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Who decides what's in, what's out and so on?
WADA. By taking part in any mainstream sport, you are delegating authority to decide on these questions to WADA, whether you agree with them or not. If you disagree profoundly with WADA, put your energy into a sport which isn't governed by their <devil's advocate >arbitrary, poorly-evidenced, capricious, inconsistent</devil's advocate> rules.
gbj_tester-
True, but doesn't the cultural context decide the starting list? Like the war on drugs, the people that empower WADA, really decide on the list. Taking something off the list that was once thought to be evil but science works out to be not evil is politically hard - because emotion and the want to sell newspapers. It's bad science but good business.
You're right though. If we are talking about the athlete (not me), that's their decision.
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Although good luck with finding any sport which doesn't have rules which are at times arbitrary, poorly-evidenced, capricious, inconsistent or indeed all of the above.
kwdm
Brommers
Isn't the origin of the war on doping, the war on drugs?
And if I'm not mistaken, the summary of that debate is in the definition of "drug". Who decides what's in, what's out and so on?
To say something is outlawed because it makes you faster is not true, because a well structured diet can do that.
Then you have to build the base on safety to the actors: anything that is dangerous is on the list. That starts to get a little shaky too - sugar kills a lot more people than EPO every year. The proof required for this would need to be scientific with a clear line: on this side is safe drugs, that line is dangerous. And it all be a-political.
Then it could be about an even playing field: don't allow things that are very expensive or that are hard to get / not evenly distributed (ie. an effective budget restriction) so that everyone can play. This makes a ton of sense. It's kind of like how stock car racing is structured. I feel like this is where the 'fair' argument is coming from.
It's hard to untangle all of this because of the combination of secrecy, sensationalism and emotion surrounding the topic. The irony is, the more people get emotional about it, the less progress will be made and the more it will go underground.