Originally Posted by
Rowan
Would you or those who don't care have a different perspective if the kids who idolise these flawed heroes are caught behind the change rooms with needles and some "performance enhancing substance" shooting up, so they could satisfy their win-at-all-costs parents on the sidelines?
After all, their heroes do it, and people like you give them their complicit support, so why not let the kids have a go at it, too? The kids today are your breeding ground for tomorrow's champions...
Or you can look at it positively -- Armstrong has become the poster boy for cleaning up cycling -- at all levels!!
That's how I look at it. My children are very talented and competitive. I would sign them both up for amateur racing if the sport was cleaned up more. If they start right, they should continue to keep up good behaviour. If it isn't cleaned up, I wouldn't support them in just about any sport. Who wants a messed up, suicidal child?!
Dope -- and doping -- are very complex subjects...
While I cannot disagree with either of the above opinions, I think it would be better if we (and especially the government health agencies like the FDA, NIH, ATF, and so on) focused on WHY people take drugs (even performance enhancing ones) and especially: what the very real consequences are...
Working in community mental health, I worked closely with people who take them, why they take them and what the (devastating) consequences are in their lives. That reality did more to dissuade me from any form of drug use than any laws or "Here is your brain on drugs" poster...
I don't think you can dictate these things from above. People will always make up their own minds no matter what the law is or what you say. I think education (Real education rather than proaganda) is the only thing that will ultimately have any significant impact. Yes, there will still be people who take dope -- but they will be doing it knowingly rather than out of ignorance or defiance.
So, while I KNOW how bad drugs and drug use are -- I disagree with how we as a society go about combating that menace.