I love nothing more than to watch a great sporting encounter, no matter which sport. Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly common for sportsmen and women to use substances to aid their performance. These performance enhancers are called anabolic steroids.

There shouldn’t be a controversy over anabolic steroid use. Nonmedical use of anabolic steroids is illegal and banned by most, if not all, major sports associations. Still, some athletes insist on taking them, believing that these substances provide an advantage to their ability. Beyond the issues of popularity or being legal or not is the fact that anabolic steroids can cause serious physical and psychological side effects, such as liver problems and liver damage, cancer and tumors.

So remember, steroids are drugs with serious side effects. It is estimated that up to one million people in the U.S. take steroids for nonmedical reasons. The nonmedical use of steroids has been banned by the American Medical Association, the American College Health Association, the United States and International Olympic committees, the National Football League and many more. In the end, I think that all players in any sport that are caught using steroids should be fined and suspended a certain amount of games. If there is no action taken to this, then our favorite players will have to end their career short because of complications with steroids and they even may be hospitalized for life.

Keaton DeRocher, Auburn