Here’s an article from espn.com on supps. IMO, the ignorance about nutritional supplements is a direct reflection of our fat, lazy society. Honestly, how can you blame politicians for being completely ignorant about supps.? There’s only one politician that I can think of out west that knows what the hell protein powder even is. Fuck ups like Palmeiro making excuses trying to save his ass after being nailed is literally going to ruin it for everyone. Something tells me that the anti-nutritional supplement bandwagon is going to start rolling real hard now.
What annoys me is that it shouldn’t matter whether or not he decided to take an educated risk with respect to his own health and development.
Why does society have to intefere with the choices and behavior of others on such a widespread scale?
Don’t limit the damned access to all kinds of substances! If you are concerned about misuse, then force some type of awareness test or place controls on the distribution of the substance.
Barring serious health issues that cannot be alleviated with careful protocols or serious influences on crime and productivity, there is no reason for society to care about these issues.
It should be our right to put things not proven to be dangerous to soceity into our own bodies. Just like we can wear jewelry, piercings and tatoos. Why the hell is the government getting involved in our personal decisions and how the hell do we stop it?
I’m a web developer by trade. I’d happily donate time to build and manage a web site containing truthful information about steroids and supplements and why they should be legal choices for informed individuals of appropriate age.
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Edit: If you don’t complain or help when they take away your neighbors, who’s going to be there when they come for you?
[quote]vroom wrote:
What annoys me is that it shouldn’t matter whether or not he decided to take an educated risk with respect to his own health and development.
Why does society have to intefere with the choices and behavior of others on such a widespread scale?
Don’t limit the damned access to all kinds of substances! If you are concerned about misuse, then force some type of awareness test or place controls on the distribution of the substance.
Barring serious health issues that cannot be alleviated with careful protocols or serious influences on crime and productivity, there is no reason for society to care about these issues.
It should be our right to put things not proven to be dangerous to soceity into our own bodies. Just like we can wear jewelry, piercings and tatoos. Why the hell is the government getting involved in our personal decisions and how the hell do we stop it?
I’m a web developer by trade. I’d happily donate time to build and manage a web site containing truthful information about steroids and supplements and why they should be legal choices for informed individuals of appropriate age.[/quote]
Vroom,
You are bringing the viewpoint of a smart, decent, rational, responsible human being to a system where none of that matters. They work by finding one issue and having everybody agree that it is the cause of the world’s problems, ban it, call it a day. Science, what’s that?
[quote]vroom wrote:
Why the hell is the government getting involved in our personal decisions and how the hell do we stop it?[/quote]
Why are they getting involved? It’s obvious…they have our best interests in mind. Not to stray too far from my post, but tune into CNN or better yet, C-span, and look at all of the old, senile, motherfuckers who are representing us and claim to have our best interests in mind…it’s actually comical.
How can a 50- or 60±year-old individual know what is in the best interests of a person in their 20’s, 30’s or even 40’s??? Oh yeah, we elected them. What pisses me off are these “career politicians” who feel that they are the best suited to preside over every issue. Hell, the uneducated media is actually the biggest culprit. Listening to these people talk about supps. is laughable. Creatine is next, man. I can see it coming.
Well, the stupid damned media needs to become better educated then… so it can send a more appropriate message to the populace.
I’ve sat here arguing with my roomate. He would represent most of the population. He has no idea about supplements or even the very small probability that they could somehow have mixed ingredients that led to a positive test for Winny.
Part of the problem is that no one wants to believe that their hero is a fake. I still to this day believe that Lance is clean and I think I would have a hard time believing a positive result for the sake of him being an idol athlete in my book.
I wonder if some of these prof.s are going against what they really feel so that they can get sided with the baseball players who need a source that feels things can be accidentally ingested. Hell, I’d rather get paid by an MLBer then go against them.
Those of us who belong to T-Nation have a good awareness of this issue. However, we are a relatively small number with relatively few resopurces to fully inpact this issue to our benefit. I feel the companies that manufacture these supplements need to expend some monies for educating the public in general.
These companies cannot just sit back and expect their consumers to do all the work…Sure, we’ll do what we can but an editorial commercial during prime time on a major network will get our view point across to a much wider audience and thus theoretically, be more effective and productive.
MB
Look, everything is money driven…Do you think they REALLY give a rats ass if we all “supplement” ourselves into an early grave…If that were the case, alcohol and cigs would have been squashed a long time ago. They will find a way to regulate it, like the pharmaceutical idustry, so they can line their already deep pockets. They will do this in the guise of “saving us from ourselves”. Hidden agenda fucks…
I don’t think this should be a congressional or legal matter, period. The case of athletes in their respected sports using is against the rules of the sport and should be regulated by said organization. MLB should handle the Cansecos, Bonds’, and Palmeiros because it is against their rules and gives an advantage there (much like a corked bat (Sosa) or spitball (Gaylord Perry- for you old schoolers)).
Neither supplements or steroids will make me a better engineer and give me a leg up on the competition. Nor will they make Vroom a better web designer.
I think the govt should worry about things that have a direct negative effect on the entire population (i.e. gas prices) and stop trying to protect stupid people from themselves by hampering the educated.
Sure, some of these substances are dangerous when used- scratch that- ABUSED in excess. I have also heard that you can die from drinking too much water and I don’t want the govt taking THAT away, too.
When someone who is out of shape takes a ton of ephedra to lose weight and works out in 100 degree heat with a sauna suit on, it’s called POPULATION CONTROL. We don’t neccessarily have tigers eating those of us who are slow and fat, anymore, so we need to weed out a few dumbasses along the way, anyway. That doesn’t mean that the guy who trains smart, keeps a food log, and RESEARCHES should be deprived of his MAG-10…
Just my $.02
Thank God I live in So Cal. I’m just an hour’s drive from Mexico, where I can (will be able to) buy all the supps I want and smuggle them back to the US in any available body cavity!!
Your government: Looking out for your best interests since 1781!
JeffR will probably be all over tis like a rabid dog but this is just another extension of our mis-guided administration. The main mission of our current administration is to make sure that the mega-rich become richer. During his re-election Bush had the largest campaign fund in history (this is an easily verifiable fact). Now those people want their money back.
He/his administration are doing everything possible to stifle small business and direct more monopoly power to not big but giant business. By putting the supplement manufacturers out of business, that leaves us at the mercy of the Smith-Kleins and Upjohns of the world. President Bush has spoken out against Steroids and “designer” drugs. This was obviously a speech written by the pharmacuetical monopoly. His knowledge of drugs has already been documented in the cocaine use of his youth.
Can’t these issues be brought to the supreme court?
Isn’t that how one can defend his/her rights when one is taken away?
Maybe it’s not that easy, but couldn’t anyone who is affected by any of the bans, gather up some good info (and a great case) and sue the govt. for banning them?
I heard of some large companies trying to do that for ephedra, and it’s slowly being allowed back (not in large enough doses to be effective though).
How can politicians do this? Easily. The have no integrity, and they consider ethical decisions just a minor stumbling block to the ultimate goal, re-election.
I was taught that an ethical decision is one that takes into consideration all of the aspects of a conundrum, or at least two sides. It seems that the main tools of politicains these days are faulty conclusions, public outcry, fear, and hyperbole.
Ethical thinking doesn’t enter the picture until it can be bastardized into the appearance of “the greater good”. Throw a couple of teenage suicides falsley attributed to steriods into the mix, and you have a witch hunt. Add the general public being fed a bunch of propaganda from an ill informed media, and you have a lynch mob.
Scare them into thinking that this will happen to their children, and you have a scared stupid angry lynch mob that think that performance enhancing supplements of any kind are A Menace To Our Children. This leads to the conclusion that “for the greater good” supplements should be Banned!, and whoever wrote that legislation is a Dragonslayer of the highest order and should definitely be re-elected.
It’s bullshit.(read) Political scamboogery at its finest.
IMHO.
[quote]SWR-1222D wrote:
Can’t these issues be brought to the supreme court?
[/quote]
Oh God, I hope not!!!
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=669518
[quote]mica617 wrote:
When someone who is out of shape takes a ton of ephedra to lose weight and works out in 100 degree heat with a sauna suit on, it’s called POPULATION CONTROL. We don’t neccessarily have tigers eating those of us who are slow and fat, anymore, so we need to weed out a few dumbasses along the way, anyway. Just my $.02[/quote]
YEP! It’s Darwinism in it’s purest form…Let stupidity cancel itself out. Unfortunately, as a society we always want to blame someone or something for our ills. I could rant about this type of thing until I fell out of my chair with hypoxia.
[quote]reddog6376 wrote:
SWR-1222D wrote:
Can’t these issues be brought to the supreme court?
Oh God, I hope not!!!
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=669518[/quote]
Oh, I see.
That sucks!
AMEN!!! This man is absolutley RIGHT!!!
It may be that politicians have an agenda or are just in it to get a shitload of money, but my bet is just on something simple. Most common people are stupid and misguided. Elected officials represent the majority. Therefore they are stupid and misguided as well and will do what the majority of stupid and misguided people want so that can keep their job. Add in to the fact that the concept of rights has been convoluted for a very long time, there is no question of violating anything.
That’s all it is. We’re fighting against an army of stupid people. And there’s a lot of them.
[quote]Gnostic wrote:
I could rant about this type of thing until I fell out of my chair with hypoxia.[/quote]
Hypoxia is a menace too. No one wants to address that issue though. They’re too busy demonizing creatine, and when they get done they’re all out of breath. 
[quote]mindeffer01 wrote:
scamboogery .
IMHO.[/quote]
Great word!