Steroids

Sports fans or not, readers will be fascinated by this revealing examination of the pressures leading to the widespread use of steroids in sport and the negative, unintended consequences of their ban.

From Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s original objectives in establishing the modern Olympic Games to the increasingly widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs during the Cold War to the 1998 drug scandal during the Tour de France and beyond, Steroids: A New Look at Performance-Enhancing Drugs puts the social construction of steroids as a banned substance under the microscope and interprets the implications of that particular conception of steroid use in sport.

Clearly written and highly accessible for all readers, this book addresses a pressing issue in professional and high-performance sport—the use of steroids—by placing it within the historical context of the ongoing desire to achieve the pinnacle of human sport. Topics examined in detail include the three major crises of Ben Johnson’s positive test in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the creation of the World Anti-Doping Association, and the House Committee on Government Oversight’s probe into steroid use. The author provides a critical examination of the current ban on steroids, and boldly advocates a common-sense solution to the complex problem of steroid use in sport: the adoption of harm-reduction strategies and policies rather than outright proscription.

Author Biography

Rob Beamish is associate professor of sociology at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.