Many banned substances can be used safely. This would be even more true if it were legal to use them under physician supervision.

It might just be a silly gut reaction that putting stuff in your body could be bad, but how can we really know, honestly? 'Safe' is obviously a relative term. How safe do we need?

We have very incomplete understanding of cellular and molecular biology (much less than, for example, the circulation system, which the glove uses). Where harm can be potentially averted by the use of drugs for medicine, it makes sense. But where harm can be potentially caused by the use of drugs for recreational activity (of which sports are an example), things seem much more morally ambiguous.

You have to draw a line somewhere. At some point, the increased risk is simply too much to ignore. And when you have a highly competitive situation like professional sports, it is, I argue, immoral to tempt people, by competition, into doing something potentially harmful to themselves. Voluntary recreational drugs are one thing, but in competitive sports, I argue that we should try to keep training methods and substances as safe as possible. I think, in general, if, by competition or incentives some other method one induces a class of people to risk inflicting harm unto themselves, one is doing a moral wrong.

But is it really, tho'? I mean, why are so many of the Olympic gymnasts teenagers? Even without drugs, their bodies are wrecked after a few competitions. No-one has a problem with kids doing this in regulated competition; why should anyone care that adults want to do it just for lifestyle choice.

Another interesting point is that society has no problem either with women dosing themselves with artificial hormones in support of their lifestyle choices, whereas enhancing male characteristics is considered wrong. Why do you suppose that is?

That's not true; many parents have misgivings about putting their children in situations likely to harm their body (gymnastics, or football, or hockey, or extreme sports), or despair of other parents injecting children with growth hormones or steriods or pumping them full of creatine. Many adults are wary of those around them doing amphetamines or cocaine. Many women worry enormously (and hence avoid) potential health effects of HRT or the birth control pill, as it is associated with many reproductive cancers among other diseases. Many men avoid steroids and testosterone; it causes problems with the heart and circulatory systems, and it can make you bald.

Surely the magnitude of fear people feel with regard to drugs versus activities is higher. This is probably instinctive: they are a lot of things one can have put into one's body, and throughout evolution, most were pretty bad. But the drugs and training regimens and lifestyles are not in principle distinct. To the extent we can have equally complete knowledge of their effects (which we probably can't), we should judge them the same.

I don't have that psychological 'disgust' response. Infact, I can't understand why drugs aren't used for more things.

Safer steroids for athletes. Smart drugs for college students. And so on.

I mean, sure, they might have bad long-term effects, or have side-effects, etcetera.. but so does most things, that most people do.