DV EXPOSE: Just Make HGH Legal

Yes, I know that MLB was more or less coerced into allowing the government to conduct a specious investigation on the extent of performance enhancing drugs in the sport.  And yes, I know that anabolic steroids are extremely dangerous for the individual taking them as well as for anyone within strangling range.  Certainly, though, there existed measures which, if implemented, would have allowed for the circumvention of this entire mess.  I'm talking about a major league lobby to make HGH a legal, over the counter drug.

Hear me out.  I'm not saying it's necessary to put the display next to the Skittles.  I'm not saying you should be allowed to buy it under the age of 21.  I'm not even saying this is an entirely savory proposition.  But let's look at the facts:

• HGH is no longer extracted from the pituitary glands of corpses.  If it still were, I would be totally opposed to the idea, not only because it seems like a sure-fire way to touch off a zombie epidemic, but because it is an actual way to give someone the horrible prion disorder known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.  For those who don't know, C-J disease is a horrifying neurodegenerative disease which essentially fills your brain with protein.  You go crazy, then you can't control your movements, and then -- once everyone's heart is broken -- you die.  You can't get that with the synthetic hormone that labs have been producing to the total exclusion of the corpse-harvested stuff since 1985.  And that's good, because nobody wants a crazy Barry Bonds flopping all over the damn place.  Or do they?

• There are theoretical concerns that HGH may increase the risk of cancer and diabetes.  I can say the same thing about sunshine and Twinkies, but we're not about to blot out the sun.  The entire food chain would disintegrate, and you should feel ashamed if you can't penetrate that logic.  Besides, this country has a long history of waiting until we're absolutely sure that something will kill you before we illegalize it (marijuana notwithstanding).  With so much at stake between baseball dollars and drug dollars, where are the lobbyists to step up and squash this thing when you need them?  Probably digging for oil in Alaska by hand.

• HGH has no proven performance enhancing capabilities.  While many athletes maintain that taking HGH helps keep them injury free, or helps them recover from injuries faster, there has been no conclusive science on the matter, and in the matter of performance enhancement, no link to HGH has yet been found in young athletes.  HGH was developed as a means of hormone replacement for those with disorders causing them to underproduce it naturally.  It also helps older men regain some of the vitality age has cruelly stolen from them.  In a "worst" case scenario performance-wise, a baseball player will be able to play an extra couple years from HGH, though he'll gain no special powers in doing so.  Longer careers means more active baseball players, which in turn means more competition and better baseball.  Unlike steroids, HGH does not provide an unfair advantage over those who don't take it.  At most, it simply extends the window an individual can play.  Of course, when it's taken with steroids, the two combine to create something far more performance enhancing than steroids alone, but I'm not advocating the legalization of anabolic steroids.

• It will be prohibitively expensive.  It will be extremely easy to come by if and only if you can put up the cash for it.  It will also be subject to at least a 100% tax which we can put toward health care or social security or the crumbling highway system or just toward making bigger bombs.  I heard the Russians made a really big one, so we've got something to aspire to, finally.

• It is not this "cream and clear" you've heard so much about.  The stuff that Barry Bonds and friends got from BALCO wasn't HGH, it was anabolic steroids (the clear) and a testosterone masking agent (the cream) meant to confuse the testosterone/epitestosterone ratios in which steroid tests look for abnormalities.  In layman's terms, the cream and the clear are steroids and something that covers up steroids.  Again, I'm not pro-steroids.  Barry Bonds should get fired from life for even pretending to think that the stuff he was using was flaxseed oil.

Finally, I'm not saying that those who've been caught red-handed using HGH to this point shouldn't receive some sort of punishment for their disregard of the established rules.  What I am saying is that the rules should be changed.  Major League Baseball needs -- for once in its existence -- a thorough, rational and transparent drug policy, one which will be consistent both logically and practically and will hold up to any reasonable scrutiny.  (And, although I haven't mentioned it to this point, baseball players really shouldn't be taking speed either, despite the fact that the Mitchell report ignored the allegedly widespread usage of that drug.)  All HGH will do, though, is improve the quality of the sport while affecting the lives behind the sport in mostly positive ways.  Drugs in sports need to be dealt with, but with the information we have now, HGH is not one of those drugs.  If rich men wish to spend their riches on a few drops from the fountain of youth, so be it, and let's build some social infrastructure on their dime.