ProCon.Org has just recently opened base in Santa Monica, California. It is a non-profit, non-partisan 501c3 organization for research. It has just introduced a new website with web address- http://sports.procon.org covering  topics on the use of performance enhancing drugs. One hot topic in the site is the question whether anabolic steroids be accepted in sports. The online project has over twenty questions about drug use in sports with responses culled from over two hundred sports experts like Lance Armstrong and Gene Upshaw, doping experts and many others. This pool of responses includes sports writers, academicians, physicians, former league commissioners, past and present politicians and notable sports personalities.

Some of the topics already discussed are the following:

a) The propriety of the LASIK eye surgery of Tiger Woods which improved his vision and whether it is the same as taking a performance enhancing substance.
b) The correlation between the number of middle schoolers taking anabolic steroids and the use of their sports role models of the substance\
c) The credibility of testing labs, like the one which found Floyd Landis positive for banned substances
d) The teammates of former sprint champion Marion Jones, whether they too should return their Olympic gold medals, despite being determined as negative for any substance abuse and the admission of Jones for having used them.

Many other facts can be found in the site, such as the following:

1) The World Anti-Doping Agency or WADA has a list of banned performance enhancing substances like testosterone, alcohol, insulin or marijuana, or processes like blood transfusion and gene manipulation. It also provides for a substance control list where use can be allowed so long as it is sanctioned by the sport’s governing body.

2) In the history of the Summer Olympics, between 1968 and 2008, there have been over 21, 579 drug tests completed and there have been 59 positive cases found for doping infractions. For the Winter Olympics, there have been 5, 264 tests conducted with only thirteen positive results from 1958 and 2006. It also chronicles the many stories of those found positive and whether they were banned or vindicated.

With ProCon.org, sports research has become accessible for free and is free from irritating advertisements at its website. Its goals of promoting critical analysis of existing conditions, continued learning and information campaigns are vital to national development and would most probably continue for a long, long time. This, the association believes, would form a critical mass to make responsible decisions after full discussion of the matter has been made.

But the site does not only provide for sports discussion, it also provides an equal venue for other important issues such as the 2008 presidential elections, the bailout of the Detroit automakers, the medicinal use of marijuana, the validity of the war in Iraq, the continued escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and illegal immigration among many others. A full discourse on the methodology and a full directory of other pertinent topics can be found on www.procon.org.

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