posted January 13, 2000 06:17 PM            

30) What is the truth about steroid side effects?

Despite over forty years of use by athletes, many of whom are now well into middle-age, we have yet to hear reports of an epidemic of steroid-related deaths. A review of the medical literature does not support the depiction of a serious health crisis related to anabolic steroids. Of course, it would be untrue to say that anabolic steroids, especially black market products, are safe for unsupervised, unmonitored self-administration. Simply put, steroids are hormones and pharmaceutical drugs. While steroids are safer than many drugs, steroids can be abused. The controversial issue is whether their potential for abuse justifies our nation's criminalization approach to their non-medical use by responsible adults. We can compare steroids to alcohol, which is also a drug. The number of people who abuse alcohol is many, many times that of those who abuse steroids. Therefore, in raw numbers, the societal cost of alcohol abuse - in motor vehicle and workplace accidents, missed work days and lowered productivity, medical care, violent crimes -- is many hundreds if not many thousands of times that of steroid abuse. Further, I submit that even if steroids were just as widely used as alcohol, the dangers of alcohol abuse to society would still grossly exceed the dangers of steroid abuse. The same societal cost comparison can be made to tobacco, which contains the dangerously addictive drug nicotine. Yet alcohol and tobacco are legal to buy. All things considered, it is untrue to say that anabolics are such "deadly drugs" as to deserve the imposition of harsh criminal penalties simply for personal use by informed adults for cosmetic enhancement.

posted January 14, 2000 04:46 PM            

Vote libertarian.

posted January 24, 2000 09:56 PM            

300