Drugs and Erogenic Aids In Sport (Week 1)

What are ergogenic aids?

• In sport: are substances and methods that enhance athletic performance, stamina and /or recovery

• Not all drugs are ergogenic!

  • Performance - enhancing and image - enhancing

  • Recreational

• Many drugs are ergolytic

What are the types of ergogenic aids?

• Pharmacological, nutritional, mechanical, psychological

What are ancient ergogenic aids?

• Ancient olympics (697 BCE to ~393) records mention consumption of mushrooms

• “the rear hooves of an Abyssinian ass, ground up, boiled in oil, and flavored with rose hips and rose petals” prescribed by Galen ~200

What are common perceptions of doping?

• Imagery of plague, disease, corruption

• Used by “evil regimes” to exploit sport / athetes to promote ideology

• Dopers are rebels, rule breakers, cheaters

• Carstairs: Opposition to doping is influenced by religious beliefs, amateur ideals, national drug policies, and political values

How has technology acted in supporting ergogenic aids?

• Modern training techniques, biomechanical analyses, body composition and physiological measurements, media coverage and consumption of bodies.

  • Make activities safer, create new opportunities, aid in performance, increase entertainment value, training and chemical technologies

What are the common goals of human enhancement technology?

• Enhanced wellbeing / QOL

• Longer lives

• Convenience

• Efficiency

Often with negative unintended consequences: plugged in culture, climate change

What does technology associate with the body?

• Sport science can view the body as a machine

• Replacement parts can repair damage: hips, knees, tendons

• Nutrition as fuel for the machine

• Mind - body dualism implications

What are the views of performance technology in equity?

• Technologies tend to benefit those wealthy enough to afford them, powerful enough to control them

• Technological innovation breaks down barriers erected by privilege

  • Athletes are encouraged to constantly improve but are restricted in how they do it, some technologies are acceptable while others are not and is judged in terms of morality, health and safety.

What are drugs?

• Use of the word changed in the 20th century

• Prior, drugs = medicine for restoring health

• Then perceived dangers of ‘street / recreational drugs’ connotation

What is the contemporary conception of drugs?

• 2 broad categories

  • Medicinal preparations (by medical professionals or self administered) to improve / restore health

  • Substances taken (at least initially) to induce a psychological effect in the body

  • Some substances move b/w 2 categories over time

What did drug use look like in 19th Century Canada?

• cocaine, opium, and other drugs were widely available as medicines and used for almost all ailments, from toothaches to diarrhea

Addicts:

• often middle or upper class women

• Doctors / businessmen accidentally addicted

Little social attention given to drugs.

What were the changing attitudes of drugs in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s?

• Optimism drugs could improve human body, help workers work more efficiently

• Criticism from temperance campaigners

• Placed in the context of crime and vice

  • Became less fashionable / acceptable to use drugs

  • Freud retracted previous approval

What was Canada’s first widespread moral panic about drug use?

• Occurred in the 1920’s

• Influenced by gender, race, and class stereotypes and discrimination

• Narrative of drug use in 1920’s media fueled a drug panic

• Also impacted drug legislation and public perceptions of drug users.