Steroids

Almost everybody says the same thing when it comes to drugs: don't do them. I read a couple of articles; one by Ronald Bailey, who seemed to be more open about using performance-enhancing drugs, while on the other hand another article I read by Steve Olivier is against performance-enhancing drugs. Both authors had a very individual style of article, but I wanted to find out how each grabbed my attention more than the other and how.

In the first article I read by Bailey he was trying to persuade his readers to think that steroids are not as dangerous as experts claim. Bailey seems to me like a pathos type of author, he uses more "feeling" when he is communicating with his readers. Bailey states "does over the counter sale of steroid supplements constitute a societal emergency requiring intervention by the feds? No." Bailey says "where is the societal damage?" Bailey also tries to compare the use of steroids and the use of alcohol he tries to make the reader understand that if alcohol users are punished for using the drug in a bad manner that it can be done to those who us steroids in such a manner as well. I thought that was a very good point, people should be smart enough to know what they are doing to themselves when taking any kind of drug.

The second article I read by Olivier was a more justified article, backed with facts. Olivier is more of a Logos type of author; he explains his views in good detail and provides information to prove his points he is trying to get across to his readers. Olivier says "performance enhancing drugs should not be used because of the potential side effects to its users." Olivier also includes other quotes from doctors who say the same thing Olivier stated. Even though that is true, the key word is potential, which means not every user will go through the bad effects of the drug. Like I said before people should be smart enough to know what kind of drug they are getting themselves into, I just thought that was a lousy point by Olivier.

Both authors had good points on whether steroids should be used or not. I believe that Bailey seemed more of a fair author on the topic he was writing about. Bailey did state both good and bad things about steroid use even though he is not against them at all, on the other hand Olivier is very one sided in his article he is completely against steroid usage and makes