Why do some athletes cheat? Indeed, why do we as humans have a propensity to cheat in all life matters? Is it something ancestral, something that’s biological? Or is cheating simply another term for inventiveness?

Bigger rewards, more exposure, fatter pay cheques and beating your competitors is the agenda. In this context cheating is a more apt name. If only someone could isolate the cheating gene from humans maybe we would be better off.

While cheating cuts across all spectrums of life, it is in sport where it really gets the blood boiling. Or does it? Ever since the ancient Olympics, cheating has surfaced in many forms - but the most persistent and consistent form of cheating in organised sport has been the use of drugs.

When a high-profile athlete has been caught or accused of doping (Lance Armstrong and Ben Johnson), the outrage can be deafening. But on the whole, drugs in sport is usually met with mute response and for something that ruined the ancient Olympics and continues to plague its modern counterpart, it is almost shrugged off by the general community. Maybe because at the end of the day we can empathise with cheats because we cheat in some form or another and are surrounded by them.

Presidents and Prime Ministers lie through their teeth to suit their political agendas, and sporting officials have been exposed over and over again. Remember the IOC Salt Lake City fiasco, FINA ticket scams and match fixing in Italian football? These high-profile scandals reinforce what happens in our everyday lives. Dodgy real-estate operators, car sales people, fraudulent investment agencies, rip-off merchants and the like all combine to submerge our lives in a culture of cheating.

Our moral currency has dwindled to the point that many can’t see that what they do is any worse than all the other cheats that surround us. It's only a matter of time before some clever lawyer gets up and successfully argues the case that an athlete should be allowed to cheat because sport is his/her ‘job’ or ‘profession’ and that people in other professions are taking drugs/stimulants to help them perform better as well!

We could debate ad nauseum why society has dropped its guard against drugs in sport, indeed drugs in general. The lowering of tolerance to drugs overall has had a curious affect recently, though. We hear more and more stories of athletes using recreational drugs and vice-versa the general community using sports drugs. There are no boundaries, no distinctions between drugs or the different populations that use them these days.

The culture that was established and cemented in place in society in general has now well and truly transplanted itself in sport. It could be argued, though, that sport created this culture and society just went along with it. The only thing that has changed is the type of drugs that have addicted many. There is no way out now; it is such a festering problem with so many vested interests that it is impossible to see light at the end of the tunnel.

Morally bankrupt sponsors, media groups, criminals, cheating athletes and their cheating entourages after bums on seats, TV audiences and obscene financial rewards encourages a "do whatever it takes" mentality. Billion-dollar takeovers of sporting clubs demands winners, not losers. And if the culture and the huge money on offer is not enough to feed the problem, we have to contend with ever more drugs that are becoming ever more undetectable.

The threat of genetic doping is looming and once doping goes inside the genes, resulting in ‘permanent’ enhancement, it's game over. And if that’s not enough, biotechnology will provide a host of non-drug doping methods that will not only provide benefits for sporting performance but for humans in general in that it may make us stronger, healthier and to live longer. However, a huge dilemma is that if biotechnology can enhance human lives in general, then athletes, as humans, also should be allowed to have access to it as well, right! Who is going to make that call?

Today, though, we have to contend with drugs and our addiction to all sorts of substances only keeps feeding the culture. In some walks of life, normal no longer cuts it and many are now visiting their doctors, not because they are sick, but because they are ‘normal’. Is ‘normal’ today's new disease? Smart pills for mental alertness and viagara for sexual performance do not treat illnesses as such but merely enhance mental and physical qualities. And a drug that has the potential to redefine disease and revolutionise medicine is just a few years away.

A pain vaccine will surely test the mettle of sports authorities as well. No pain-killing injections, no medical exemption under current rules means that it is bound to be abused. The temptation to avoid the dreaded ‘pain barrier’ will be too great to ignore. But the downside could be that if we short-circuit nature's way of telling us there is something wrong, how many athletes will be competing unaware that they are sick or injured?

In the end, if we are seduced by the marketing hype and consume these types of drugs, then who are we to say to athletes, no to drugs.

I suspect we can’t have it both ways and because of that we as a society are losing our way with drugs and drugs in sport. Maybe the only way to get rid of cheating is to have a cheating vaccine!

Have we got to accept that cheating will always be endemic in sport? Post a comment below or send an article.