What is this same impressionable young high-school kid going to do when he hears that Dukes has how many children from how many different girls? There comes a time and a point where if people are going to make stupid decisions, you let them. Yes that is somewhat narcissistic, but if people are willing to make one mistake because they heard someone made it big because of it, chances are they are going to make another – or find a different scenario and situation. Personally, I could care less what impact a major leaguer has on teenagers, the same way the rest of society doesn’t care about the impact Hollywood or the other professional sports impact children’s lives.

And that last guy, “Droid”? Wow, that’s just sad.

An example: 19 year-old skinny Joe Minorleaguer starts taking HGH at extreme levels. He also changes his diet, his workout, and does all the other things professional althletes do. He then gets huge muscles and changes his name to Studs Bigleauges. Now what caused the muscle– HGH, the workouts, etc.? I don’t know, and chances are that our now huge ballplayer won’t know either. But all it would take to convince an impressionable young high-school kid to try HGH, is for him to hear that a big leaguer got to be a star after using it. I think this is especially more risky if there is no negative consequence on Studs for his stupid decision to use HGH. Yeah, you can tell the world that Studs is gonna suffer the terrible side effects of HGH use years down the road, but Studs didn’t think that far ahead, and I don’t think you can expect the high-school kid to think long-term either. As a huge unsupported generalization, the younger you are, the less you think in the long term. Had Skinny Joe knew he was risking his whole career the instant he tried the HGH, maybe he thinks twice and doesn’t use it. Or if he does, maybe he’s drummed out of baseball in disgrace so fast that a bunch of impressionable kids don’t hear about him, or when they do hear, it’s in a negative light, thus hopefully deterring them. In a classic carrot-and-stick deterrance scheme you need both the carrot and the stick. Thre is no carrot for those who refrain from HGH use; sure, they’re going to have better health years down the road, but I find that a rather elusive carrot to hold up. So, lacking a carrot, you’re left with the stick approach. De-listing HGH takes away the stick as well. If you’re going to do that, you’d better be sure that education programme is damn-near 100% effective.

I thought I’d heard all of the hGH myths, but this is a new one for me. Please site the peer-reviewed scientific study that demonstrates the efficacy of hGH in strengthening connective tissue in healthy young adults.

Anyway, MLB isn’t the government, so they can’t “legalize” hGH. The FDA is cracking down on non-approved uses of hGH, and Congress is about to make it a Schedule III drug. So, while MLB could do as JC suggests and remove hGH from the list of banned performance enhancing drugs, they really have no choice but to continue sanctioning players who are caught using it.

Prolonged use is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that alcohol has been directly linked to death whether it be liver failure or drunk driving, making it dangerous while still being legal.

There can be all kinds of lawsuits and other legal action against cigarette manufacturers but until Congress passes the law that makes them illegal, it too, is irrelevant.

so, when doing steroids, the number of injuries related to connective tissue increases. in the extreme example, like dean palmer, you can get the muscle actually tearing from the bone. so, players often use HGH concurrently with steroids to strengthen the connective tissue.

Would you legalize the injection of a radioactive substance if players really believed it would give them super powers but you knew it didn’t, but knew they would get cancer?

The point is that keeping it on the banned list for MLB makes it seem like it has an effect. Should MLB ban getting bitten by radioactive spiders? Or getting bombarded by cosmic rays? Or exposure to a yellow sun? Or…

Making things illegal because they’re dangerous ends up silly.

Should we make it illegal to cross the street without looking both ways? To eat too much junk food?

Where do we stop? There is a point at which the government has to say, “We’re not your mother, we can’t protect you from everything, use some common sense.”

Then again, I, like JC, tend to have libertarian tendencies, so our views may differ.