Some drugs are tolerated (nicotine and caffeine) and used by athletes. Smoking and chewing tobacco are common sources of nicotine, while persons with acute reactions to caffeine can be influenced through "acceptable" levels of associated drink and food ingestion. These drugs have an effect upon performance. Addiction results in two basic extremes of metabolism, one in the presence of the drug, the other in its absence. When the dependency habit occurs independent of training times, …showed first 75 words of 330 total…

…showed last 75 words of 330 total…habit then becomes socially unacceptable. At the highest performance levels, only a slight minor shift in accuracy skills can have grave consequences. Since habits concerning nicotine are particularly prevalent in the professional sports of football and baseball, one is set to wondering how much performances could be improved through the removal of this type of addiction. In this writer's opinion, the effect could be very substantial. Chewing and smoking tobacco has no place in sports.