Steroids and Cigarettes: Prevention through price hikes

I watched replays of today's Tour de France stage with a skeptical eye. Seeing the riders outrace pace cars up the Pyrenees made me wonder how many of the riders were taking steroids.

These thoughts reminded me of a recent NY Times article by Catherine Rampell. The article discussed approaches to prevent doping in athletes.

Rampell claims that because of the significant financial incentives and low chances of detection, regulators have three choices: First, they might increase the odds of catching a cheater by testing athletes more frequently. Regulators might also reward athletes that test clean. Finally they may try raising the penalty for drug infractions.

Of these, I support the last option. To prevent steroid use, sports leagues should levy more significant fines on those that test positive. This approach is most appealing because it works for cigarettes.

Steroids and cigarettes are similar because both products victimize rational adults. Despite health warnings, both cigarette and steroid users continue to utilize harmful products. This overlap suggests that regulations designed to prevent smoking would also effectively limit steroid use.

In March, the U.S. passed a law increasing the federal tax on tobacco. This caused a price hike in cigarettes and was expected to reduce smoking rates as smokers judged the cost of a cigarette to exceed the marginal benefit.

Sports leagues should similarly raise the price of steroids. Athletes that get caught cheating should face stiff fines. For example, in addition to receiving a 50-game suspension and losing a third of his pay Manny Ramirez should also have suffered a substantial fine from Major League Baseball. This would have indicated the league's low tolerance for steroid use and would have shown other players the real cost of a steroid habit.

Increasing financial penalties might not obviate drug use on the Tour de France, but would at least reduce the skepticism of casual fans like me.