How Washington Lost The War On Muscle

Steroid Users Hustle To Stay One Rep Ahead Of The Law.

- Mike Riggs

WHEN NED DECIDED to try anabolic steroids for the first time, his goal was to “be bigger and look better.” He had friends who used, and they seemed no worse for wear. The college sophomore was already training smart and eating right. “I felt like the pieces were in place to accelerate the process,” he says looking back. That left the question of acquisition: He knew he could use the internet to illegally buy drugs from overseas, or he could invest some social capital in befriending a muscle-bound gym regular who might be able to hook him up. Still, he hesitated, until a fellow lifter revealed that he could obtain the same drug—testosterone, the paterfamilias of anabolic steroids—legally.

If Ned could convince an M.D. that he had low testosterone, he could walk away with script in hand. Then he would be able to pick up clean, accurately labeled “test” from his local pharmacy in broad daylight, instead of braving the black market. He’d avoid the risks of drugs passed hand-to-hand, which might be under-dosed, mislabeled, or dirty. And buying directly from an Indian or Chinese lab (which probably supplied the American gym vendor anyway) poses all those risks plus the additional possibility of criminal charges—including prison time—if U.S. Customs intercepts your package and conducts a “controlled delivery.”

“I’d estimate the majority of controlled deliveries I’ve seen have involved quantities that are consistent with personal use,” criminal defense attorney Rick Collins writes in Legal Muscle, his 2002 doorstopper on U.S. anabolic steroid laws. “A band of government agents will lie in wait until you make the horrific mistake of accepting your mail. Then, like a plague of locusts, they’ll descend up the sanctity of your home, ransacking it from roof to basement.”