The Other Kind of Doping

[CycloErgoSum]

Ok, so doping is a massive problem in professional sports and cycling in particular, so much so that many in the mainstream sports media see pro cycling as an outright joke, especially in relation to the recent Landis confession.

To be sure, doping is an ethical and legal issue in sports, and rightly so for it is the practice of lying, cheating and deceiving the sport, its sponsers and its fans for the purpose of personal gain.

So, if you agree so far, where do you stand on dope in civillian life? Is it OK to get happy with a little chemical help in your book?

Popping a pill or taking a drag isn't likely to do much to increase your standing and, according to the libertarian 'no harm' principle, you can do whatever you like to yourself as long as it doesn't hurt others.

What about pros who like their pot Belge? Is it evidence they use PEDs or are likely to? Do you care if your favourite pro has a taste for space cakes? Is there a reason the three GTs have all started in the Netherlands recently?

 

[Dr. Maserati]

For me there is absolutely no correlation between the uses of PED's and 'Recreational' drugs.

Indeed it is as simple as the difference in the terms 'Performance Enhancing' and 'Recreational'.

You could be writing your posts loaded with the drug of your choice - it has little effect on me and does not mean I have to do likewise.

However - in sports if 2 athletes compete side by side and one is playing with 'the Hot Sauce' it often forces the other to partake just to safeguard their livelihood.

 

[CycloErgoSum]

For me there is absolutely no correlation between the uses of PED's and 'Recreational' drugs.

Indeed it is as simple as the difference in the terms 'Performance Enhancing' and 'Recreational'.

You could be writing your posts loaded with the drug of your choice - it has little effect on me and does not mean I have to do likewise.

However - in sports if 2 athletes compete side by side and one is playing with 'the Hot Sauce' it often forces the other to partake just to safeguard their livelihood.

That's a relief cuz I'm loaded right now - I'm the biggest toxicomaniac on this site (with the exception of David Millar).

I agree with you. I'm no puritan either and don't see a problem with recreational drugs: some can actually make people functional whilst some meds are awful and addictive - SSRI's, etc.

I ask the question as some 'experts' accused Boonen of PED-use because of his cocaine positive. There seems to be an expectation that EPO makes you high! Hang around a renal ward sometime to see that isn't the case.

 

[Rip:30]

Hash + mountain biking. All day, every weekend. Completely distinct from entering a competition and saying I'm on bread + water, when in fact I'm on packed RBCs + 'roids.

What say ye all about something like Adderall, which is a potent blend of 4 amphetamines that can definitely be used to enhance performance in any arena of life that requires energy and concentration. Which is pretty much everything in life that I can think of.

 

[forty four]

im a cat 3 racer i use cannabis daily for both pleasure and medical reasons and do enjoy beer but less often. i have no problem with recreational substance use among athletes getting a buzz is one thing ped's are another very simple. i find it funny how a cocaine positive is so bad but a drunk driving conviction is no big deal. look at phelps he got busted drunk driving which is highly dangerous and could kill another but no one cares. he then gets caught snapping a bong load and thats a big deal even though cannabis is very safe compared to alcohol and particularly drunk driving. really pathetic society we live in take your pills smoke your ciggs drink your alcohol all ok follow the $$$ trail.

 

[Indurain]

Taking any form of pill, drug, dope, etc that speeds up some function in your body isn't good for you. They all have side effects. Your body has a natural reaction of doing the opposite to compensate and balance things out. You have a sugar high, you go through a sugar low. You take depression drugs you are pretty much hooked for life otherwise you go through worst depression than when you started until your body balances out. Likewise concentration drugs, etc.

I work in the mental health field. The medication they're on really helps, but also really helps stuff up many of their other normal body functions, eg gives diabetes, weight gain, high blood pressure, low white blood cell counts, effects their cognitive capacities, etc. I'd rather be crazy and healthy.

Isn't there a link between doping and cocaine use. Cocaine to compensate for the depression and body lows that doping causes? I don't take a thing unless it is temporary in nature (so the side effects are also temporary).

 

[graviT]

What about pros who like their pot Belge? Is it evidence they use PEDs or are likely to?

"Pot Belge is a French term that is used to describe a mixture of drugs ... variously constituted from cocaine, heroin, caffeine, amphetamines, and other analgesics."
wikipedia

If somebody is using that during a race it is most definitely performance enhancing. I don't care a bit what people do to their own body as long as they aren't damaging others or using it to cheat in competition.

 

[enrecul]

problems?

Is there a long history (besides Pantani) of cyclists actually being addicted to this stuff during and after their careers?
If you are taking Belgian mix with opiates in it, surely you can develop a dependency? Are the riders more willing to dope because they "need" it physically like a heroin addict does?

scary stuff, any director should be shot for supplying that stuff......

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Recommend people see Chris Bell's documentary film Bigger Stronger Faster. It discusses this, and doping in non-competitive activities as well (such as modeling, nutrition advertising, pornography even.) If you have Netfli you can stream it for free at the above link. Well worth watching if you ask me.

Watch the trailer here.

 

[mastercat]

I eat space cakes every day (pot brownies) use to smoke it but it clogged my lungs and couldn't ride as strong. If anything it takes my mind off the boredom of training especially when I'm on the trainer or riding alone

 

[Saddlesaw]

I eat space cakes every day (pot brownies) use to smoke it but it clogged my lungs and couldn't ride as strong. If anything it takes my mind off the boredom of training especially when I'm on the trainer or riding alone

.......and suddenly some of the more dubious conspiracy theories postulated herein become clearer....

 

[Anonymous]

I'd say I have an addiction on some level. But I don't think beer drinking is the best path to performance enhancement. Heck, if anything, cycling enables me to drink far more beer than I normally would. Maybe cycling is my PED for beer consumption.

 

[filipo]

Recommend people see Chris Bell's documentary film Bigger Stronger Faster. It discusses this, and doping in non-competitive activities as well (such as modeling, nutrition advertising, pornography even.)

from a Daily Beast article on a porn-industry murder...

Steroids and Viagra are the most common drugs on porn shoots today. (Stories of endless lines of cocaine all over the sets are '70s-era folklore.) Long-term steroid use has been shown in multiple studies to increase aggressive behavior. War Machine (a male performer) says the majority of the men in porn have tried steroids, and many in the industry confirm this, noting that steroid and growth-hormone use have become much more conspicuous in the last five years. “Yes, a lot of the guys use steroids and everyone knows it,” says Mark Spiegler, perhaps the most powerful female-talent agent in the business today. One female performer says, “They shoot it in their *** and the spot gets sore. If you smack them there some guys will grit their teeth and others will cry out in pain. But most of the men do steroids.”

Performer Eric Swiss says the steroids issue is overblown. “Some of the C rate performers use them, but it is not common," he says. "Out of the 20 performers I could name off the top my head maybe 3 or 4 use steroids.” (That, of course, would still be close to 20 percent.) But Swiss admits he does know of two performers who wear testosterone patches in the hours before a scene in the belief it will make them more aggressive during sex. Yet another performer, who asked not to be named, admitted to rubbing a testosterone cream on his chest hoping for the same effect only more quickly.

Sound familiar?

 

[dopingectomy]

So, if you agree so far, where do you stand on dope in civillian life? Is it OK to get happy with a little chemical help in your book?

a quote from that article: "The proportion of positive doping tests is much higher among risk groups in society than among athletes".

 

[CycloErgoSum]

Thank you everyone for your sensible and candid contributions.

The topic of drugs in general interests me greatly, in particular issues surrounding access to drugs. There is a hysterical reaction to drugs in the wider community that can hurt people who actually need them.

If we're going to get Lance Armstrong on this forum (again?) this might be a topic close to his heart:

Legal access to narcotic analgesics in the developed world is becoming increasingly difficult for chronic pain sufferers including those people with cancer. This is because regulatory agencies have made it hard for doctors to prescribe them in an environment of moral panic about their misuse. There's something puritan about this state of affairs, in the sense that people can't be trusted and that they might even 'deserve' their pain, or failure to suffer through pain is a sign of character weakness.

I find it exasperating that doctors choose to ignore people in obvious pain and distress because of some moral misgiving or a personal fear of litigation in the remote chance someone develops a taste for the stuff.

This, as I take it, was part of the pedantic response to Jonathon Vaughters' bee sting in the 2001 Tour. It was dangerous for the guy not to have a remedial shot of cortisone and he was prevented from finishing that race because his face was swollen. Rules may be rules, but there are times when slavish reliance on them makes us strangers to reason. Vaughters' situation was ridiculous and embarrassing for authorities in a country who pride themselves on notions of libertie (I guess people conveniently forget the Reign of Terror that followed immediately after that value was proclaimed).

It wouldn't have been performance-enhancing, nor would it be of a kind with the health-related hormone shots during GTs that some have suggested. This latter suggestion is worth debating, although mid-race testosterone shots to achieve some pre-race base level are a bit of a stretch.

 

[The Mayor of BBQ]

I raced as a top-tier privateer cat 1 for 4 years all over the SE and beyond

won four state championship races, multiple top 10's in NRC races and top 15 at Crit nats

Smoked pot every single day

including sometimes I would race the pro-am and then dip into the woods course-side and smoke a blunt while watching the lower cats or masters or women

i used to ride solo centuries on training days and make 1-2 stops to smoke a bowl

never tested for PED, although I was a little paranoid of failing a test for recreational stuff-- that would have sucked

I never felt it impinged my performance... I went from Cat5 to Cat 3 in one season, Cat3 to Cat1 the next year, and raced as a Cat1 for the next 3 years

never made it onto a DIII team, but I always felt that had more to do with my racing age than any lack of performance on the bike

the only negative effect I found from racing and toking up was trouble maintaining my weight in the winter

I also never took PED or felt I had greater access to them due to my use of illegal recreational drugs

I did take two nodoze an hour before a TT at valley of the Sun one year... but that had more to do with being up in transit and bike assembly until the wee hrs of the AM.... more that than it had to do with desire to cheat

as a matter of fact it didn't even occur to me I had 'doped' until a couple weeks later

 

[Archibald]

didn't a snowboarder in the winter olympics get done for pot and lose his gold medal?
he should be celebrated for winning while whacked, as surely it must be harder to perform at the highest level while stoned...

not fussed what people do on the recreational scene. have spent some time on the chemical lifestyle, and have moved on. Have also watched a friend die from it, which ain't much fun.
each to his own...

 

[flicker]

That's a relief cuz I'm loaded right now - I'm the biggest toxicomaniac on this site (with the exception of David Millar).

I agree with you. I'm no puritan either and don't see a problem with recreational drugs: some can actually make people functional whilst some meds are awful and addictive - SSRI's, etc.

I ask the question as some 'experts' accused Boonen of PED-use because of his cocaine positive. There seems to be an expectation that EPO makes you high! Hang around a renal ward sometime to see that isn't the case.

What I have seen is once a person becomes comfortable with cocaine or methamphetamine use,( recreational not perscribed) the moral boundries of truth telling, sexual morality, reliability disolve. Check it out with infedility and aids among hard drug users. As an athlete it would make sense to slide into PED use if one used hard drugs. Those hard drugs bend the mind.

 

[flicker]

I raced as a top-tier privateer cat 1 for 4 years all over the SE and beyond

won four state championship races, multiple top 10's in NRC races and top 15 at Crit nats

Smoked pot every single day

including sometimes I would race the pro-am and then dip into the woods course-side and smoke a blunt while watching the lower cats or masters or women

i used to ride solo centuries on training days and make 1-2 stops to smoke a bowl

never tested for PED, although I was a little paranoid of failing a test for recreational stuff-- that would have sucked

I never felt it impinged my performance... I went from Cat5 to Cat 3 in one season, Cat3 to Cat1 the next year, and raced as a Cat1 for the next 3 years

never made it onto a DIII team, but I always felt that had more to do with my racing age than any lack of performance on the bike

the only negative effect I found from racing and toking up was trouble maintaining my weight in the winter

I also never took PED or felt I had greater access to them due to my use of illegal recreational drugs

I did take two nodoze an hour before a TT at valley of the Sun one year... but that had more to do with being up in transit and bike assembly until the wee hrs of the AM.... more that than it had to do with desire to cheat

as a matter of fact it didn't even occur to me I had 'doped' until a couple weeks later

I do not think pot effects performance in cycling. But did you ever wonder what you could have acheived straight?

 

[enrecul]

thats what i am asking

if you nail hard drugs like amphetamines etc for a hard time, it does end the mind

if you are taking belgian mix or any phets for a long time it will do the same.
does this mean the peloton are a walking a thin line here???? not only currently but for the rest of their lives???

 

[Rip:30]

didn't a snowboarder in the winter olympics get done for pot and lose his gold medal?
he should be celebrated for winning while whacked, as surely it must be harder to perform at the highest level while stoned...

not fussed what people do on the recreational scene. have spent some time on the chemical lifestyle, and have moved on. Have also watched a friend die from it, which ain't much fun.
each to his own...

Ross Rebagliati got his gold back eventually b/c marijuana was not on the banned substance list (according to wiki, not sure about this reasoning, it's on there now I'm pretty sure?).

Chris Del Bosco was stripped of his US National pro DH mtn bike title in 2005 after a positive test for cannabis. He has since been to the 2010 winter Olympics in the skier cross. I also know several pro XC racers who have tested negative, even though the urine was collected while they were high. So cannabis holds an interesting status it seems.

 

[flicker]

if you nail hard drugs like amphetamines etc for a hard time, it does end the mind

if you are taking belgian mix or any phets for a long time it will do the same.
does this mean the peloton are a walking a thin line here???? not only currently but for the rest of their lives???

Most people I know who have used meth fo more then 2 months are pemanently shattered. Amphetamines are weaker and can be prescribed and monitored, they have been effective PEDs since the 30s. Users can live fullfilling lives after quitting. Pot just makes you relaxed and thinking you are fast.

 

[fruit bars with eyes]

about 8 years ago in belgium i had it on good authority (from a pro who would know) that the aussies in particular were tanning the lifestyle drugs in as big a way as the PEDs

 

[Ferminal]

What I have seen is once a person becomes comfortable with cocaine or methamphetamine use,( recreational not perscribed) the moral boundries of truth telling, sexual morality, reliability disolve. Check it out with infedility and aids among hard drug users. As an athlete it would make sense to slide into PED use if one used hard drugs. Those hard drugs bend the mind.

ah, moral boundaries, how philosophical...

 

[Mongol_Waaijer]

about 8 years ago in belgium i had it on good authority (from a pro who would know) that the aussies in particular were tanning the lifestyle drugs in as big a way as the PEDs

I heard this too. SOG in particular has been mentioned