It’s official: he’s insane

Josh Levin offers this modest proposal in Slate: Drug bans do achieve a kind of crude justice—you cheat, you’re out—but who do they really help? Fans want to see the biggest stars compete on the world’s biggest stage. And Olympians shouldn’t be punished for their world-class competitive spirit—these athletes would eat dung beetles and drink ...

Josh Levin offers this modest proposal in Slate:

Drug bans do achieve a kind of crude justice—you cheat, you’re out—but who do they really help? Fans want to see the biggest stars compete on the world’s biggest stage. And Olympians shouldn’t be punished for their world-class competitive spirit—these athletes would eat dung beetles and drink sloth urine if they thought it would make them run faster. There has to be a better way. How about this? From now on, no one gets banned from the Olympics for any reason. Take as few or as many drugs as you want. Some of them can even sound like shoes if you’d like. How would that be fair, you ask? It’s simple, really. Just make athletes lash weights to their bodies based on the amount of drugs in their system. Each participant would be tested immediately before competing. An austere man in a white lab coat with the Olympic rings on the right breast pocket will then appear with a manila envelope. (Keep in mind that this will all be shown on a large screen in the Olympic Stadium.) He then pulls out an intimidating, multipage printout that lists Mrs. Drug User’s infractions. For simplicity’s sake, let’s say Mrs. Drug User has ingested 5 mg of nikethamide. According to our handy conversion chart—don’t worry, there’s one in your official program—that’ll be … 5-pound weights around each ankle for Mrs. Drug User. What if, like Kelli White, you get caught using EPO, steroids, and narcolepsy drugs? That earns you a suit of medieval armor and a giant cannonball lashed to your left leg with five links of rusty chain.

Someone put this madman away … or put him in charge of the Olympics!

This list was compiled by Brian Fung, an editorial researcher at FP.

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