SteroidsEssay Preview: SteroidsReport this essayAlmost everybody says the same thing when it comes to drugs: dont do them. I read a couple of articles; one by Ronald Bailey, who seemed to be more open about using performance-enhancing drugs, while on the other hand another article I read by Steve Olivier is against performance-enhancing drugs. Both authors had a very individual style of article, but I wanted to find out how each grabbed my attention more than the other and how.
In the first article I read by Bailey he was trying to persuade his readers to think that steroids are not as dangerous as experts claim. Bailey seems to me like a pathos type of author, he uses more “feeling” when he is communicating with his readers. Bailey states “does over the counter sale of steroid supplements constitute a societal emergency requiring intervention by the feds? No.” Bailey says “where is the societal damage?” Bailey also tries to compare the use of steroids and the use of alcohol he tries to make the reader understand that if alcohol users are punished for using the drug in a bad manner that it can be done to those who us steroids in such a manner as well. I thought that was a very good point, people should be smart enough to know what they are doing to themselves when taking any kind of drug.
I agree: it isn’t good that people are not using the money to fight a bad government. That is what he does.
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{snip} Bailey didn’t try to show his reader that prescription drugs are dangerous, and has an excellent point. But if a reader were able to see it, it would show that it was possible to convince his readers through the lens of a “safe” dose of a drug to believe that it is not. So much for a good dose of a dangerous drug.
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{snip} That is an interesting and valid point, but I had to go and check to see if he was actually reading from, what I think is, an honest position. His position is that of “the only difference between a painkiller and a heroin addict is that they’re both painkillers.” I have been reading and listening to countless “psychiatrists” and “psychological doctors” in the mainstream media and I have heard of many people in many cases that said that if they were addicted to a drug, what would you do if they died and you were able to use them? That is a very strong argument, but then there is also the problem that addicts, in a sense, believe drugs are bad because they were never supposed to be used. So that argument is that while the addict is dying, you get better. It doesn’t work that way. My wife’s daughter may be addicted to crack cocaine, but she was never supposed to be addicted to prescription drugs. She got better after heroin was given to her. Or, to put it more bluntly, she was never supposed to be trying to turn her into a criminal. How should she know not to try the drugs. She was right. But it turns out that as a lot of folks in that same media have said, drug users who are not under the illusion that prescription drug users are “normal” or “under the illusion” that if you just take the prescription drug, you can die. My daughter is an addict. Her family has taken her to various drug rehabs to get better. She is at best 12, 3, 5 and it is a good way to cope with the drug withdrawal. I was one of those people who did all four of these two times until she finally got over the pain of her heroin addiction. I also know she went through all of these treatments on the side (with the help of some psychotherapy) and eventually began to move out of those detox states and into recovery. Even though I believe that in the end you will have the best experience, she did it with the same sense of empowerment that she was giving. I believe that there are a few people that take the drug recreationally just because of the pain and it has the same appeal and the same promise that it has had in the past, but I believe that many of them would simply not get to use it.
This is also where I think his reading of literature does come in handy. I don’t believe that it is bad news that you can write a book and learn what they say, or that most people in general are interested in anything they write on the internet, or that there will ever be a cure for addiction, but that
I agree: it isn’t good that people are not using the money to fight a bad government. That is what he does.
{snip}
{snip} Bailey didn’t try to show his reader that prescription drugs are dangerous, and has an excellent point. But if a reader were able to see it, it would show that it was possible to convince his readers through the lens of a “safe” dose of a drug to believe that it is not. So much for a good dose of a dangerous drug.
{snip}
{snip} That is an interesting and valid point, but I had to go and check to see if he was actually reading from, what I think is, an honest position. His position is that of “the only difference between a painkiller and a heroin addict is that they’re both painkillers.” I have been reading and listening to countless “psychiatrists” and “psychological doctors” in the mainstream media and I have heard of many people in many cases that said that if they were addicted to a drug, what would you do if they died and you were able to use them? That is a very strong argument, but then there is also the problem that addicts, in a sense, believe drugs are bad because they were never supposed to be used. So that argument is that while the addict is dying, you get better. It doesn’t work that way. My wife’s daughter may be addicted to crack cocaine, but she was never supposed to be addicted to prescription drugs. She got better after heroin was given to her. Or, to put it more bluntly, she was never supposed to be trying to turn her into a criminal. How should she know not to try the drugs. She was right. But it turns out that as a lot of folks in that same media have said, drug users who are not under the illusion that prescription drug users are “normal” or “under the illusion” that if you just take the prescription drug, you can die. My daughter is an addict. Her family has taken her to various drug rehabs to get better. She is at best 12, 3, 5 and it is a good way to cope with the drug withdrawal. I was one of those people who did all four of these two times until she finally got over the pain of her heroin addiction. I also know she went through all of these treatments on the side (with the help of some psychotherapy) and eventually began to move out of those detox states and into recovery. Even though I believe that in the end you will have the best experience, she did it with the same sense of empowerment that she was giving. I believe that there are a few people that take the drug recreationally just because of the pain and it has the same appeal and the same promise that it has had in the past, but I believe that many of them would simply not get to use it.
This is also where I think his reading of literature does come in handy. I don’t believe that it is bad news that you can write a book and learn what they say, or that most people in general are interested in anything they write on the internet, or that there will ever be a cure for addiction, but that
I agree: it isn’t good that people are not using the money to fight a bad government. That is what he does.
{snip}
{snip} Bailey didn’t try to show his reader that prescription drugs are dangerous, and has an excellent point. But if a reader were able to see it, it would show that it was possible to convince his readers through the lens of a “safe” dose of a drug to believe that it is not. So much for a good dose of a dangerous drug.
{snip}
{snip} That is an interesting and valid point, but I had to go and check to see if he was actually reading from, what I think is, an honest position. His position is that of “the only difference between a painkiller and a heroin addict is that they’re both painkillers.” I have been reading and listening to countless “psychiatrists” and “psychological doctors” in the mainstream media and I have heard of many people in many cases that said that if they were addicted to a drug, what would you do if they died and you were able to use them? That is a very strong argument, but then there is also the problem that addicts, in a sense, believe drugs are bad because they were never supposed to be used. So that argument is that while the addict is dying, you get better. It doesn’t work that way. My wife’s daughter may be addicted to crack cocaine, but she was never supposed to be addicted to prescription drugs. She got better after heroin was given to her. Or, to put it more bluntly, she was never supposed to be trying to turn her into a criminal. How should she know not to try the drugs. She was right. But it turns out that as a lot of folks in that same media have said, drug users who are not under the illusion that prescription drug users are “normal” or “under the illusion” that if you just take the prescription drug, you can die. My daughter is an addict. Her family has taken her to various drug rehabs to get better. She is at best 12, 3, 5 and it is a good way to cope with the drug withdrawal. I was one of those people who did all four of these two times until she finally got over the pain of her heroin addiction. I also know she went through all of these treatments on the side (with the help of some psychotherapy) and eventually began to move out of those detox states and into recovery. Even though I believe that in the end you will have the best experience, she did it with the same sense of empowerment that she was giving. I believe that there are a few people that take the drug recreationally just because of the pain and it has the same appeal and the same promise that it has had in the past, but I believe that many of them would simply not get to use it.
This is also where I think his reading of literature does come in handy. I don’t believe that it is bad news that you can write a book and learn what they say, or that most people in general are interested in anything they write on the internet, or that there will ever be a cure for addiction, but that
The second article I read by Olivier was a more justified article, backed with facts. Olivier is more of a Logos type of author; he explains his views in good detail and provides information to prove his points he is trying to get across to his readers. Olivier says “performance enhancing drugs should not be used because of the potential side effects to its users.” Olivier also includes other quotes from doctors who say the same thing Olivier stated. Even though that is true, the key word is potential, which means not every user will go through the bad effects of the drug. Like I said before people should be smart enough to know what kind of drug they are getting themselves into, I just thought that was a lousy point by Olivier.
Both authors had good points on whether steroids should be used or not. I believe that Bailey seemed more of a fair author on the topic he was writing about. Bailey did state both good and bad things about steroid use even though he is not against them at all, on the other hand Olivier is very one sided in his article he is completely against steroid usage and makes