If professional orgs would ban athletes for life, there would be little doping, but somehow nobody does that. Why? Perhaps money from sponsors is much more important than safety and fairness?
Make the punishment for burglary the death penalty, and burglary would go down. And yet, such harsh punishment is generally frowned upon.
So, just because lifetime bans would be an effective deterrent doesn't mean that we should instate lifetime bans.
Such moral violation is for me first sign that counterparty is dangerous to the well being of others. Why not exclude such counterparties from the game altogether? I don't care as much if it will deter the future ones, I just want the ones already caught to be out of the game!
Depends on the context, if it's hard to be caught or people who commit burglary today are people that are ready to accept any risk due to their socioeconomic condition then it's not a good deterrent.
Pro athletes generally strive to achieve excellence at some task the human body is adapted for -- running, jumping, throwing. But it's within the limitations imposed by their own human bodies, which are very well-adapted for keeping themselves safe while accomplishing these tasks. They know that going overboard risks burnout and injury, so their incentives are generally aligned with staying healthy. Chemically tricking the body into doing something long-term unsafe in return for short-term performance is a different ballgame.
(Of course there are a few outlier sports like American football and sumo wrestling which are just clearly unhealthy. Even for those, I don't see why we should make matters worse by sanctioning unhealthy PEDs.)
But the real crux of the situation is this: For a given individual, on every possible lift and every possible weight, it is always safer to use anabolic steroids than not.
There are many sports (especially in track and field!) where we are meeting the limitations of normal humans. Can you be a world class sprinter if your body is not aligned to it at birth? If you are disadvantaged at birth, how reasonable is it that after sacrificing most of your life to training you are going to accept inevitable failure? What if a PED can push you over the top?
One of my favourite quotes of all time is from the Simpsons: "Cheating is the gift man gives himself".
With billions on the planet and hundreds of millions who are rich enough to pursue sport, the pool of people who have the drive and are willing to dedicate everything to being the best at their sport is HUGE. What is sport at that point? Filtering for genetic freaks?
But then, looking at it another way, should we then see it as a technological challenge? Let's look at cycling. Whether or not we accept the premise that doping and PEDs in the pro peloton are a thing of the past, it's hard to argue with the success of Sky's "marginal gains" strategy. The margins of victory in large stage races are so minute that even a 10 watt difference could be meaningful.
I kind of look at this as an F1 style of sports. Those with the access to money for research will win (as we see with Sky in cycling). If we include PEDs? Well, then money for research becomes even more important.
Now, I actually like F1 racing (even while not really liking cars -- I'm complicated ;-) ). I like pro cycling. I like a lot of things. But, I honestly don't think this is the direction that sports should go. As someone who participated in track and field in his youth, I'm highly disillusioned with current trends -- competition for medals, the need to beat world records, people sitting on their sofa watching 10 minute vignettes of "life drama" with occasional intermissions of some guys running.
Sports for me is 50 year olds getting together for a game of soccer; jogging in the morning every day to get ready for the 10 km "marathon"; riding in a "sportive"; softball; hockey; kendo; whatever you enjoy doing.
Watching people at the top level is awesome, but we don't need to enhance it. We don't need to embellish it. We certainly don't need to pay someone the GDP of a small country so that we can have bragging rights at the office the next week. Especially if a PED makes the difference between a struggling athlete bagging groceries for a living or living the life of a super star.
Secondly, this 'sets a bad example'. Not in the moral sense, but in a pragmatic sense. Regulated doping in competition encourages enthusiastic amateurs to also start doping. Not only does it seem wrong to require aspiring amateurs to take medical steps, there is the added issue of lack of guidance. Amateurs have less of a support team around them, thus making mistakes or uneducated use more likely.
In the end, you rule against doping not to keep the sport fair, but to keep the sport safe for aspiring amateurs and professionals. In turn, this keeps the sport alive by having a steady influx.
There is a fairness issue regarding 'pay to win' becoming a more effective strategy whilst, at the same time, also increasing the financial barrier to entry.