In November, the disgraced former cycling champion Lance Armstrong will go to trial in a civil fraud suit related to his use of banned performance-enhancing drugs. A recent report in USA Today suggests that Mr. Armstrong may pursue an “everybody does it” defense, and goes on to describe the Justice Department’s strategy to block that plan. Whatever the fate of Mr. Armstrong, it seems that the sad fact of the matter is that an “everybody does it” argument has legs, so to speak.
The filmmaker Bryan Fogel recently reminded me that the practice of doping goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks, who in their own Olympic Games would drink drug and herb concoctions to kill pain.