I used to love the Olympics, the Olympic ideal of the best of every nation on earth coming to one place and competing. The Olympics back in the 1980s were really something to see – new records were being broken all the time.
But first the rumors started, then everything came out in the open. Performance enhancing drugs – the East Germans were using them. Then it got so bad that we had to test everyone and some people got in and some people got rejected. And some of the ones that were rejected admitted to using drugs, and some denied it. Moreover, some of the ones that got in, and even won, later admitted to ‘doping’.
So whenever I’m asked about whether or not I’m going to watch the Olympics, or just about any other major sporting event, I’m reminded of the Saturday Night Live sketch about the 'All Drug Olympics’. I still remember the laundry list of drugs one athlete was said to have taken followed by the line, “This is not only not against the rules, it's actually encouraged in the all drug Olympics.” While it was made as a satire, this idea bears serious merit- there's always going to be new drugs, new ways of hiding them, people who play by the rules, people who bend the rules, people who cheat, etc. The only way to make it fair is make it ALL legal. Anyone can take anything, voila, once again it's a level playing field. No one can claim they were cheated because they too had the option of taking or not taking performance enhancing drugs. No one can have their record stricken from the record books or whatnot.
Bigger Stronger Faster actually includes a clip from that Saturday Night Live sketch. This film gives the straight dope on dope. Written and directed by a former anabolic steroid user who no longer uses steroids on “moral grounds”, this documentary covers the issue from all sides. Mark Bell (who can't compete with his own brothers without steroids) has made a thoroughly entertaining, and comprehensive examination of the issue. From interviewing Stan Lee of Marvel comics who created Captain America (for those not in the know, Cap basically took drugs to achieve physical perfection) to opening his own legal supplement business in the living room; from talking to a man whose child died from alleged steroid use to talking to his Congressman, to fighter pilots who still use performance enhancers, and with his own family at the center of the whole steroid controversy, there is no better insider to tell this story.
And it is a story we like to sweep under the rug. Even the title of this movie has been expunged, the full title is Bigger Stronger Faster* The Side Effects of Being American. But on the DVD it has the more palatable, Bigger Stronger Faster* Is It Still Cheating If Everyone’s Doing It?
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