6 million people out of the total population of 23.5 million people affected have received medication (Khey, Stogner, & Miller, 2013). The reformed drug policy is working tooth to nail to ensure the treatment efforts have been achieved and this number reduce by diversifying treatment options and making them readily available to substance abusers and addicts nationwide.
Other trends include:
- Technology and drug abuse….Show More….