There are a number of cons to do with performance enhancing drugs in sports. Performance enhancing drugs are simply not going away - in fact they seem to be getting more popular as they get more advanced. For anyone with an interest in sport, drugs will continue to be a source of discussion and distress. Are they really worth it? Can they help us achieve our dreams? What would happen if I took them? As far as I can see, five of the most important cons of performance enhancing drugs are:

1) Who ever takes these drugs in order to become more competitive have just missed the point of the sport. The simple idea of any sport is to use whatever your body and your mind can manage to outperform yourself or others. Introducing drugs into your body to cheat this, has just changed the equation. It is no longer you that is actually achieving anything, the drugs are doing the cream of the work. You will be cheated out of the satisfaction that you deserve because you will never know how much of the victory is yours and how much has been injected.

2) Whoever takes these performance cheats has just admitted defeat. The idea of sport is overcoming obstacles from within and without an athlete. The athlete spends days, and months and years trying to overcome these obstacles. Then in one simple decision he gives up and decides that he can't meet his dreams without drugs. Instead of a continual struggle to achieve his potential, he has now set out on a dangerous journey to try and cheat his way beyond his potential.

3) It has yet to be proven to me that these drugs are able to sustainably and consistently produce performances above those that the best training and preparation can. They are a quick fix that a successful athletic career can not be based on for any length of time. Sure you may excel for a race or a season, but how long can you go on for. If you abuse yourself in this way, you cannot expect to keep on progressing into the future. If you break the rules of your own physiology, then you will reap the consequences some day.

4) Performance enhancing drugs are not only unethical, they are often illegal in the sporting community and can turn the whole of a sport into a joke. They undermine the sport that the athlete is trying to master and can only be seen as a selfish and arrogant attempt at cutting corners. Take for example the damage that drug use and alleged drug use in the Tour De France has made to the entire cycle racing community. We may come out of it with time, but still to a lot of the world, all cyclists are seen as cheats. Sponsors pull out support, the police and officials get involved, careers are wrecked and dreams are shattered.

5) These drugs can wreck an athlete psychologically as well. Knowing that he or she gave up and gave in to cheating can shatter their sense of integrity. Once they realise how far they have fallen from their sporting beginnings, they will have a hard time seeing themselves as honest ever again. Their victories will be cheapened and meaningless. Their victories will be simply about dollars and cents and will have none of the intimate meaning that a sporting victory can have.

Please excuse the language but the cons of performance enhancing drugs are a perfect example of the old saying "Shitting in one's own nest".