Dopey on Dope?

Several of India’s star athletes are in disgrace because traces of performance enhancing drugs have been found in their blood. Such is the state of disempowerment Indian athletes have vis-à-vis their coaches and the sports bureaucracy, sleeping as they do five to a stuffy room and eating the frugal food they are served, it is entirely credible when they say that they knowingly did no wrong. But that is not the nub of the problem.

The central question is, under what circumstances should performance enhancing drugs be considered undesirable? Sherlock Holmes, the fabled sleuth of 221B Baker Street, and toast of generations of detective fiction fans, would today be described as a substance abuser. But, hey, could anyone complain about his performance?

What would be better, that he led a sedate life wholly devoid of blameworthy stimulants and equally bereft of recovered blue carbuncles and subdued flaming-jawed hounds on the moor, or a self-injecting, opium-loving Holmes, who also foiled the nefarious designs of Prof Moriarty? Can drugs be devised that enhance performance in the corporate world, or medical research? Should the world shun a cancer cure thought up by a medical student while in that zone of elevated clarity that the standard dorm diet does not provide?

Should companies add, for the sake of transparency, a new line in their book of accounts to bring out the earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation and performance enhancement? Should ethical investors shun companies that run on super-steroids? Or should the Competition Commission start an inquiry into unlevel playing fields arising from chemical collusion? Or should we simply leave the question of performance enhancement to the literal playing field?