Curtis Kock
800392230
Opinion piece
Steroids
Today steroids are the most widely used agents in the sports world. For track and field
this must be the most common ”drug” used. Although most athletes and coaches claim to
be against the extreme body boosters, they still get illegally distributed. Track meetings
are being overwhelmed by doping control, and urine and blood samples are frequently
tested but the industry keeps finding a way to produce more sophisticated steroids, so
tests have to be updated almost every month. It’s a race that flows into a vicious circle.
The most effective way to eradicate anabolic steroids from competitive sports is through
systematic drug testing. Even though professional athletes get tested almost
Every meeting and randomly, it seems like it is not enough. Professional athletes are the
hardest to prosecute under the Control Act, because most of them obtain their steroid
supplies through sophisticated channels, like doctors and other health care providers that
avoid detection by law enforcement. It’s that vicious circle coming back. By the time we
figured the most fancy and new kind of steroids out, producers and providers have
already found another even more sophisticated and most important, untraceable one.
The Law on steroids
Steroids have been fuel to discussion in sports for a long time. However health care
professionals and representatives of agencies like the DEA, FDA and the National
Institute on Drug Abuse, did not want to see an amendment being passed, banning these
drugs.
According to the American Medical Association “abuse of these hormones does not lead
to the physical or psychological dependence required for scheduling under the Controlled
Substances Act.” However Congress wanted them out of the sports world as it is regarded
as cheating and became part of Controlled Substances Act under “Schedule III” among
the codeine derivatives, central nervous system depressants, and stimulants that form the
rest of Schedule III.
But in 1990 The Anabolic Steroid Control Act added anabolic steroids to the federal
schedule of controlled substances. This Act criminalizes non-medical use by (non-)
athletes in search of muscle growth for athletic or to enhance physical appearance. It
places steroids in the same legal class as barbiturates, ketamine and LSD precursors.
People caught in illegal possession of anabolic steroids, even for purely personal use,
could be arrested and prosecuted. The Control Act says that “it is unlawful for any person
knowingly or intentionally to possess an anabolic steroid unless it was obtained directly,
or pursuant to a valid prescription or order, from a practitioner, while acting in the course
of his professional practice (or except as otherwise authorized).”Offenders risk high
penalties not only financially, but health wise as well.
Change of Policy
But are these laws enough? Does it scare the athletes and other offenders enough? Often,
people abusing steroids don’t know the real consequences of their use because they go
buy it from illegal distributers from the black market. Last year, the ‘black market’ for
steroids alone has been an estimated $800 million market more than double of what is
was in 1990. Even though seizures are a great success, it is mostly from random search at
airports etc… What if we actually started to investigate and take away businesses?
Stricter controls and searching even regular’ pharmacies and producers can help scare
them away. We should hear doctors and other providers if they get in contact with these
producers and let them be our lead. We should make a law that enables government
agencies to search at doctors’ offices, since a lot of times they are involved in athletes
abusing steroids.
Most likely the abuse will never go away, but we can avoid many health issues and unfair
competing this way. We must thrive for the most fair competition we can possibly have.