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A Truth-Enhancing Seminar on
Steroid Use and the Law
By Rick Collins, Esq.
Collins, McDonald & Gann, PC
One Old Country Road
Carle Place, NY 11514
516-294-0300
www.cmgesq.com; www.steroidlaw.com
© Rick Collins, 2006. All rights reserved.
Who am I?
z Hundreds of steroid matters have
crossed my desk, affording me a unique
view of the intersection of non-medical
steroid use and the criminal justice system
z Expert witness before U.S.
Sentencing Commission on
steroid legalities
z Practicing law since 1984
z Former prosecutor
www.rickcollinsonline.com
z Counsel to
the Int’l Federation of BodyBuilders
and the Int’l Society of Sports Nutrition
z Authored Legal Muscle (2002) to bridge
the information gap between users and
medical/legal authorities
(www.legalmusclebooks.com)
z Editor of wwwSteroidLaw.com
Where am I coming from?
¾ 30 years in the gym culture and my
interactions with steroid users conflicted
with information being presented by
mainstream sources.
¾ Researched law, science and policy in a
search for the truth. The results,
combined with my professional
experiences in steroid cases, became the
book, Legal Muscle.
Where am I taking you tonight?
• Positive?
– Requires absolute certainty to be reported
(1996 NEJM study and others)
Fair and Balanced?
Steroids, Objectivity and Tabloid Television
Our Culture of Fear
¾ The hook for most media reports:
z The children are in peril from a “growing
epidemic”
¾ The three forces behind the propaganda:
z Special interests (e.g., social control
institutions, “claims makers” and professional
alarmists)
z Pandering politicians
z Sensationalistic media
What do we know about steroids?
(a partial but representative list)
z Go into the muscle and are absorbed directly into the blood
stream, avoiding a first pass through the liver. The liver thus
experiences a much lower concentration than with orals.
z Intramuscular, not intravenous.
z Most injectable steroids have little effect upon liver function.
z Most injectable steroids undergo a process called esterification
to slow their release into circulation. Esterification is the
addition of carboxylic acids to the 17-beta hydroxyl group of the
testosterone molecule. An ester of testosterone will release
more gradually into the bloodstream from the site of injection
than unesterfied testosterone will.
Cycling steroids
z Legal restrictions and current medical ethics prevent physicians from
prescribing steroids non-medically. Consequently, a black market has
grown.
z To maximize the anabolic effects and minimize the potential adverse
effects, most AAS users will cycle their self-administration – often
called juice or gear – by alternating periods of use with periods of
steroid-free training. Cycling seems safer than staying on steroids all
the time. Cycle lengths vary considerably. The cycles of many novice
to intermediate cosmetic steroid takers last from 4 to 12 weeks,
followed by a steroid-free period of the same duration, but cycles
lasting from 12 to 16 weeks are also quite common.
z Steroid veterans and elite bodybuilding competitors may remain on
extended cycles of steroids, occasionally employing reduced dosages
or ancillary medications (i.e., HCG and/or Clomid) to bridge from one
cycle to the next.
Stacking steroids
z Testosterone esters, such as enanthate and cypionate, are extremely popular,
as they are reported to produce gains in size and strength with little or no liver
toxicity. Testosterone esters, however, are highly androgenic, meaning there is
the potential for unwanted effects at the dosages preferred to promote muscle
growth.
z So, users combine testosterone esters with less androgenic, more anabolic
compounds like nandrolone decanoate, popularly referred to by the brand
name Deca-durabolin® or simply “Deca.” This stacking technique is
intended to provide for the substantial overall dosages required for
growth in a way that minimizes side effects. Deca is not sufficiently similar
to testosterone to fully duplicate it. When used alone, it suppresses natural
testosterone production without fully supporting testosterone’s more androgenic
effects. This characteristic of nandrolone, which metabolizes into a weak
metabolite called DHN, is reported to explain the sexual functioning problems of
those who use nandrolone without a testosterone “base.” By combining both
drugs, favorable results may be obtained with minimal side effects.
z Most users stack multiple compounds.
The “Magic Bullet” Myth
z Testicular Atrophy
z Sterility
z Acne
z Baldness
z Cholesterol Changes
z Hypertension
z Prostate
z Tissue Injuries
What is “truth”?
[1] C.E. Yesalis & V.S. Cowart, The Steroids Game (Champaign, IL; Human Kinetics, 1998), 60.
[2] J.E. Wright & V.S. Cowart, Anabolic Steroids: Altered States (Carmel, IN: Benchmark Press, 1990), 51.
[3] J. Darkes, The Psychological Effects of Anabolic/Androgenic Steroids, Parts I through IV, MUSCLE
MONTHLY, [http://www.musclemonthly.com/author/jack-darkes.htm].
Steroid expert:
Harrison Pope, M.D.
zGynecomastia
STEROIDS = BAD
Steroid Education for Thinkers
z Hard to say.
z Estimates have ranged from 3
million to as high as 6 million for
the total number of Americans to
have used steroids non-medically.
The growing disparity
z Read the papers and you’d think that there’s a massive army of
juiced-up prepubescent girls terrorizing the playgrounds of America.
z Credit the Associated Press for breaking the news in April 2005: “More
Girls Try Taking Steroids to Tone Up,” proclaiming a study supposedly
finding that an “alarming number of American girls, some as young as
9, are using bodybuilding steroids…”
z More journalists jumped on the “nine-year-old girls” story as
sensationalistic shorthand for the dangers of steroid abuse.
z Politicians started using the image in anti-steroid rhetoric.
z Even ubiquitous Canadian lawyer Dick Pound, ever eager to convince
American tax payers to commit more money to his World Anti-Doping
Agency, used it in a speech.
Steroid Expert: Dr. Harrison Pope
z Harvard psychiatrist and “roid rage” researcher has flat out
stated that “steroid use by girls is extremely rare.
z In his most recent appearance before Congress, he debunked
the idea that girls are injecting liquid steroids or downing oral
tablets like candy corn, stating that “even the 1% rate is still
probably a substantial overestimate” and that a 0.2% rate is the
most reliable estimate. “I would strongly question the assertion
that there is currently a widespread public health problem of
anabolic steroid use by teenage girls or young women in the
United States.”
z More recently, after further review: “Many anonymous surveys
appear to have greatly overestimated the lifetime prevalence of
AAS use among teenage girls; the true rate may be as low as
0.1%” (personal correspondence).
Even the study’s own researcher…
Dealers
Cheaters
Who IS getting busted?
Of the hundreds of people I’ve represented on
steroid-related criminal cases, the vast majority
were health-conscious, gainfully employed, non-
smoking males aged 25 to 45 who exercise
regularly and eat a high protein, moderate to low
carb diet.
Compare, U.S. epidemic of
obesity among couch potatoes
Personal users
American Steroid Enforcement
There is a 40-something health-club barfly who wakes up with mirrors over his
bed and sleeveless T-shirts in his closet. The guy owns a tackle-box full of steroids
that he purchased over the Internet in hopes of bulking up just enough to pick up the
ladies.
There is an elite athlete who wakes up with mirrors in his home gym and a closet
full of lucrative endorsement deals. The sports star has a paid trainer who
administers steroids so he can find an edge to shatter records and gain wealth.
Where does a police raid take place -- health club or clubhouse? Whose home is
ransacked by the police -- the gym rat's or the sports star's?
Selena Roberts Con’t
“The same I.O.C. leaders who trumpet zero tolerance for drug cheating
spent last week pleading in futility for Italian authorities to relax their
punitive antidoping laws, which send offenders to jail for three months
to three years. ''It is a question of sporting ethics,'' the I.O.C. president,
Jacques Rogge, said Friday, ''rather than a question of crime and
criminality.''
If true, then why did Dick Pound, I.O.C. member and chairman of
the World Anti-Doping Agency, rip into the light prison sentence Victor
Conte, steroid designer to the stars, received in the Balco case? In one
reference, Pound called Conte's plea deal a potential ''cop-out on a
cosmic scale.''
Pound has spent a career mocking cheating athletes for blaming
dastardly opponents and tainted supplements for the fly in their soup.
But now he is offering his ample breath to conspiracy theories, openly
fretting about potential setups by saboteurs who would lure police
officials to a competing athlete's steroid stash.”
Roberts Cont’d
“No one wants to see athletes forced to turn in their U.S.A.
berets at the police desk. No one wants to see a sports figure
working out in a prison yard. ... But shouldn't a doping violator --
whether he is in the N.F.L. or whether she is a figure skating star --
have to answer to authorities? How about answering one question:
Who is your supplier? This is not about the steroid law itself, but
about the equal application of it for everyone, from the anonymous
store clerk hooked on vanity to the visible sports star hooked on
glory. ''It's incredibly hypocritical,'' Collins said. ''It's a bait-and-
switch. The very people the laws were enacted to apply to are now
asking to be exempt. There is something wrong with that. The
antidoping officials pushed for tougher laws as long as the laws
didn't affect the athletes. ''I can't think of one elite athlete who has
been prosecuted on steroid possession. There is clearly a
disconnect." This disconnect is in the mirror of the steroid user. One
reveals an athlete, the other a criminal.”
Should Steroids be
in the War on Drugs?
Norm Fost, MD:
FAILED!
Teen use INCREASED for years after
controlled substance status.
Associated propaganda has backfired.
Products are now unsafe and unsanitary
(remember Prohibition?)
Stop Cheating in Sports
FAILED!
The law was never even applied to the
folks it was targeted to!
Anyone think there’s less drugs in sports
now than 15 years ago?
If sports cheating is the problem,
shouldn’t we make sports cheating laws?
Stop the Black Market
FAILED!
Predictably, taking steroids out of the
hands of doctors EXPLODED the black
market.
The steroid market now consists almost
entirely of foreign products, mostly
veterinary products from the Third World
or labs in other countries with
questionable quality control.
The Bad Stuff