Drugs and the Athlete

This book presents a comprehensive, balanced, well-researched, yet candid overview of one of the saddest and most unsavory topics of our time. Sad is the tale, because it sets out the enormity of a blight that is damaging or destroying the lives of increasing numbers of young persons. Unsavory it has become, because it necessarily implicates either the neglect or willful greed of trainers, managers, owners, university powers, and media purveyors who have exploited sports for their own small gains with little or no regard for the well-being or fulfillment of the athletes. Chemical shortcuts designed to enhance the athletic prowness, dissolve the tensions, or sharpen the ecstasy of the performer probably have seduced athletes for as long as peaceful physical competition has existed. Today, the drugs have become harder and exert commensurately more devastating permanent effects on the players as the epidemic enlarges and the wide-range of available drugs assume an increasing capacity to enslave- even to kill- their takers. This book describes in detail the scope of the problem, the affected number of athletes, the many substances abused, and the difficulties in treating what has become an international scandal. -- from Foreword.