What if nicotine was considered a PED?
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What if nicotine was considered a PED?
David Murphy, Daily News Staff Writer
Nicotine has a lot of benefits. It gives individuals an ability to escape a crowded bar. It gives companies an ability to addict customers to its product. And, according to the World Anti-Doping Agency, it gives athletes the ability to perform better in their respective sports.
According to this report, WADA is considering a suggestion that it add nicotine to its list of banned performance-enhancing substances.
Such a ban would not affect Major League Baseball, but it does make you think a little bit about the slippery slope you begin to slide down when you become morally indignant about players who used or are alleged to have used PEDs. A lot of people scoffed when J.C. Romero compared his positive drug test, which he blamed on a tainted supplement, to other players using nicotine. But while the logic did not exactly line up, there was some truth to what he was saying. Nicotine is a drug. It just happens to be a drug that is approved for sale by our government, just like LSD and cocaine derivatives were at one point in time.
Nobody will argue that nicotine enhances performance to the point that anabolic steroids could. But according to the report submitted to WADA, and anecdotally confirmed by any cigarette smoker or chewer you ask, nicotine improves mental clarity, decreases stress, increases heart rate, and decreases appetite.
I wrote a little bit about chewing tobacco in spring training after union chief Michael Weiner visited Clearwater. The league and the MLBPA are in the midst of re-negotiating their CBA, which expires after this season. Chewing tobacco is not expected to be a major issue. The players don't want it outlawed. The league says publicly that they would like to reduce the use of smokeless tobacco, but they aren't going to let it stand in the way of a new CBA.
Anyway, there is no real point to this blog post other than to relay what I thought was an interesting story when viewed from a baseball angle. Who knows, it might make you think further about your stance on PEDs.
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Dumbest think I've ever read; not only is nicotine not a performance enhancing drug, it's a performance inhibiting one. WADA is clearly a pack of morons.— veritas1325- Good post, Dave.— conceptual_bro
- It is amazing how much a part of the baseball culture smokeless tobacco is....you don't see it in any other sport. Can you imagine a hockey player chewing and spitting on the ice? Why has smokeless tobacco become what it has in baseball?— lycralaz
- I like how dumb people think things are dumb because they don't agree with it, not because of various scientific studies.— HandNik
- Anything I don't agree with is dumb.— Justin Case
- If the WADA is that nuts, my stance will change to allowing anything, since they have obviously lost their mind. I agree with Justin...anything I don't agree with is dumb.— jimmymack
- Nicotine is a stimulant as is Amphetamine. There is no doubt that Speed is a PED, it just follows that nicotine is too.— fish1463
- That'd be great if they outlawed tobacco in MLB... and in society in general. It's hard to believe that chewing it helps you perform when smoking it makes people unable to climb up a flight up steps without losing their breath, though.
Nicotine does not actually calm anyone down, either. It is a common misconception that it does, though. What it does do is curb your addictive need to have a substance that has overridden the pleasure center of your brain to the point that your brain is fooled into thinking that it needs nicotine on the same level as food, drinks and sex. Addicts only think they are calmer when smoking/chewing because they are stressed out FROM smoking/chewing.— Kramerica - Kramerica - that's not entirely true. Nicotine causes the release of epinephrine and can enhance serotonin, so the calm feeling is a very real psychological effect (it can also act as a stimulant). Human beings didn't just randomly decide to start smoking and chewing tobacco. There is solid scientific evidence of all of that. The scientific debate is whether nicotine's effects enhance athletic performance in any substantive manner. Those who argue it doesn't use your argument, which is that any actual athletic enhancement is negligible and short lived enough not to have any real effect. The players who do believe it affects their performance usually do so because of what you said -- the easing of withdrawal with more nicotine. So while nicotine can't really be considered any more of a performance enhancer than a cup of coffee, when you stop using it, it can be a very real performance de-hancer.
- If someone is in sufficient enough physical shape to play a major sport, nicotine could certainly be used as a PED. Yes, obviously smoke destroys your lungs. But that is a very long-term process. When I was in ROTC, there was a prior-service Cadet who smoked like a chimney. Kid could do almost twice as many pushups and sit ups as me, and was faster on the two mile. Right after you smoke a cigarette, your lungs actually expand a little. The enhancement isn't incredibly strong, but it could definitely be considered a PED.
Comment removed.- I will never cease to be amazed at the way radical right wing nut jobs can turn any topic into a politically charged one. Where exactly are you coming up with your hypocrite charge? Because someone doesn't want to inhale your toxic fumes it makes them a hypocrite? I know all you smokers seem to feel that you have the right to blow those toxic fumes into the lungs of people who actually have the audacity to life a healthy lifestyle, but how does that make one a hypocrite? Do you even know what that word means? Of all the dumb posts I've seen on here, yours certainly ranks among one of the most stupid. You can't have baseball without tobacco? Ummm...ok? That makes sense. Let me guess? You probably love Rick Perry(I got D's and F's so so can you!) and Michelle "I don't know anything about history" Bachmann as well? You're obviously a proud member of the proud to be stupid Republican Party based on your post. — IamObsessed
- Frozen Yogurt...— john.mlodzinski
- The Hippocratic notion that Surgical Enhancement is acceptable, just seems to stick in the caw when MLB suspends a kid for 50 games for taking a couple of upps.— Phiggles
- jim leyland would have to start managing from the clubhouse.— bloodymess
