Chapter 10: Performance enhancing drugs and the Nigerian sports scene by Olatunde O. A. Makanju

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Introduction
According to Makanju (1993), the employment of drugs in sport comes under four heading: “(a) therapeutic usage in the treatment of ailments, (b) usage for-performance continuation purposes when athletes are incapacitated
by injuries, (c) social and recreational use, and (d) usage for enhancement” (p. 56). Also out of the four divisions, only those of social/recreational use and performance enhancement has been referred to as “doping” or “drug abuse.” Doping means the use of chemicals or substances with a view to improve an athlete’s mental and or physical capabilities/conditions, and thus enhance athletic performance. On the other hand “substance abuse” is a reference to the occasional or habitual use of psychoactive substance(s) leading directly to the experience of harmful effects or, to the experience of indirect harm from the social or economic consequences of involvement with such substances. However, the use of performance enhancement drugs in sports is more complex and complicated than these definitions “make out. For example, three general classes of drugs have been identified as being involved in sport: these are restorative, additive and recreational drugs. “Restorative drugs permit people to approximate their normal functioning, additives appear to augment the persons‘ physio-chemical processes and recreational substances are utilized in leisure for a variety of reasons ranging from pure pleasure to simple curiosity” (WHO 1993). It therefore follows that the use of drugs in sports can involve licit
and illicit, and social or therapeutic substances, and yet, any of the classes could be involved in doping.

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