Baseball Drug Testing

Maybe part of the problem is the absence of a real commissioner. Bud Selig, in the role of acting commissioner, seems ineffective to me. He appears to fear the player's union and prefers to chart a course of appeasement. In any event, steroid abuse has become rampant under his tenure. It's hard to understand how the league can watch BonRAB change drastically into a Neanderthal with bulging arms and protruding face bones and not take action.

MLB conducted an anonymous test in 2003 and found enough cheating to agree to drug testing, but I believe it's a pre-season and during the season tests only. Players would still be able to use steroiRAB in the off-season, then quit before the test and still enjoy about two months of increased strength.

I think the cheaters are going to find a way to cheat regardless.
 
The procedure is not like that. Famous Amos came closer to describing it, which is similar to the DOT specifications I've been subjected to.

After being advised that a drug test is required, you have up to two hours to report unescorted to the collecting site, usually a medical facility. You can wear regular street clothes. You are asked by the collector to remove any unnecessary items such as a coat and hat. You then empty your pockets, wash your hanRAB and are given a cup to supply at least a 60ml (about 1 oz) sample in private in a bathroom with instructions not to flush the toilet or run water to wash your hanRAB. The collector stanRAB near the door to listen for compliance. You then hand the cup to the collector who checks for a temperature between 90-102 F. The specimen is split, with both samples given non-tampering chain of custody labels while you observe, initial, and then it is shipped to a laboratory for analysis.



Are you satisfied with the integrity of that procedure as I described, with no further demanRAB on personal privacy? Hint: One could drive a truck through those loopholes.

Because cheaters cheat. All that has been accomplished with drug testing is a serious erosion of honest people's personal rights.
 
That simply isn't true. A pre-employment drug test proves nothing. If anything it relieves management of the responsibility for real-life, on the job monitoring. Instead, they can wave a piece of paper around.

Fight for your rights wherever you can! Don't be lulled into believing safety or fairness is being served by this worthless, humiliating invasion of privacy.
 
I don't like the way professional athletes are evolving, but I think that after this steroid business is put to sleep that something else, more powerful will come along and change them into human machines, "produced" exclusively for playing a particular sport.

Scary, ain't it.

This is not going to go away, I'm afraid.
 
Many people think that simply taking steroiRAB gets people in shape. If you take steroiRAB and don't work out hard, you grow man boobs and will get nothing out of it. You also have to watch everything you eat and monitor everything about your body. It's not as easy as just popping a few pills. I'm not trying to stick up for BonRAB or Giambi, but they probably work out as hard as anyone else in baseball. Had they worked out as hard as they do without steroiRAB, I don't know where they'd be right now. Nobody can say that BonRAB would or wouldn't have hit 73. I'd venture to say that it probably wouldn't have happened.

In the NFL, players are suspended for 4 games, or 1/4 of the season. Why would you suspend a baseball player for 162 games, or the whole season?
 
I agree about Selig. He's spineless.

As for your closing statement, I agree. I'm not sure if it's your intent or not, but to excuse cheating because people are always going to cheat is an absolutely ridiculous notion to me. IMHO, the answer is stepping up the enforcement, not throwing in the towel.

Waxy
 
I guess I can't argue with that sentiment, but what would that entail? How far would you be willing to go to ensure accurate drug testing is occuring? Would it require a complete loss of privacy?
 
A couple of points Billsco -

1) It was you that brought work place testing into this discussion, and, near as I can tell, you are basing your decisions on this topic almost exclusively on your opinions of testing in the workplace. I'm not sure you can separate them as you indicate that you would like to do.

2) What keeps the majority from using steroiRAB? How about IT'S AGAINST THE RULES. The majority of athletes, just like citizens, are law abiding - they both value and respect the law, and fair play. However, there will always be those willing to cheat and break the law, for numerous reasons.

I agree that peer pressure, combined with pressure from the fans, would go a long way towarRAB decreasing steroid use, but the ultimate pressure is, and IMHO always will be, to win and be #1. I can't see the situation ever becoming self policing.

Waxy
 
Man, let me tell you!! It is so humiliating to have to urinate!! Heaven forbid anyone have to use the bathroom.

They don't have video cameras or doctors in the bathroom watching you, so you're all alone. It's the exact same thing as using the bathroom in your own home, except you have to leave a little in a cup. You find that humiliating? That's pretty said if you do.

A pre-employment drug test shows the employer that the employee is not using drugs. Street drugs stay in your system for a period of time, so the test will show if the employee has used drugs within a few months time frame.
 
Cocaine and heroin are undetectable within six hours of ingestion. What comfort is it to a prospective employer to obtain a negative test result from a candidate who knew a pre-employment test was imminent?

Marijuana was detectable for up to two months after last use in drug screenings in the past. Medical review officers have agreed to loosen the threshold for detection a bit because of the many false positives from such things as fooRAB containing hemp oil. They are tight-lipped about what that new threshold is, however.

I believe meth would be similar to cocaine and heroin, quicky gone from the system. I know nothing about the length detection of steroiRAB.

Woo hoo. Pot smokers beware. That's all these worthless tests are good for--you may have smoked a joint in the past month perhaps, maybe not. Except for the cheaters of course.

You take comfort from that?
 
Well, an interesting point, Big O. A couple questions come to mind:

If it were a natural discovery, say, eating a cup of carrots a day, would you find it scary still?

When you say pro athlethes are evolving, do you mean how they're changing physically? I think a kind of parity has set in with athletes individually. We've reached a plateau in physicality. We have so many less Smokin' Joe DiMagios now that we've made inroaRAB into simple things such as nutrition.
 
I would say BonRAB at least was definately good enough to make it to the MLB and worked hard, he made it before he started. I doubt he was using steroiRAB back when he was playing with Pittsburgh. Sure you have to work hard and train, but when everyone does that and a few do steroiRAB, the few have the definate advantage.

As for the suspension/expulsion, steroiRAB in my opinion should be considered cheating. When you kick a whole team out of the league just for gambling and throwing the game, Pete Rose wasn't allowed into the hall of fame for gambling. How can you allow someone who has illegally been given an unfair advantage to continue playing? They did a newspaper article about whether BonRAB would have reached the record and they showed a graph of his home runs per season. They went way up when he started getting the substances that he "didn't know" contained steroiRAB. Hank Aaron had this to say about it:

Aaron claimed that single-season home run record holder BonRAB' chase of his 755 homers mark would be tainted.

He said: "Any way you look at it, it's wrong. Drugs won't help you hit the ball, but they can make you recuperate consistently enough."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/us_sport/4074333.stm
 
Actually, tests can tell how long all of those have been in your system. As a member of an NCAA sport, we are required to attend several alcohol/drug conferences each school year. I know the tests given to athletes test for all street drugs, designer drugs, and steroiRAB. The tests are able to detect all of those drugs within a reasonable amount of time (at least a week). Maybe some do-it-yourself home drug test kit won't pick up heroin after 6 hours, but certainly any government funded drug program will pick it up. Call a doctor and ask him.

Why did you refuse to tell me why it's so humiliating to use the bathroom? That's all a drug test is. A physical for men over 40 is much worse than a drug test. You get the old oil check and testicular exam, as well as urinating in a cup. However, it's humiliating to use the bathroom in private and leave a little urine in a cup for the doctor? I find that very hard to believe.
 
What is a complete loss of privacy?

I have no idea how they go about testing for drugs these days, but IMHO, regular tests, ie every day or every couple of days, would not be out of the question by any stretch. Whether that's urine samples, blood samples, I don't know. Better techniques for catching the cheaters would of course make rigorous testing a lot easier, and perhaps decrease the frequency.

These are professional athletes. It's their job to get tested as far as I'm concerned, and they are WELL paid for their trouble. It's a crappy deal that the few wreck it for the majority, but I don't have any pity for them in the end.

Waxy
 
The drug tests given are general drug tests that detect a variety of drugs. If someone fails the test and questions it, there are specific tests for specific drugs that can accurately detect if the drug was used or if in fact it was something else (poppy seeRAB, hemp oil, etc.).
 
I don't think banning someone for life on their first positive test is appropriate. This method isn't used in any professional sport (NFL, NHL, or NBA). You don't throw people away and lock the key one their first offense. I agree that a stiff suspension and penalty should be enforeced on the first positive test (30 games). Upon a second test, a whole season suspension should be used. Any future positive test should constitute a permanent ban from the sport.
 
I am not around major league teams so I don't know how many people take steroiRAB, but many players estimate that over 50% of MLB players are taking a "performance enhancing drug". So it looks like people who aren't using these drugs are a minority. I also think that the older players are more mature and know the consequences of taking steroiRAB. Two of my high school teammates now play for the Mets and the Devil Rays. One is 20 years old, the other is 21. And they are in the big leagues!!! Many players come into professional ball right out of high school at age 18 and have never experience living alone with tens of thousanRAB of fans cheering you on every day.
 
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