[h=1]Steroids: The Birth of a Demon[/h][h=2]How Steroids Became the Scourge of America[/h]by John Romano
[h=2]Here's what you need to know...[/h]• Due to harsh laws based on Reefer Madness-like myths, the personal use of steroids for aesthetic purposes can land lifters in prison or get them fined for more money than they probably have. Ironically, steroid usage in sports, which these laws were created to curb, has not decreased.
• Steroids and other PEDs have been in widespread use in bodybuilding and Olympic lifting since the late 50s. Their usage in baseball, the Ben Johnson debacle, Lyle Alzado's questionable death, the Lance Armstrong farce, and the sad case of Taylor Hooton brought steroids to the forefront. Politicians and those with agendas took full advantage.
• Although it has many medical uses and is now commonly prescribed to aging males, the illegal use of testosterone puts you into the same criminal category as a heroin addict. And science has never backed up the hysterical claims made by anti-steroid zealots.
"I think it's absolutely disgraceful that our government should be in the position of converting people who are not harming others into criminals, of destroying their lives, putting them in jail." - Milton Friedman
The following account is something I lived through and was a small part of. It is my view of the fascinating history of how steroids emerged as an ergogenic aid in sports and subsequently became an ominous facet of the modern age - becoming criminal while at the same time assaulting the very core of America by representing a proposed danger to our youth and, worse still, sullying the most hollowed of all things American - baseball.
This odd journey, especially the inception, involved numerous colorful characters from all over the globe who together eventually created a culture. Many of you reading this have adopted this culture without perhaps knowing the full extent of what it means to be a steroid-using bodybuilder and how it got that way.
I find it unfortunate that the younger guys embracing our culture today have to adapt to a whole different set of circumstances regarding steroids than my contemporaries did. Today you have to understand that the general public - the people you deal with, work with, live next to - believes that "steroids" cause a plague of maladies, from liver, brain and kidney cancer, to heart attacks and strokes, to psychotic episodes that end in madness, mayhem, murder and death. Given the current state of the public discourse, if your next door neighbor found out you were a juicehead, he'd probably wish you were a heroin addict instead.
Back when I adopted our culture it was perfectly acceptable to drive down to Mexico and buy all the real pharmaceutical gear I wanted, at incredibly low prices, and drive it back to LA with no problema. And no one cared if a bunch of guys down at the gym took steroids. We didn't bother anyone. We were totally under the radar and really not doing anything that wrong, certainly nothing even remotely felonious.
Well, it's not like that today. Not only are steroids listed by the feds in the same class as narcotics - with prison time for possessing, importing or selling them - the media has also driven the "Reefer Madness" hysteria to such a degree that there are families in Kansas who believe Gold's Gym is the incubator for the Zombie Apocalypse. What hatched such two-headed insanity? I'm going to skim over the last 30 years and describe what I believe are the milestones that lead to the concomitant criminalization and vilification of the very sex hormones our bodies produce.
[h=2]
The Perfect Steroidal Storm[/h]The demonization of steroids in America has been perpetuated by three equally reprehensible yet powerful groups: vocal alarmists with agendas who incite hysteria based on fiction, the media who reports it, and the vote-hungry law-makers in Washington who believe they can do something about it.
In the 80-90 years that steroids have been around, they've gone from virtually innocuous, unknown medical compounds to a public menace nearly eclipsing heroin, cocaine, amphetamines and club drugs, with federal penalties for distribution and possession that can put you away for a fairly extended part of your life. How did the media wrap itself around this issue and funnel politicians, athletes and bereaved parents into promoting one of the biggest scams in US pop culture?
I've been around the block a few times, seen a bit of the world with all of the bark off, but I can't for the life of me think of another situation in which a single topic has gotten so misconstrued as that of performance enhancing drugs. With the mega amount of intellect in the demonization camp regarding PEDs, any person of reason would have to ponder... why? Unfortunately, when it comes to this group of drugs, most, if not all, common intellect goes right out of the window.
It was about that very same time 24 years ago that noted economist Milton Friedman uttered the words quoted above, and President George H. W. Bush signed house bill HR 4658 IH "Anabolic Steroids Control Act of 1990" into law, adding anabolic steroids to Schedule III of the DEA's list of controlled substances: the same legal class as amphetamines, methamphetamines, opiates, and morphine. Subsequently, in 2004, the law was amended to add prohormones and other "steroid like" compounds to the category, thus criminalizing anything that even remotely resembles testosterone or its effect. Later, the US Sentencing Commission reconvened to raise steroid penalties.
Today, in America, it is possible to be sentenced to 30 years in prison, and fined up to $5,000,000 for the possession and distribution (or importation) of testosterone, the very same hormone that human males and, to a lesser degree, human females, have been carrying around in our bodies since the early dawn of man. Let that sink in for a minute. Did I just say thirty years and 5 million bucks fortestosterone? Yes, I did. We're talking about America here, not North Korea, right? How could such an insane thing happen? Well, let's work backwards.
[h=2]
Muscles, Narcotics, and Prison Time[/h]
First let me give you the sentencing guidelines as they stand today to give you the full magnitude of just how far we've come since the dawn of testosterone in the lab - the very same hormone that half of the American male voting public used to produce when they had testicles.
In the wake of the BALCO case, high ranking government agents were incensed over the four month slap on the wrist Victor Conte received after the government spent four years and over 50 million dollars chasing and prosecuting him. On March 27th, 2006, the US Sentencing Commission amended the sentencing guidelines for anabolic steroid cases by changing the way steroid quantities are factored to effectively increase sentences. The Commission's amendment made injectable and oral steroids comparable to other Schedule III drugs in a 1:1 ratio. That means that now, instead of the 50 pills that used to equal one unit, one "unit" of oral steroids is now one pill. One "unit" of injectable steroids goes from a 10 cc bottle down to half a cc.
Naturally, the government's 1:1 ratio is wrought with stupidity, not the least of which being the absence of any language pertaining to the potency of a particular drug. In the eyes of the law, a steroid is a steroid. That means a 5 mg Anavar tab is as equally felonious as a 50 mg tab of Anadrol, or 1 cc of equipoise being equal to a Sustanon 250 preload.
The guideline change also pays no attention to the diametric differences between steroids and other Schedule III drugs. All Schedule III drugs are narcotics that elicit an immediate, mind-altering effect when used for recreation, while steroids actually elicit a beneficial physical effect and no mind-altering effect. Unfortunately, no cogent argument can usurp the law of the land, which under title 21 U.S.C. states that possession of just one tablet of any steroid is now a federal crime punishable by up to one year in jail for a first offense, and up to two years in prison for anyone with a prior drug conviction.
And, if you think that's bad, you really don't want to get caught "distributing" steroids. The following increases apply to possession with intent to distribute, importation and internet sales.
For convictions of a "controlled substance in Schedule III, such person shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not more than 10 years and if death or serious bodily injury results from the use of such substance shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not more than 15 years, a fine not to exceed the greater of that authorized in accordance with the provisions of title 18, United States Code, or $500,000 if the defendant is an individual or $2,500,000 if the defendant is other than an individual, or both."
"If any person commits such a violation after a prior conviction for a felony drug offense has become final, such person shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not more than 20 years and if death or serious bodily injury results from the use of such substance shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not more than 30 years, a fine not to exceed the greater of twice that authorized in accordance with the provisions of title 18, United States Code, or $1,000,000 if the defendant is an individual or $5,000,000 if the defendant is other than an individual, or both."
What could this mean to you? Let's imagine you have a buddy down at the gym who picked up a few bottles of test for you and a few of his other buddies while he was down in Mexico. On his way back to the US he was detained by US Customs and searched, uncovering 30 or 40 bottles of various steroids. Certainly nothing out of the ordinary - for bodybuilders.
He was brought before a federal magistrate and charged with importation and intent to distribute a Schedule III drug. The judge looked at the unit amount of juice and figured he better not kick back to the state the prosecution of such a high-level steroid kingpin and assigned the case to federal court. And he probably won't grant bail because your buddy is considered a flight risk because he's an accused importer with alleged ties to a foreign country. Since the feds tend to feed upstream, they're not too likely to offer your buddy a deal to follow him to your house and wear a wire. But, the possibility does exist, especially if the investigation is being handled by inexperienced agents who, based on the unit amount and country involved, think they're investigating a savage steroid cartel.
If your buddy doesn't have a good lawyer he'll be convicted of steroid importation and possession with intent to distribute, and if it's his second offense, he could be looking at 20 years in prison. If someone gets hurt using the gear he imported then add another 10 years. And then there's the seven-figure fine...
While such sentences rarely ever see the top of the guidelines, the potential still exists, under the law, for a 30 year sentence for what would amount to a few bottles of testosterone you picked up for a few of your buddies along with your own. More down to reality, for a first offence: up to two years just for having it in your possession and up to five if you're importing and distributing anything even remotely considered rich.
The government has made sure there's no such thing anymore as a slap on the wrist for steroid crimes. The shameful truth of today is, if you're a national level bodybuilder and had all the gear you were going to need all year to compete hidden in a small trash bag under your bathroom sink, and your door got kicked in (after you accepted a package from a controlled delivery), the unit amount of all the gear in your house makes you a kingpin dealer and - if you don't have a good lawyer - you're going to pay a hefty fine, lose your house, your car, your job, any licenses you might have, the local media is going to portray you as something just shy of a child molester, you're going to prison for a long time and when you get out you'll have nothing coming; your felony record will haunt you long after you're off paper. Interesting risk that poses to a great many competitors these days.
Any reasonable person who knows anything about these drugs knows this is a tough pill to swallow, especially when you consider how steroids compare to other legal over the counter drugs, not to mention cigarettes and alcohol. To any reasonable person, the government's position on steroids is nothing short of lunacy.
06/09/14
[h=2]Here's what you need to know...[/h]• Due to harsh laws based on Reefer Madness-like myths, the personal use of steroids for aesthetic purposes can land lifters in prison or get them fined for more money than they probably have. Ironically, steroid usage in sports, which these laws were created to curb, has not decreased.
• Steroids and other PEDs have been in widespread use in bodybuilding and Olympic lifting since the late 50s. Their usage in baseball, the Ben Johnson debacle, Lyle Alzado's questionable death, the Lance Armstrong farce, and the sad case of Taylor Hooton brought steroids to the forefront. Politicians and those with agendas took full advantage.
• Although it has many medical uses and is now commonly prescribed to aging males, the illegal use of testosterone puts you into the same criminal category as a heroin addict. And science has never backed up the hysterical claims made by anti-steroid zealots.
"I think it's absolutely disgraceful that our government should be in the position of converting people who are not harming others into criminals, of destroying their lives, putting them in jail." - Milton Friedman
The following account is something I lived through and was a small part of. It is my view of the fascinating history of how steroids emerged as an ergogenic aid in sports and subsequently became an ominous facet of the modern age - becoming criminal while at the same time assaulting the very core of America by representing a proposed danger to our youth and, worse still, sullying the most hollowed of all things American - baseball.
This odd journey, especially the inception, involved numerous colorful characters from all over the globe who together eventually created a culture. Many of you reading this have adopted this culture without perhaps knowing the full extent of what it means to be a steroid-using bodybuilder and how it got that way.
I find it unfortunate that the younger guys embracing our culture today have to adapt to a whole different set of circumstances regarding steroids than my contemporaries did. Today you have to understand that the general public - the people you deal with, work with, live next to - believes that "steroids" cause a plague of maladies, from liver, brain and kidney cancer, to heart attacks and strokes, to psychotic episodes that end in madness, mayhem, murder and death. Given the current state of the public discourse, if your next door neighbor found out you were a juicehead, he'd probably wish you were a heroin addict instead.
Back when I adopted our culture it was perfectly acceptable to drive down to Mexico and buy all the real pharmaceutical gear I wanted, at incredibly low prices, and drive it back to LA with no problema. And no one cared if a bunch of guys down at the gym took steroids. We didn't bother anyone. We were totally under the radar and really not doing anything that wrong, certainly nothing even remotely felonious.
Well, it's not like that today. Not only are steroids listed by the feds in the same class as narcotics - with prison time for possessing, importing or selling them - the media has also driven the "Reefer Madness" hysteria to such a degree that there are families in Kansas who believe Gold's Gym is the incubator for the Zombie Apocalypse. What hatched such two-headed insanity? I'm going to skim over the last 30 years and describe what I believe are the milestones that lead to the concomitant criminalization and vilification of the very sex hormones our bodies produce.
[h=2]
The Perfect Steroidal Storm[/h]The demonization of steroids in America has been perpetuated by three equally reprehensible yet powerful groups: vocal alarmists with agendas who incite hysteria based on fiction, the media who reports it, and the vote-hungry law-makers in Washington who believe they can do something about it.
In the 80-90 years that steroids have been around, they've gone from virtually innocuous, unknown medical compounds to a public menace nearly eclipsing heroin, cocaine, amphetamines and club drugs, with federal penalties for distribution and possession that can put you away for a fairly extended part of your life. How did the media wrap itself around this issue and funnel politicians, athletes and bereaved parents into promoting one of the biggest scams in US pop culture?
I've been around the block a few times, seen a bit of the world with all of the bark off, but I can't for the life of me think of another situation in which a single topic has gotten so misconstrued as that of performance enhancing drugs. With the mega amount of intellect in the demonization camp regarding PEDs, any person of reason would have to ponder... why? Unfortunately, when it comes to this group of drugs, most, if not all, common intellect goes right out of the window.
It was about that very same time 24 years ago that noted economist Milton Friedman uttered the words quoted above, and President George H. W. Bush signed house bill HR 4658 IH "Anabolic Steroids Control Act of 1990" into law, adding anabolic steroids to Schedule III of the DEA's list of controlled substances: the same legal class as amphetamines, methamphetamines, opiates, and morphine. Subsequently, in 2004, the law was amended to add prohormones and other "steroid like" compounds to the category, thus criminalizing anything that even remotely resembles testosterone or its effect. Later, the US Sentencing Commission reconvened to raise steroid penalties.
Today, in America, it is possible to be sentenced to 30 years in prison, and fined up to $5,000,000 for the possession and distribution (or importation) of testosterone, the very same hormone that human males and, to a lesser degree, human females, have been carrying around in our bodies since the early dawn of man. Let that sink in for a minute. Did I just say thirty years and 5 million bucks fortestosterone? Yes, I did. We're talking about America here, not North Korea, right? How could such an insane thing happen? Well, let's work backwards.
[h=2]
Muscles, Narcotics, and Prison Time[/h]
In the wake of the BALCO case, high ranking government agents were incensed over the four month slap on the wrist Victor Conte received after the government spent four years and over 50 million dollars chasing and prosecuting him. On March 27th, 2006, the US Sentencing Commission amended the sentencing guidelines for anabolic steroid cases by changing the way steroid quantities are factored to effectively increase sentences. The Commission's amendment made injectable and oral steroids comparable to other Schedule III drugs in a 1:1 ratio. That means that now, instead of the 50 pills that used to equal one unit, one "unit" of oral steroids is now one pill. One "unit" of injectable steroids goes from a 10 cc bottle down to half a cc.
Naturally, the government's 1:1 ratio is wrought with stupidity, not the least of which being the absence of any language pertaining to the potency of a particular drug. In the eyes of the law, a steroid is a steroid. That means a 5 mg Anavar tab is as equally felonious as a 50 mg tab of Anadrol, or 1 cc of equipoise being equal to a Sustanon 250 preload.
The guideline change also pays no attention to the diametric differences between steroids and other Schedule III drugs. All Schedule III drugs are narcotics that elicit an immediate, mind-altering effect when used for recreation, while steroids actually elicit a beneficial physical effect and no mind-altering effect. Unfortunately, no cogent argument can usurp the law of the land, which under title 21 U.S.C. states that possession of just one tablet of any steroid is now a federal crime punishable by up to one year in jail for a first offense, and up to two years in prison for anyone with a prior drug conviction.
And, if you think that's bad, you really don't want to get caught "distributing" steroids. The following increases apply to possession with intent to distribute, importation and internet sales.
For convictions of a "controlled substance in Schedule III, such person shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not more than 10 years and if death or serious bodily injury results from the use of such substance shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not more than 15 years, a fine not to exceed the greater of that authorized in accordance with the provisions of title 18, United States Code, or $500,000 if the defendant is an individual or $2,500,000 if the defendant is other than an individual, or both."
"If any person commits such a violation after a prior conviction for a felony drug offense has become final, such person shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not more than 20 years and if death or serious bodily injury results from the use of such substance shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not more than 30 years, a fine not to exceed the greater of twice that authorized in accordance with the provisions of title 18, United States Code, or $1,000,000 if the defendant is an individual or $5,000,000 if the defendant is other than an individual, or both."
What could this mean to you? Let's imagine you have a buddy down at the gym who picked up a few bottles of test for you and a few of his other buddies while he was down in Mexico. On his way back to the US he was detained by US Customs and searched, uncovering 30 or 40 bottles of various steroids. Certainly nothing out of the ordinary - for bodybuilders.
He was brought before a federal magistrate and charged with importation and intent to distribute a Schedule III drug. The judge looked at the unit amount of juice and figured he better not kick back to the state the prosecution of such a high-level steroid kingpin and assigned the case to federal court. And he probably won't grant bail because your buddy is considered a flight risk because he's an accused importer with alleged ties to a foreign country. Since the feds tend to feed upstream, they're not too likely to offer your buddy a deal to follow him to your house and wear a wire. But, the possibility does exist, especially if the investigation is being handled by inexperienced agents who, based on the unit amount and country involved, think they're investigating a savage steroid cartel.
If your buddy doesn't have a good lawyer he'll be convicted of steroid importation and possession with intent to distribute, and if it's his second offense, he could be looking at 20 years in prison. If someone gets hurt using the gear he imported then add another 10 years. And then there's the seven-figure fine...
While such sentences rarely ever see the top of the guidelines, the potential still exists, under the law, for a 30 year sentence for what would amount to a few bottles of testosterone you picked up for a few of your buddies along with your own. More down to reality, for a first offence: up to two years just for having it in your possession and up to five if you're importing and distributing anything even remotely considered rich.
The government has made sure there's no such thing anymore as a slap on the wrist for steroid crimes. The shameful truth of today is, if you're a national level bodybuilder and had all the gear you were going to need all year to compete hidden in a small trash bag under your bathroom sink, and your door got kicked in (after you accepted a package from a controlled delivery), the unit amount of all the gear in your house makes you a kingpin dealer and - if you don't have a good lawyer - you're going to pay a hefty fine, lose your house, your car, your job, any licenses you might have, the local media is going to portray you as something just shy of a child molester, you're going to prison for a long time and when you get out you'll have nothing coming; your felony record will haunt you long after you're off paper. Interesting risk that poses to a great many competitors these days.
Any reasonable person who knows anything about these drugs knows this is a tough pill to swallow, especially when you consider how steroids compare to other legal over the counter drugs, not to mention cigarettes and alcohol. To any reasonable person, the government's position on steroids is nothing short of lunacy.
