Let Them Dope

Lance Armstrong has had a lousy week, but maybe it's time the rest of us got over our "sanctimonious" opposition to sports doping and let athletes partake legally, writes a professor of ethics and engineering in the Washington Post. After all, we already let football players takes vicious hits knowing the risks, and it should be no different with performance-enhancing drugs, writes Braden Allenby.

Modern athletes "enhance legally with better gear, specialized diets, physical trainers, vitamin B, and energy drinks and gels," he notes. "Why not add drugs and other technologies to the list of legal enhancements?" The drugs are already prevalent, and this could make them safer. "Providing reliable information about the full range of technologies should become the new mission of a (renamed) Anti-Doping Agency, one not driven by an anti-enhancement agenda." Read the full article here. (More Lance Armstrong stories.)