PREVENTION OF DOPING DRUG ABUSE

Nowadays doping is becoming an important public health problem, which has reached worrying proportions not only among elite athletes, but also among amateur athletes and among general population. Drug abuse is presented in all sports and also at most levels of competition.
The athletic life may lead to drug abuse for a number of reasons, including performance enhancement, self-treating mental health problems, and dealnig with stressors, like pressure to perform, injures and physical pain. There are many sports organizations that have banned performance-enhancing drugs and have strict consequences for people caught using them. History of doping in athletes It is untrue to say that doping is only a recent phenomenon that has envolved solely from increasing financial rewards offered to elite athletes today. We have to know that doping is
older than organized sports. In fact, ancient Greek Olympic athletes from the third century BC use various brandy and wine concoctions and consumed hallucinogenic mushrooms and sesame seeds in order to improve performance. And they used various plants to improve
speed and endurance. Yet, even in ancient times, doping was considered unethical. The modern era od doping dates back to the early 1900s, with the illegal use of doping on racehorses. Its use in the Olympics was first reported in 1904. Until the 1920s, a mixture of strychnine, heroin, cocaine and caffeine was not rarely used by higher level athletes. By 1930, the use of PEDs in the Tour de France was accepted, and when the race became
national teams for which the organizers had to pay, the organizers distributed the regulations to the riders to remind that drugs are not among them with which they would be provided. In the 1950s, the Soviet Olympic team started experimenting with testosterone supplements to see it they could improve quality and performance. This was part of a government-
sponsored performance improvement program conducted by national team coaches and sports doctors without any knowledge of short-term or long-term implications. The term did not have a positive result.
The substances used to illegally enhance performance have continued to change. The advances in doping procedures have been driven, in part, by improved drug testing detection methods. To avoid detection, different parties have created more and more complex doping techniques.
The Global Association of International Athletics was the first International Sports Federation to take the situation seriously. In 1928, they banned participants from doping, but there were few testing methods available.
It was not until 1966 that the Federation of International Football Associations and the Union Cycliste Internationale joined the Federation of International Athletics in the war on drugs, followed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) the following year.

The first athletes to be drug tested officially occurred at the 1966 European Championships, and two years later, the International Olympic Committee implemented their first drug tests at both the Summer and Winter Olympics. The first athletes to be drug examined formally passed off on the 1966 European Championships, and years later, the International Olympic Committee applied their first drug checks at each the Summer and Winter Olympics. Anabolic steroids have become even extra accepted at some point of the 1970s, and after a technique of detection changed into found,
they have been introduced to the IOC’s prohibited materials listing in 1976. This led to a marked growth withinside the wide variety of doping-associated disqualifications withinside the past due 1970s,24 considerably in strength-associated sports, which includes throwing occasions and weightlifting. While the battle against stimulants and steroids produced results, the main front in the fight against doping quickly turned to blood dopoing. This elimination and next reinfusion of an athlete’s blood with a purpose to boom the extent of oxygen-sporting hemoglobin has been
practiced since the 1970s. The IOC banned blood doping in 1986. The most well-known doping case of the 1980s involved Ben Johnson, the 100 meter dash champion who tested positive for the anabolic steroid stanozolol at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul. And then in 1998, police found a large number of illegal substances, including ampoules of erythropoietin, in a raid during the Tour de France. Athletes who had received doping sanctions were sometimes taking these sanctions with their attorneys to civil court and sometimes were successful in reversing the sanctions. The Tour de France scandal underscores the need for an independent, non-judicial international body that can set uniform standards for anti-doping work and coordinate the efforts of sports organisations and public authorities. The IOC took the initiative and convened the First World Conference on Doping in Sport in Lausanne in February 1999. Taking after the proposition of the Conference, the World Anti-Doping Organization (WADA) was established later in 1999. Anti-doping organizations Elite athletes competing at the international and national levels are subject to standardized anti-doping guidelines with the support of WADA and related national organizations. WADA is an international independent agency that issues the World Anti-Doping Code, a document that harmonizes all sports with anti-doping policies in all countries. This code was first adopted in 2003 and entered into force in 2004. This Code sets out specific anti-doping rules and principles that are to be followed by the anti-doping organizations responsible for developing, implementing and enforcing anti-doping rules within their authority, such as the IOC, International Paralympic Committee and the International Sports Federation. Conclusion To sum up, drug abuse among athletes is a serious problem with many potential underlying causes. The desire to be the best in sport dates back to ancient times, as does the use of performance-enhancing substances. But there are common signs and symptoms of substances relatively commonly used by athletes. For example common signs and symptoms of alcohol use are sedation, decreased concentration and coordination, disinhibition, slurred speech, vomiting. Acne, rapid muscle gain, irritability, gynecomastia and hair loss in males, deepening of voice and facial hair in females, visible injection sites and cysts are signs of usage of anabolic steroids. And common signs of stimulants usage are Dilated pupils, anxiety, jitteriness, increased heart rate and blood pressure, loss of appetite, tics.