For many years now, steroids have been at the forefront of negative discussions in sports. From baseball, football and Olympic athletes all being caught using performance enhancing drugs, the practice of using them has trickled down to the Canadian Interuniversity Sport level.

Predominantly, Major League Baseball has taken the brunt of the negative publicity that goes hand-in-hand with steroids. Many of the great players of recent memory are not only being accused of doping, but they’re testing positive for PEDs.

Back in 2007, former United States Democratic Senator Maine George J. Mitchell released what was effectively known as the “Mitchell Report.” The report was the conclusion of a 21-month long investigation that named 89 MLB players who were taking anabolic steroids or human growth hormone. It was one of the darkest days in baseball history.

Some of the more prominent names to grace the list were all-time home run leader Barry Bonds, one of the winningest pitchers Roger Clemons, 18-year veteran Andy Pettite and all-star Miguel Tejada. The problem of doping in baseball has gotten so bad in the new millennium that some baseball analysts have dubbed this the “Steroid Era.”

Then, just six short years later, news of another scandal broke out — “the Biogenesis Scandal.” The Biogenesis Clinic in Coral Gables, Fla. was not only the namesake of the scandal but also many players’ primary source for PEDs. This report led to 14 major leaguers being suspended a minimum of 50 games.

Most notable of the players were slugger Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees and the reigning National League Most Valuable Player Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers. Braun sat out 65 games, but Rodriguez was given a 162 game ban — the duration of the entire 2014 season.

Anabolic steroids have similar effects as testosterone does on the body. It increases protein within cells and allows muscles to recover faster and grow bigger. There are many negative side effects that go along with taking steroids as well, including acne, liver damage, high-blood pressure and harmful changes in cholesterol levels.

Human growth hormone on the other hand, stimulates cell growth, reproduction and regeneration. It became a popular substitute for steroids because it was initially undetectable in urine samples. Testing for HGM became available in the early 2000s which led to the International Olympic Committee banning it.

Baseball isn’t the only sport being heavily influenced by the usage of PEDs. The National Football League is seeing a dramatic increase in players being caught cheating using the drugs.

In 1987, the NFL introduced its first anti-drug policy and in two years later four players were suspended for using banned substances. The NFL features approximately 2,000 players every year, so four is a fairly miniscule number. However, a 2009 study done by U.S.A. Today revealed that nine per cent of retired football players admit to using steroids at one point in their career. These days it seems that every other week a pro football player is suspended for testing positive for banned substances.

A separate study done recently by The Huffington Post showed that 85 per cent of teenage athletes were unaware of the substantial negative side-effects that steroids have. Of the same teenagers sampled, 11 per cent admitted to trying steroids at least once during their high school athletic careers. Without a doubt, the professional athletes hitting home runs and scoring touchdowns are heavily influencing the young kids of today. Subsequently, education at a younger age is becoming more and more crucial. Usage of steroids can be just as harmful to the body as other drugs that kids are made aware of from a young age.

Teenagers who use steroids can be at risk of fertility problems, shrinkage of testicles, development of breast tissue, acne, severe mood swings and aggressive behaviour. They are also susceptible to heart and liver abnormalities as well as high blood pressure and cholesterol.

The Canadian Football League recently implemented a new drug policy that will see 35 per cent of players tested every single season. A first time offender will not be suspended, but will be subject to mandatory testing. He will also be given counselling in an attempt to change his behaviour. The only CFL players to test positive in past 10 years are prospects at scouting combines — which measure a player’s physical capabilities such as bench press, vertical jump and 40-yard dash.

The National Hockey League and National Basketball Association have both avoided the negative attention that comes with its star players using PEDs. Only seven players in the NBA have tested positive for steroids since 2000. Only two players in NHL history ever have tested positive for PEDs. In both leagues, athletes are subject to multiple random drug tests throughout the entirety of the season.

Back in 1990 when the news first broke of professional athletes who were doping, it was a shocker. In was inconceivable that somewhere in the mix of men who had trained their whole lives to compete at that level, there was a fellow competitor who cheated and taken the shortcut to get to the same place.

Now in today’s sporting world, when news breaks of a professional athlete who has used PEDs it barely registers as anything out of the ordinary. We have learned to accept it because it has become such a norm in today’s sporting culture.

Take Lance Armstrong as a famous case. A famous cyclist in the Tour de France for many years, Armstrong won the Tour seven consecutive years from 1999 to 2005. To make the feat even more incredible, in October 1996, Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer, but by February 1997 he was cancer free. To this day he has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for cancer research.

Armstrong was praised as the greatest cyclist of all time, although some believed he competed while on steroids. For years allegations came and went that Armstrong had cheated, but he denied every single claim against him.

Then in September 2013 during an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Armstrong admitted to doping during his illustrious racing career. He was stripped of all seven of his titles and was given a lifetime ban from competitive cycling.

Looking at the CIS, head coach Brian Towriss of the University of Saskatchewan Huskies pulled what he called a “bold move” by organizing a mandatory team wide dug test this spring. The test included a urine sample as well as a blood sample from every athlete. All 85 members of the football team were tested at the spring camp in March, but the finalized results of each test weren’t available until July. The test would search for any type of banned substance that players may be using from steroids or human growth hormone, it also checks for the usage of marijuana and other drugs considered to be for recreational use.

“We want to be up front and center, saying we don’t accept that kind of stuff here,” Towriss said in an interview with the StarPhoenix. He also cited that he did not want his team to be considered “guilty through association” after ex-Huskie Seamus Neary was charged with possession of marijuana with the purpose of trafficking. “We didn’t think it was an issue here, but we wanted to prove it wasn’t.”

This comes on the heels of former University of Manitoba linebacker Ranji Atwall who tested positive for PEDs at the CFL scouting combine this past offseason. Atwall was suspended for four years from CIS athletics even though he had played out his final year of eligibility in 2013.

In 2010, the University of Waterloo cancelled its football season after eight members of the team tested positive for banned substances during a similar team-wide drug screening.

“We said, ‘OK, if there’s a problem, let’s nip it now and find out. If we lose six or seven [players], there won’t be a long-term problem. And we found out after four months that there wasn’t a problem. You go to any locker room in the country, test 85 guys, and there’s going to be something, somewhere. You can test 85 students across the street and there’s going to be something, somewhere,” Towriss explained to the StarPhoenix.

The fact that steroid usage has become a regular occurrence at the university level is a very alarming fact.

In recorded history, 62 CIS athletes have been caught doping since 1960. Of these cases, 44 have occurred since the turn of the century with 53 of the incidents found among football players. The problem seems to be the mindset that in order to make it to the next level, you have to get bigger and faster, and the only way to do that is through the use of steroids or HGH.

In fact, of the 89 players on the infamous Mitchell Report, 49 of them were minor league players trying to get over the hump and crack a major league lineup. This theory of needing drugs to make it has seeped down to college players, and the CIS must make a stand before it gets out of control.

Many Canadian sports writers have said the CIS is to blame for student athletes abusing PEDs, calling their testing policies “pathetic.”

The Canadian Center for Ethics in Sports is responsible for conducting the drug tests in the CIS. In the 2011–12 school year they performed 455 tests and since then the number has sharply decreased. During 2014-2015 they only conducted 200 tests. The CIS is home to roughly 11,000 athletes, meaning just under two percent of athletes are being tested every year.

Following the Waterloo scandal, many programs across the country vowed to improve their drug testing policies. However, part of the problem is that the drug testing is drastically underfunded. Each test can cost up to $1,000 and that just isn’t money universities are willing to spend.

“It’s a wild west because we have no (effective doping) controls in place and the athletes know that,” said Ira Jacobs, dean of Kinesiology at the University of Toronto in an interview with TSN.

Part of the blame falls on the athletes behalf as well. They know they can get away with it, so why not give yourself a competitive edge? The players know it could be the difference in making the jump from CIS to the CFL. That calls the players morals into question, would you do something illegal if you knew you were going to get away with it?

CIS athletes are required to complete an online course every year on the dangers of steroids and why to stay away from them.

The only option left is for the CIS to follow the lead of many other professional leagues and perform random unannounced tests to a random selection of athletes across the country. This is what the NFL and NHL have implemented to attempt to eliminate PEDs from there athletes.

The only problem with that solution is the lack of funding.

As it stands right now, the CCES receives $5.4 million dollars from the federal government to help with the rising costs of testing. The CFL has also agreed to help by automatically testing the top 80 eligible draft picks each season. Aside from that, the money has to come from universities across the country. With many universities across Canada, including the the University of Saskatchewan making budget cuts, this reality seems highly unlikely.

The CIS will have to turn to other outside donations to allow for more tests to be done, or find some other alternative cheaper method of testing. With steroids becoming more easily accessible, the CIS better think of something fast, before they have an epidemic on their hands.

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Graphic: Stephanie Mah/Graphics Editor