The history of drug testing reveals that 'should' may have been; asked too late, with the advent of potentially undetectable performance enhancements rendering testing ineffective as a deterrence method. In an effort to find alternative models to determine the use of drugs in sport, the focus has shifted from 'detection-based deterrence' to 'prevention-based deterrence'. Many of the questions underpinning prevention-based prevention have the character of those asked by social science. Exploration of this character demonstrates social science offers an appropriate range of philosophical and methodological tools to explore prevention-based prevention of drugs in sport. An observer of drugs in sport issues in Germany through the 1930s claimed it would be futile to discuss the issue on 'any but a medical basis'. Some 70 years later there is mounting evidence other approaches may hold promise in contributing to discussion on drugs in sport, one such approach being that offered by social science. The case for social science is founded upon an examination of the evolution of anti-doping policies and the exploration of alternatives to this policy. Understanding the evolution of anti-doping policies towards these alternatives means developing the history of drugs in sport (from ancient to modern times) as background. And the impact of doping and anti-doping in sports culture is sensitive future. If it is not forbidden from the society it will become cancer for future generation.
