Drugs in sport: doping development and ethical analysis

Doping is a complex and ancient phenomenon considering the vast variety of substances, supplied through bothlegal and illegal trading routes, and the extensive connections between the people involved in the network. Itoccurs in elite athletes but also affects amateur athletes. Furthermore, it involves athletes’ friends and relatives,medical staff, managers, chemists, biologists and pharmacists, pharmaceutical industries, clandestine laboratoriesand criminal organizations. Over time, doping has shown a great ability to discover and always use newsubstances and appropriated the new scientific discoveries. Unfortunately, new discoveries for the human healthare been used in distorted way by the athletes. In fact, the athletes may be able to use gene therapy to re-engineertheir bodies for better performances. Drug dependence depends on several factors: the socio-environmentalcontext of the subject and what effects have the substance in the body. The drug dependence could be connectedto the indirect gratification. We will agree that sport is essentially under the current anti-doping campaignexecuted by a coordinated alliance between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), law enforcementauthorities, sports organizers and the media. Therefore, doping is a public health issue and not simply a probleminside the professional sports community.