Hypocrisy and drugs testing

William Wilberforce, the Beatles, Aldous Huxley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lance Armstrong, John Keats, Marco Pantani, Damien Hirst, Charles Dickens, Winston Churchill, Maria Sharapova.

What do they have in common ?

They all took drugs. Dickens perhaps used opium merely to relax rather than to stimulate his imagnative writing, and maybe the Beatles' drug use was primarily for the experience rather than to open the doors of perception.

Only three, however, are branded as drugs cheats.

Drug use does not bother me, but hypocrisy does.

We read works insired by drugs, listen to music that was enriched by LSD, and we enjoy looking at art works that were completed under the influence of drugs. Some will pay gazillions for works of pharmaceutically enhanced genius.

Churchill is lauded by some (though not by me) for his leadership. He used amphetamines to keep alert through long hours.

We all use drugs. Every prescription we collect from the chemist is a drug, and we think nothing of it. We don't brand teachers, doctors, lawyers, politicians and postmen cheats because they are on anti-depressants, or maybe taking steroids for some physical problem.

Alcohol is the most commonly used drug. If we listed the writers, artists and musicians whose best work was enhanced by alcohol, this would be a vey long post indeed.

So who are the cheats ?

Armstrong and Pantani were brilliant cyclists. Armstrong left you gaping at the apparent ease of his consistently great performances, though he was rather dull to watch. Pantani (The Pirate) was uncatchable on hills, and when he was climbing, it was a joy to see his effortless grace and speed.

And now Maria Sharapova, an astonishingly good tennis player, has her reputation blackened, her sponsorship deals ended, her career placed in jeopardy because she has tested positive for a banned substance.

They are cheats, apparently, because they took substances that had been declared anathema by whatever powers that be. In Sharapova's case, it looks very likely that there was no intention to enhance her performance.

It's crazy. Sport has to be clean. Why ? And why use that judgement-laden word ? Whether through diet, clothing, technical equipment, or drugs, athletes have sought to improve their performance, to find an edge over the opposition. But use drugs and you are transgressive.

I don't care. These are great sports people, and sport entertains as a spectacle. If the spectacle is good, and that is what people want to see, why make this mad fuss ?

And if it's vital that you have clean athletes completing only against other clean athletes, well, why not designate half the lanes, half the courts, half the competitions to clean athletes, and half to the enhancers ? It would be easy to do, and not only would you get entertainment, but you'd also see what difference enhancement really makes.

We already have games for athletes with disabilities. What's the problem with having games for athletes with pharmaceutically-enhanced abilities ?

And as for Sharapova: if a drug could be perfected that would make people play as well as she does, it would make someone a zillion. The truth is that, like all athletes, she has worked her socks off to achieve what she has, and no drug is going to do anything other than marginally enhance her brilliant playing.