Article Text
Abstract
Harm-reduction approaches are used to reduce the burden of risky human behaviour without necessarily aiming to stop the behaviour. We discuss what an introduction of harm reduction for doping in sports would mean in parallel with a relaxation of the antidoping rule. We analyse what is ethically at stake in the following five levels: (1) What would it mean for the athlete (the self)? (2) How would it impact other athletes (the other)? (3) How would it affect the phenomenon of sport as a game and its fair play basis (the play)? (4) What would be the consequences for the spectator and the role of sports in society (the display)? and (5) What would it mean for what some consider as essential to being human (humanity)? For each level, we present arguments for and against doping and then discuss what a harm-reduction approach, within a dynamic regime of a partially relaxed antidoping rule, could imply. We find that a harm-reduction approach is morally defensible and potentially provides a viable escape out of the impasse resulting from the impossibility of attaining the eradication of doping. The following question remains to be answered: Would a more relaxed position, when combined with harm-reduction measures, indeed have less negative consequences for society than today's all-out antidoping efforts that aim for abstinence? We provide an outline of an alternative policy, allowing a cautious step-wise change to answer this question and then discuss the ethical aspects of such a policy change.
- Applied and Professional Ethics
- Autonomy
- Coercion
- Drugs and Drug Industry
- Enhancement
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Linked Articles
Read the full text or download the PDF:
Other content recommended for you
- Globalisation of anti-doping: the reverse side of the medal
- Time for change: a roadmap to guide the implementation of the World Anti-Doping Code 2015
- Juridical and ethical peculiarities in doping policy
- Beyond antidoping and harm minimisation: a stakeholder-corporate social responsibility approach to drug control for sport
- The case for and against harm reduction approaches to drugs in sport
- A–Z of nutritional supplements: dietary supplements, sports nutrition foods and ergogenic aids for health and performance: Part 48
- Medicolegal aspects of doping in football
- Sports physicians, ethics and antidoping governance: between assistance and negligence
- A novel approach to improve detection of glucocorticoid doping in sport with new guidance for physicians prescribing for athletes
- A novel antidoping and medical care delivery model at the 2nd Summer Youth Olympic Games (2014), Nanjing China