In this post I wanted to highlight a reality of our industry, and that is the use of steroids. The availability of the substance in places like Iraq, makes it very easy to get into and you see the results of steroids walking around all the time on contracts and at FOB gyms and chow halls. Steroid use is big in the military and law enforcement communities as well, and it is an issue that we all must deal with.
Personally, I don’t use the stuff because I am pretty satisfied with my fitness and body type. But for some guys who want to be big and look more the part of a muscle-bound protector, steroid use and heavy weight lifting is a big deal. Not to mention the massive intake of supplements like protein powders, energy drinks or creatine, along with plenty of gym time on the various FOBs that contractors live at. Like I said, you see a lot of big guys walking around out there.
To me, I could care less about the physical stuff–it is the mental stuff that comes with steroid use that I am concerned with. Roid Rage is of concern to me, because if you are carrying a gun out there and protecting someone, do you necessarily want an ultra aggressive mental element impacting your decision making process during a shoot, no shoot situation?
Now I cannot say for sure that steroid abuse will lead to incidents, because there are no studies directly involving security contractors and steroid use. What I am saying is that if you are taking the stuff, and you are getting into fights all the time, or snapping at people, or extremely irritable, etc. (noticeable mental change), then maybe you should take a pause and ask yourself if you are a liability? During an incident, there is plenty of adrenalin and aggression pumping into your veins to carry you through the fight, and to add even more to that chemical stew is unnecessary and dangerous in my view. You want as much control over your mental processes as possible, and any threat to that control is not cool.
If you are a friend of a steroid user, and you notice that they are mentally changing, then maybe you might want to approach them and give them a heads up. What kind of friend are you, if you just keep quite as your friend turns into a roid raging monster? Let’s take care of our people out there and keep this stuff in check.
I want to be careful with what I am saying too, because I know for some guys, steroids is something they depend upon and are able to use with no side effects at all. It is not my place to preach on what guys should or shouldn’t do to their bodies. But I think if an individual’s use of that substance has become a liability to the team and a threat to the industry, then that is when we should be taking note and trying to police it.
Also, a few of the companies out there actually have steroid use policies, but not because of the health reasons per se, but because of the legalities of the stuff. Anabolic steroids were added to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act in the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 1990. Stuff to think about, if you are contemplating going down this path. –Matt
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In Iraq, Muscle Is a Growth Industry
Security Needs Give Bodybuilding a Lift
By Ernesto Londoño and Saad al-IzziWashington Post Foreign ServiceTuesday, June 10, 2008; A01
BAGHDAD — Younis Imad, 18, started lifting weights at the Future Gym along Baghdad’s Palestine Street a little over a year ago. “I was overweight,” he said, taking a break between sets. “I was very upset about that.” He was also in need of a job.
The gym’s entrepreneurial owner, Ali Torkey, took Imad under his wing, gave him dieting tips and put him on a whey protein regimen. Four months ago, newly buff after weeks of working out, Imad secured work as a security guard at a radio station in Baghdad, a city where improving security is reflected in the revival of everyday activities such as bodybuilding.
“I feel better when I come in and exercise,” said Imad, having arrived straight from the station to work out wearing jeans, a fitted red T-shirt and combat boots. He works out six times a week, and in the past year he has shed most of his body fat and grown a thick chest and huge biceps.
The advent of affordable gyms and the influx of muscle-building supplements, including many steroids illegal in the United States without a prescription, have turned bodybuilding, a longtime obsession for many Iraqis, into a booming industry.
Iraqis’ interest in bodybuilding, a male-only activity here, soared during the 1980s, when such figures as Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger gained worldwide celebrity.
Gyms were regulated by the government, and membership was limited to people with official connections. Those who worked out elsewhere used makeshift equipment and were barred from formal competitions.
But since Saddam Hussein was deposed in 2003, gyms have opened all over the capital. When violence in Iraq soared shortly after the U.S.-led invasion, security companies tapped into the bodybuilding community to hire guards. As a result, extremist groups opposed to the U.S. occupation began targeting
the thick-biceps-and-bulging-chest crowd.
“Many of them were killed for working with foreigners,” said Haider Adil, 24, the owner of a nutritional supplement store in central Baghdad.
For a period, many bodybuilders kept a low profile, avoiding gyms and wearing loose-fitting clothes that hid their builds. “Many changed their lives,” Adil said.
That has changed over the past year as security has improved, in part because of the arrival of more U.S. soldiers.
Many Iraqis still join gyms to build muscle in the hopes of landing a high-paying job in security, which, like bodybuilding, is one of Iraq’s few growth industries.
Torkey, the owner of the Future Gym, has capitalized on the craze. He trains bodybuilders and administers steroids, which he injects himself.
“I cannot give it to someone who is new,” explained the 24-year-old high school dropout. “After two or three months I begin giving it to him.”
One day last week, most of the men at Torkey’s gym were working out barefoot. Since the gym’s two treadmills were broken, a cardio workout was not an option. The stereo blasted songs by Lil’ Kim, the Pussycat Dolls, Shakira and Eminem.
Before the U.S. invasion, bodybuilding aficionados relied on months-old, dog-eared bodybuilding magazines for information about muscle-building protein supplements, which were banned by the government, and other techniques to lose weight and build muscle.
“We used to see them in magazines only,” Ahmed Ridha, 30, a bodybuilder and personal trainer at the Dragon Gym, said of the supplements. “We didn’t have them.”
With government oversight gone, gyms started opening in virtually every Baghdad neighborhood and in other large cities. Some bodybuilders started smuggling whey protein and other substances into Iraq, but their exorbitant price made them inaccessible to most.
Large posters of ripped men in briefs showing off oil-slicked bodies appeared on the streets. Owners began importing weightlifting equipment from Asia and the United States, and many bodybuilders started taking supplements.
Baghdad’s first few gyms, including one named after the governor of California, opened in Karrada, a relatively secure neighborhood. But they soon started appearing — and filling up — in volatile areas such as the impoverished Shiite district of Sadr City.
Monthly memberships cost $10 to $15. The more expensive gyms have newer equipment and offer perks such as personal training and cardio machines. Through the years, upticks in violence hurt business, but the industry found ways to cope.
“Even if there are mortars, even if there are sandstorms, people come in and exercise,” Ridha said. Adil’s nutritional supplement business, which opened two years ago, now has two locations in Baghdad.
“We have a big store on the other side of the river,” Adil said proudly as customers walked in and out of his small shop. “The situation is very good.”
The shop owner said he doesn’t sell steroids because he said they can have significant and long-lasting side effects. Ibrahim Talib, 37, who coaches a youth bodybuilding league, said steroid use has killed some bodybuilders.
Torkey was a scrawny teenager when he started lifting weights five years ago.
He has a photo on his wall to prove it, alongside a more recent one that makes for a startling contrast. In his late teens, as he began hanging out with professional bodybuilders, he started hitting the gym almost daily.
Whey protein and steroids allowed him to enter competitions. His office is filled with medals and photos of him posing in tiny briefs, muscles flexed, as men rub oil on his body.
He says he is judicious about whom he sells steroids to and says they can be used safely. As their physiques have improved, Torkey and other bodybuilders who compete in tournaments have grown fond of veterinary steroids, which he said produce quicker results than regular ones.
But he doesn’t recommend them to everyone. “Those who are amateurs, we give them something else,” he said.
Story here.
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Anabolic Steroids
From Wikipedia
Adverse effects
Anabolic steroids can cause many adverse effects. Most of these side effects are dose-dependent, the most common being elevated blood pressure, especially in those with pre-existing hypertension,[31] and harmful changes in cholesterol levels: some steroids cause an increase in LDL cholesterol and a decrease in HDL cholesterol.[32] Anabolic steroids have been shown to alter fasting blood sugar and glucose tolerance tests.[33] Anabolic steroids such as testosterone also increase the risk of cardiovascular disease[34] or coronary artery disease.[35][36] Acne is fairly common among anabolic steroid users, mostly due to stimulation of the sebaceous glands by increased testosterone levels.[37][38] Conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone (DHT) can accelerate the rate of premature baldness for males who are genetically predisposed, but testosterone itself can produce baldness in females.[39]
High doses of oral anabolic steroid compounds can cause liver damage as the steroids are metabolized (17?-alkylated) in the digestive system to increase their bioavailability and stability.[40] When high doses of such steroids are used for long periods, serious damage to the liver may occur.[citation needed]
There are also sex-specific side effects of anabolic steroids. Development of breast tissue in males, a condition called gynecomastia (which is usually caused by high levels of circulating estrogen), may arise because of increased conversion of testosterone to estrogen by the enzyme aromatase.[41] Reduced sexual function and temporary infertility can also occur in males.[42][43][44] Another male-specific side effect which can occur is testicular atrophy, caused by the suppression of natural testosterone levels, which inhibits production of sperm (most of the mass of the testes is developing sperm). This side effect is temporary: the size of the testicles usually returns to normal within a few weeks of discontinuing anabolic steroid use as normal production of sperm resumes.[45] Female-specific side effects include increases in body hair, deepening of the voice, enlarged clitoris, and temporary decreases in menstrual cycles. When taken during pregnancy, anabolic steroids can affect fetal development by causing the development of male features in the female fetus and female features in the male fetus.[46]
A number of severe side effects can occur if adolescents use anabolic steroids. For example, the steroids may prematurely stop the lengthening of bones (premature epiphyseal fusion through increased levels of estrogen metabolites), resulting in stunted growth. Other effects include, but are not limited to, accelerated bone maturation, increased frequency and duration of erections, and premature sexual development. Anabolic steroid use in adolescence is also correlated with poorer attitudes related to health.[47]
Other side effects can include alterations in the structure of the heart, such as enlargement and thickening of the left ventricle, which impairs its contraction and relaxation.[48] Possible effects of these alterations in the heart are hypertension, cardiac arrhythmias, congestive heart failure, heart attacks, and sudden cardiac death.[49] These changes are also seen in non-drug using athletes, but steroid use may accelerate this process.[50][51] However, both the connection between changes in the structure of the left ventricle and decreased cardiac function, as well as the connection to steroid use have been disputed.[52][53]
Psychiatric effects
A 2005 review in CNS Drugs determined that “significant psychiatric symptoms including aggression and violence, mania, and less frequently psychosis and suicide have been associated with steroid abuse. Long-term steroid abusers may develop symptoms of dependence and withdrawal on discontinuation of AAS”.[54] High concentrations of AAS, comparable to those likely sustained by many recreational AAS users, produce apoptotic effects on neurons, raising the specter of possibly irreversible neuropsychiatric toxicity. Recreational AAS use appears to be associated with a range of potentially prolonged psychiatric effects, including dependence syndromes, mood disorders, and progression to other forms of substance abuse, but the prevalence and severity of these various effects remains poorly understood.[55] There is no evidence that steroid dependence develops from therapeutic use of anabolic steroids to treat medical disorders, but instances of AAS dependence have been reported among weightlifters and bodybuilders who chronically administered supraphysiologic doses.[56] Mood disturbances (e.g. depression, [hypo-]mania, psychotic features) are likely to be dose- and drug-dependent, but AAS dependence or withdrawal effects seem to occur only in a small number of AAS users.[57]
Large scale long term studies of psychiatric effects on AAS users are generally not available.[55] In 2003, the first naturalistic long term study on ten users, seven of which completed the study, found a high incidence of mood disorders and substance abuse, but few clinically relevant changes in physiological parameters or laboratory measures were noted throughout the study, and these changes were not clearly related to periods of reported AAS use.[58] A 13-month study, published in 2006 and which involved 320 body builders and athletes suggests that the wide range of psychiatric side effects induced by the use of AAS is correlated to the severity of abuse.[59]
Aggression and hypomania
From the mid-1980s onwards the popular press has been reporting “roid rage” as a side effect of AAS.[60] A 2005 review determined that some, but not all, randomized controlled studies have found that anabolic steroid use correlates with hypomania and increased aggressiveness, but pointed out that attempts to determine whether AAS use triggers violent behaviour have failed, primarily because of high rates of non-participation.[61] A 2008 study on a nationally representative sample of young adult males in the United States found an association between lifetime and past-year self-reported anabolic-androgenic steroid use and involvement in violent acts. Compared with individuals who did not use steroids, young adult males who used anabolic-androgenic steroids reported greater involvement in violent behaviors even after controlling for the effects of key demographic variables, previous violent behavior, and polydrug use.[62] A 1996 review examining the blind studies available at that time also found that these had demonstrated a link between aggression and steroid use, but pointed out that with estimates of over one million past or current steroid users in the United States at that time, an extremely small percentage of those using steroids appear to have experienced mental disturbance severe enough to result in clinical treatments or medical case reports.[63]
A 1996 randomized controlled trial, which involved 43 men, did not find an increase in the occurrence of angry behavior during 10 weeks of administration of testosterone enanthate at 600 mg/week, but this study screened out subjects that had previously abused steroids or had any psychiatric antecedents.[29][64] A trial conducted in 2000 using testosterone cypionate at 600 mg/week found that treatment significantly increased manic scores on the YMRS, and aggressive responses on several scales. The drug response was highly variable, however: 84% of subjects exhibited minimal psychiatric effects, 12% became mildly hypomanic, and 4% (2 subjects) became markedly hypomanic. The mechanism of these variable reactions could not be explained by demographic, psychological, laboratory, or physiological measures.[65]
A 2006 study of two pairs of identical twins, in which one twin used anabolic steroids and the other did not, found that in both cases the steroid-using twin exhibited high levels of aggressiveness, hostility, anxiety and paranoid ideation not found in the “control” twin.[66] A small scale study of 10 AAS users found that cluster B personality disorders were confounding factors for aggression. Yet this has not been proven by the medical community.[67]
Depression and suicide
The relationship between AAS use and depression is inconclusive. There have been anecdotal reports of depression and suicide in teenage steroid users,[68] but little systematic evidence. A 1992 review found that anabolic-androgenic steroids may both relieve and cause depression, and that cessation or diminished use of anabolic-androgenic steroids may also result in depression, but called for additional studies due to disparate data.[69]
Addiction potential
In an animal study male rats developed a conditioned place preference to testosterone injections into the nucleus accumbens, an effect blocked by dopamine antagonists, which suggests that androgen reinforcement is mediated by the brain. Moreover, testosterone appears to act through the mesolimbic dopamine system, a common substrate for drugs of abuse. Nonetheless, androgen reinforcement is not comparable to that of cocaine, nicotine or heroin. Instead, testosterone resembles other mild reinforcers, such as caffeine, or benzodiazepines. The potential for androgen addiction remains to be determined.[70]
Link to Wiki here.
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Steroids, drink and paranoia: the murky world of the private security contractor
September 1, 2009
Terri Judd on the guns for hire fighting for business in Iraq and Afghanistan
Paranoid, competitive and fuelled by guns, alcohol and steroids. That is how one senior contractor in Baghdad describes the private security industry operating in the city’s Green Zone.
It was the world to which Danny Fitzsimons, a 29-year-old former soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and paranoia, and with an extensive criminal past, returned three weeks ago.
Despite rules against alcohol, his ArmorGroup colleagues welcomed him with a drinking session. A fight broke out and he shot and killed two of them – a Briton, Paul McGuigan, and an Australian, Darren Hoare – then wounded an Iraqi, Arkhan Mahdi. He faces a premeditated murder charge and execution if found guilty.
Mr Fitzsimons’s family is determined to save him and say he was suffering from severe psychiatric problems after a brutal career in the Army and in the security industry. But those on the ground hold little hope. Figures in the industry told The Independent that the shooting could not have come at a worse time. They are already resigned to Mr Fitzsimons’s execution and say that he is a tiny pawn in a huge, expensive and vicious game of chess.
They say the private security business in Iraq is in a vice-like crush. The gold rush that began with the conflict in 2003 is drying up. Contracts are not as lucrative, the trend is towards employing Iraqis instead of Westerners and, crucially, the Iraqi authorities – for so long impotent when it came to controlling the armed men swaggering around their cities – are clamping down.
“We are loathed out here. We are the single most hated entity in Iraq,” said Ethan Madison, a security contractor who has worked in Baghdad for five years. “They are going to hang him if he is found guilty. The Iraqis are desperate to put their foot down and make an example, say this is our country and we make the rules.”
The big companies – including ArmorGroup – are fighting it out for a lucrative Foreign Office contract worth more than £20m and are determined to survive the fallow period in the expectation that within a few years the big oil companies will bring with them another cash cow.
But just months after the private military contractors lost immunity, the Iraqi police are flexing their muscles. For the first time, foreigners are coming under intense scrutiny, compounds are being searched, licences checked and practices – such as blocking roads or banning locals from driving too close – banned.
In this cut-throat industry, there is open astonishment that a man like Mr Fitzsimons, who had been sacked from two companies, Aegis and Olive, was hired again. “It’s a small world. It is easy enough to check on someone with a few emails to former colleagues. I get them all the time,” said a former Parachute Regiment officer.
Mr Madison agreed: “Everyone you speak to says there is no way he should have been given a job. Anyone who knew Danny knew he was aggressive and always looking for drama. People were wary. There is a lot of resentment. No one cares that this guy was mentally ill. Paul was such a nice guy. He was larger than life, upbeat, a really friendly big man.”
Despite assurances by the British Association of Private Security Companies that the industry takes post-traumatic stress seriously, few on the ground seem to care.
Private security contractors live with intense pressure as they escort clients in the “Red Zone” or in convoys through Iraq. “Every car could be a bomb,” said Mr Madison. “There is a management attitude that, if you don’t want to do the job, there is plenty more where you came from. There is a divide, open loathing, between the management and the men on the ground. There is no loyalty.
“It is a pressure cooker and you can see guys physically deteriorate. You watch people coming in fresh-faced and two months later they are snappy and irritable. It is constant, nervous pressure. It is a quite regular occurrence for people to die out here, although it doesn’t get reported.”
At night they return to the Green Zone, where the only releases are working out in the gym – with many also using steroids – or drinking. Many compounds have bars and a shop selling beer and whisky. A lot of contractors, like Mr Fitzsimons, are on contracts which forbid alcohol. But, as the shootings proved, the rule is frequently ignored, and sources say little has changed since that night.
They are often dismissed as mercenaries for chasing the cash, but many contractors sign up for different reasons. Like Mr Fitzsimons, some miss the camaraderie, excitement and sense of belonging they had in the Army or Royal Marines, and are unable to cope with the banality and unfamiliarity of civvie street. But they find the loyalty and bond that held “brothers in arms” together has been replaced by profit.
This latest incident threw a sharp spotlight on the industry. After the shooting, ArmorGroup insisted that it had a stringent vetting process and a strong track record of recruiting high-quality people while honouring its duty of care to its employees.
Mr Madison rejected that claim. “That was a ridiculous comment. Some of the guys sent out are second rate. When a company gets a contract, it waits until the last minute to get people into the country quickly, and that is when the vetting process goes tits-up. When dealing with physical injury, the companies are generally good. And I know they have helped out Iraqi families of men who have died. But for mental illness, there is no provision at all. If you are mentally injured, the attitude is you are a freak, fuck off. It is a real World War One attitude – stand up and fight or else disappear. If I lost a leg they would do something about it. But if I was mentally ill, it is not their problem.”
The industry has improved its act since the early days of 2003 when a host of Walter Mittys competed with established companies for massive profits; men were poorly armed and often poorly behaved.
One former policeman who worked with Control Risks staff in Basra in 2006 described the contractors as well-equipped and professional, even eschewing the drinks at the Foreign Office bar. “That was when the industry was at its peak. But [Iraqi] government agencies were starting to look at the money they were spending and tightening the budgets.”
In September 2007, 17 civilians were killed in a shoot-out involving contractors with the American firm Blackwater, now Xe. By the start of this year, private security contractors had lost their immunity.
“The Iraqi police are now stamping their authority at checkpoints. They really dislike the private security contractors and now they are in control,” said one former Guards officer from Baghdad. “Ministry of the Interior officials are turning up at compounds and searching them. If you don’t have a licence for a gun or a licence plate for a car you will be arrested. The days when you just strapped on a side-arm you bought downtown are gone. The Iraqi police attitude is: ‘We don’t like you, we don’t want you in the country. We can’t kick you out but we are not going to let you run around like cowboys’.”
Other contractors said they would be seen as mercenaries until the business was properly regulated by the UK and US governments. The Government is expected to report back on a six-month consultation later this year, recommending self-regulation with international co-operation, with the aim of raising standards.
Andy Bearpark, the director general of the British Association of Private Security Companies, said that self-regulation was the best option but that a greater level of co-operation between companies was needed.
“The private security industry is essential if the UK is to play its role in reconstruction of fragile states such as Afghanistan and Iraq. The association was formed to ensure that standards in all areas were raised and that the very best practices were used by the industry generally. We have worked with the British Government since our formation in 2005 to ensure that this is the case.”
How Mr Fitzsimons will fare is unknown. A team of lawyers sent to Iraq by his family last week said that he could not get a fair trial in the country and called for the case to be transferred to Britain and for the Government to step in. A UK trial would be hampered by the difficulty of contacting witnesses and by the fact that the Iraqi police have gathered the evidence.
Foreign Office sources said that representations would be made if Mr Fitzsimons was found guilty and the death penalty was imposed, but little more could be done other than making appeals through diplomatic channels. A prisoner transfer agreement has yet to be negotiated with Iraq.
In this battle for bucks, many contractors are quietly thrilled that ArmorGroup has, as one contractor said, “dropped a bollock”. Mr Madison said: “This shooting will have a serious impact on ArmorGroup as it is bidding for the Foreign Office contract which is now with Control Risks. It is a prime candidate along with Aegis. The damage is done.”
The Foreign Office mobile security contract won by Control Risks in 2007-08 came in at just under £21m. ArmorGroup – whose parent company G4S said this week that its half-year turnover was up more than 10 per cent to £3.5bn – won the £17m contract for Afghanistan. The total contracts for the two countries were valued at about £55m a year.
And for the men on the ground, for whom the work is dwindling, there is the consolation that another equally lethal front has opened up.
As Mr Madison explained: “The rumour of the month is that one company is offering £1,000 a day to run convoys from Pakistan into Helmand [Afghanistan]. Of course, it would be operation certain death, but the money is good and some men will go for it.”
* Ethan Madison’s name has been changed to protect his identity.
Story here.
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(although not related to the security contracting industry, it was interesting none the less, and on WebMD)
Chris Benoit: Was Roid Rage to Blame?
Pro Wrestler’s Alleged Murder-Suicide Spurs Questions About Roid Rage and Anabolic Steroids
From WebMD
Pro wrestler Chris Benoit apparently was taking testosterone before his death, toxicology tests show.
Benoit, his wife, Nancy, and their son, Daniel, were found dead in their home in Fayetteville, Ga., near Atlanta in late June. The deaths are suspected to be a murder-suicide that began when Benoit allegedly killed his wife and son and ended when Benoit hanged himself.
Toxicology tests performed by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) show that Chris Benoit had the anti-anxiety drug Xanax and the painkiller hydrocodone in his blood, and elevated levels of testosterone in his urine.
Benoit’s Xanax and hydrocodone levels were in line with typical therapeutic doses of those drugs, but the testosterone levels indicated that Benoit had been taking testosterone for some unknown time before his death, according to GBI officials.
No other steroids were found in Benoit’s urine.
When the Benoit family deaths were first discovered, many people speculated about whether Benoit had been taking anabolic steroids and whether he might have experienced “roid rage” triggered by steroids.
In a June interview with WebMD, Gary Wadler, MD, answered questions about roid rage and anabolic steroids, which are synthetic substances related to male sex hormones.
Wadler is a clinical associate professor of medicine at New York University’s medical school. He is an expert on roid rage and also a spokesman for the American College of Sports Medicine, a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, and author of the textbook, Drugs and the Athlete.
What is roid rage?
Roid rage, in many ways, I would characterize as a form of loss of impulse control. It provokes overreactions via a stimulus that normally doesn’t produce such a severe reaction.
So say somebody says something to you that you don’t like. You may put your fist through a wall. The impulse is there; it’s overreaction. Forget the roid, for the moment. It’s a rage … and that rage is precipitated by the brain being exposed to anabolic steroids.
How common is roid rage?
I don’t think there’s really good data on how common [it is]. It’s not rare by any means, that’s probably fair to say. It’s not extraordinarily common.
I think a better way to view this is a spectrum of behaviors by people on anabolic steroids ranging from being somewhat more assertive, moving up one notch to being frankly aggressive, and moving up another notch to actually having this roid rage. It’s really an extreme of a spectrum of kind of behavioral things that you see with anabolic steroids.
Could anabolic steroids account for severely violent acts?
Yes. It’s been implicated in a number of murders and can result in extreme aberrations of behavior including the taking of one’s life.
Another thing you have to be mindful of — it may unmask an underlying psychiatric disorder that has been basically kept in check until the individual is exposed to this category of drugs. And so what you may be seeing is unmasked psychiatric disorder.
Are there some people who may be particularly vulnerable to roid rage?
I don’t know if that’s been studied, but certainly, I would be concerned about those who are on steroids for a long time on a high dose. There seems to be some correlation that the higher the dose, the greater the likelihood of having roid rage.
What is the difference between anabolic and corticosteroids?
The way I like to say it is it’s the difference between John Smith and Mary Smith. They’re both Smiths, but they couldn’t be more different.
Anabolic steroids mean steroids that build muscle, retain protein, and corticosteroids are so-called catabolic. They break down tissue. They’re basically used for anti-inflammatory effects. People on corticosteroids for any length of time, you’ll see them actually get muscle weakness. Their body will go through changes which are quite the opposite of what you see with anabolic steroids.
I don’t believe that the shorthand-word “steroids” should ever be used because the public has been confused, and many people who are taking corticosteroids for a variety of medical illnesses are of the belief that they’re going to get all these horrible side effects that people talk about in terms of anabolic steroids.
So people who are taking corticosteroids for legitimate medical reasons like asthma or arthritis — they have no need to be concerned?
Corticosteroids have a lot of side effects, but they’re not the side effects we see with anabolic steroids. They have their own unique set of side effects.
Aren’t there some people who experience temperament changes while they’re on corticosteroids?
They can be irritable. They can have difficulty sleeping, for example.
But that’s not the same as roid rage?
No, it’s entirely different.
Are there any valid reasons for people to be taking anabolic steroids?
Well, there were many reasons. Most of those reasons diminished [with the development of] better drugs.
If someone is experiencing roid rage while they’re taking anabolic steroids, is there treatment for it?
If somebody is experiencing that, chances are they are using it for illicit purposes. So they’ve got to get themselves in the hands of a psychiatrist. And you have to be careful, because if you suddenly stop anabolic steroids, it can precipitate a profound depression.
Are there signs that parents or coaches should keep in mind — signs that a child, an athlete, may be using steroids?
One is change in musculature. Secondly, excessive acne. Third, irritability. Fourth, obsessing over muscle mass … becoming obsessed with the gym. Those would be sort of some of them. It’s basically a change in personality, an obsession with your body and putting on muscle and increasing lean body mass, [excessive] use of dietary supplements, obsessing over web sites that are directed towards body building.
It’s a little bit of a complicated question. If you talk about a [male] teenager, you have to distinguish between a normal adolescence, which is heralded by a surge in testosterone.
If it’s a difficult adolescence [in someone] who is not on anabolic steroids, they have a lot of acne, may be very irritable and may get many of the kinds of things we associate with anabolic steroids. Except in that case, the steroids are coming from his own testicles.
So it’s a difficult thing for parents. They may overlook the abuse of anabolic steroids, or conversely, they may take [someone] who’s not on anabolic steroids and assert that they are and lose the confidence of their kid.
How young does some of this use begin?
We know that as many as 1.5% to 2% of eighth graders have used anabolic steroids at least once in their life, and between 3% and 4% of 12th graders have used anabolic steroids at least once in their life.
There are estimates that between half a million and a million youngsters have used anabolic steroids.
Is it very easy for them to get it?
Particularly with the Internet, it’s alarmingly so. And it also has much of the dynamics of other forms of drug dealing. They’re not philanthropists handing out steroids.
What else would you want to add, either about roid rage or anabolic steroid use?
My concern is that it’s a silent epidemic. [With drugs such as heroin and cocaine], you see people who don’t look well, are losing weight, they’re not concerned about their body. [People using anabolic steroids] look well, they’re putting on muscle mass, they’re more assertive, and so people don’t think that this could be the product of illicit drug use.
People have to be aware that this is a very dangerous behavior. We have to make — particularly parents and physicians — aware of this silent epidemic.
Story here.
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Dopers in Uniform: Cops on Steroids
by John Hoberman, Ph.D.Author of “Testosterone Dreams: Rejuvenation, Aphrodisia, Doping”Professor of Germanic StudiesUniversity of Texas at Austin
Publication Date: May 22, 2005
As the U.S. Congress prepares to renew its assault on anabolic steroid use among professional athletes at a hearing scheduled for May 18, longtime observers of doping control initiatives will recognize the selective indignation that continues to sensationalize the use of these drugs by athletes. The fact that certain groups of steroid consumers have been spared the special opprobrium reserved for sports heroes who fail to serve as proper “role models” for youth demonstrates once again how arbitrary and politically motivated the formulation and enforcement of drug laws can be.
One of the remarkable anomalies of the anti-steroid campaign of the past two decades is that it has virtually ignored the many reports of steroid use by police officers in the United States and in other countries. Unknown but clearly significant numbers of policemen have imported, smuggled, sold, and used anabolic steroids over this time period. According to an article that appeared in the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin in 1991: “Anabolic steroid abuse by police officers is a serious problem that merits greater awareness by departments across the country.” (1) In 2003 another expert offered a similar assessment. Little research has been done on the use of steroids by police, said Larry Gaines, former executive director of the Kentucky Chiefs of Police Association. “But I think it’s a larger problem than people think.”.(2)
A segment of the CBS-TV program “60 Minutes” had already made that point on November 5, 1989. “Beefing Up the Force” presented interviews with three officers whose use of steroids had apparently caused the hyper-aggressiveness that had gotten them into serious trouble. The worst case involved what one psychiatrist called “a real Jekyll and Hyde change” in the personality of a prison security guard in Oregon who had kidnapped and shot a woman who made a casual remark he didn’t like. He got 20 years in prison, and she was paralyzed for life. The personality he presented during his prison interview made it seem utterly improbable that he would have been capable of such an act. But his testosterone level when he committed the crime was 50 times the normal level. This broadcast conveyed the message that steroid problems were lurking in many police departments across the country, and that police officials were turning a blind eye to a significant threat to public safety.
It was no accident that the “60 Minutes” segment paid special attention to a “hard core group” of steroid users on the Miami police force. Two years earlier the Miami Herald had run a long article on steroid-using police officers. The seven notorious Miami “River Cops”, who in 1987 were on trial for alleged crimes including cocaine trafficking and conspiracy to commit murder, included Armando “Scarface” Garcia, a weightlifter who had publicly admitted to taking steroids. “There’s a great potential for an officer abusing steroids to physically mistreat people,” said the police chief of nearby Hollywood, Florida, who had told his investigators to be on the lookout for officers who looked like “small mountains.” (3) The Miami Herald article may have been the first of the tiny number of analytical treatments of this subject that have appeared in American newspapers since the 1980s.
It is not surprising that police officials spent the 1980s more or less oblivious to the steroid issue. The notoriety and eventual demonizing of the anabolic steroid followed the Ben Johnson Olympic scandal of September 1988, which initiated the transformation of the social (and then the legal) status of these drugs. The Anabolic Steroids Control Act of 1990 made unauthorized possession of steroids a criminal offense, and from that point on the anti-steroid crusade was gradually annexed by the larger War on Drugs that Richard Nixon had launched in 1969. The BALCO “designer steroid” indictments announced by the Department of Justice in February 2004 gave the federal takeover of the anti-steroid campaign an official status it had never had before.
Prohibiting police officers from using anabolic steroids would appear to be self-evident given what is known about how these drugs can produce hyper-aggressive behavior. But understanding the use of these drugs by police officers and other men whose professional roles involve physical strength and assertiveness requires us to examine the two opposing arguments that have been advanced to favor or oppose the use of steroids by law enforcement personnel. The functional argument holds that the physical and psychological effects of steroids promote the safety of the officer and, therefore, public safety, as well. The deviance argument holds that, on the contrary, both the physical and emotional effects of the drugs endanger the public and expose drug-taking officers to serious legal risks resulting from their dangerous drug-induced behaviors.
The idea that steroids might actually play a functional (and therefore legitimate) role in preparing police officers to do their jobs was not beyond the pale in 1987. For example, the Miami Herald exposé prompted a former Miami police chief, Ken Harms, to make the following comment: “It’s probably time that the department makes a conscious decision about whether it’s acceptable for officers to take steroids.” (4) The sheer political incorrectness of this statement, when judged by today’s standards, speaks volumes about how the social status of these drugs has changed in the interim. Although Chief Harms did not go on to parse the pros and cons of steroid-taking by police officers, it is not difficult to imagine what he might have said.
Large numbers of men around the world consume steroids because their professions or criminal activities require physical self-assertion and self-confidence. A 1996 report from Scotland, for example, identifies policemen, firefighters, military personnel, and private security guards as steroid consumers. (5) In Australia the list includes prison guards and the elite troops who in 1998 were discovered to be “using steroids to bulk up, boost stamina and self-esteem and to recover more quickly from injuries they have sustained.” (6) In Britain, Australia and some European countries, nightclub bouncers use the drugs to produce the “frilled neck lizard response” that intimidates unruly customers. (7)
“The thinking is that big is better than small, tough is better than weak,” says Gene Sanders, a former police officer and a longtime police psychologist in California. “There is sort of an underground, unspoken tradition among several departments that I’ve worked with that if you really want to bulk up, this is the best way to do it.” (8) A website maintained by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reports the same attitude toward functional steroid use by police officers: “Law enforcement personnel have used steroids for both physical and psychological reasons. The idea of enhanced physical strength and endurance provides one with ‘the invincible mentality’ when performing law enforcement duties.” (9)
Steroids are also used by criminals as aggression-enhancing drugs. In Oslo, Norway, enforcers known as “torpedoes” take combinations of steroids and amphetamines to produce the psychopathic state that enables them to kill and maim their victims. (10) Danish motorcycle hoodlums put methyl testosterone capsules under their tongues before gang fights to work themselves into a rage. (11) Such vignettes from the steroid underground suggest how little we know about the overall social effects of the black market that serves an international market of action-oriented males that includes a growing number of recreational athletes of all ages.
The functional argument thus proposes that steroid use is an essentially rational and practical strategy to deal with the special challenges and hazards of certain kinds of physically demanding work. From this perspective, these action-oriented professionals — “[o]ccupational users such as doormen [bouncers], police and prison warders … have a definite objective; often feeling threatened by aspects of their work they believe they must increase their size and aggression both to threaten and protect others.” (12)
Russell Dobash, a professor at Manchester University, has also pointed to the practical attitude of some steroid users: “Bodybuilding is most often the entrée to taking steroids, but people who take the drugs often do it because they see their body as important to their job. Some people have the stereotypical image of a bodybuilder as unemployed. But in a sample of steroid-users that we looked at, there were a range of occupations, particularly among professions where your body can be instrumental to your job.” (13)
The conflict between the functional and the deviance models of steroid use can be seen in “the stereotypical image of [the] bodybuilder” as a socially dysfunctional (unemployed) type whose deviance lies in the social disorientation that has left him with no economic role in society. His functional (and socially useful) counterpart is someone who puts drugs to “instrumental” use. We have already seen that the use of steroids by police officers has been regarded as instrumental pharmacology of this kind by at least a segment of the profession. However, given the long tradition of prohibitionist thinking about “drugs” in modern societies, it is hardly surprising that condemnation based on the deviance model of police steroid use has been more influential than the functionalist rationale for steroid-boosted law enforcement.
The deviance model assumes that steroid use already indicates a character defect in the drug-taker. This viewpoint was applied to military doping in December 2004 when the executive director of the Australian Defence Association criticized the functionalist view of doping soldiers. “The Australian people spend a lot on defence,” he said, “and they want value for their money, and they want a defence force that is physically fit and mentally capable. If you’re using perception-altering substances or steroids you’re hardly likely to be physically or mentally fit.” (14) When Copenhagen’s Police Station No. 1 was hit by a steroid scandal in 2000-2001, the city’s chief of police stated: “Combining strength training with the use of doping drugs is so sick that it simply doesn’t belong on a police force. It is sad that young, well-built people feel too frail and weak to serve on the force, so they fill themselves with that kind of poison and bulk up to the point where they are revolting to look at.” (15)
The deviance argument has also appeared in American commentaries on steroid-using policemen. In 1987, for example, Dr. Philip Greenberg, the psychiatrist for the Miami Beach Police Department, put it as follows: “Any policeman taking something … to build up muscle tissue would have to be a very confused specimen to begin with.” (16) When the police chief of Boca Raton, Florida, was asked in 2003 what could cause an officer to use steroids, he replied: “Stupidity and self-absorption and an egocentric mentality.” (17)
Stupidity, self-absorption and an egocentric mentality are certainly compatible with the racism that a few steroid-using policemen have demonstrated, and not only in the United States. The Danish cops who were indicted for steroid possession in 2000 were also found to be in possession of written materials that included a plan to castrate accused Muslim rapists. (18)
Postulating a correlation between steroid use and racist eccentricity goes straight to the heart of our society’s unresolved conflict over the meaning of androgenic drug use. Does the choice to augment oneself with this illegal drug signal a broader propensity to embrace unwholesome beliefs or engage in antisocial behaviors? The current anti-steroid sentiment being promoted by politicians and many others with media access assumes this is the case. It is, therefore, striking that when the serial killings of black men by a white, steroid-using police officer made headlines in 1989, the authorities who might have done so made no effort to connect these deadly events with the drugs that may well have played a role in provoking them.
This case of allegedly steroid-fueled police violence comes from Texas. Over a period of seven years during the 1980s, a Houston police officer named Scott Tschirhart shot to death three black men in circumstances that led to protests and a grand jury investigation. Cleared by the grand jury, Tschirhart was eventually fired by Houston’s black police chief shortly after the third killing in 1989. (19)
It was well known to his fellow officers that Tschirhart was a user of anabolic steroids, and they had watched the drugs transform him as a bodybuilder and as a policeman. “The bigger he got … the worse he got about strutting around and bragging,” a veteran officer recalled. “You could really see him changing.” (20) But the Houston Police Department had no policy against steroid use, so no one intervened until the third fatal shooting provoked the department to investigate this officer’s unusually violent career.
Even the appearance of sequential racial killings by a known steroid user and reputed bigot did not put the issue of cops and steroids on the national agenda. Nor did the “60 Minutes” segment broadcast shortly after Tschirhart’s firing ignite any further interest in the major media that might have put this issue on the national agenda. In 1985 Dr. Robert Kerr, a notorious provider of steroids to thousands of elite athletes and other customers, had testified in the Superior Court of California in Los Angeles that he had written steroid prescriptions for 500 law enforcement personnel in the Los Angeles area. And nothing happened. (21)
A realistic approach to the use of steroids by police officers must also be prepared to depart from the deviance model for the purpose of recognizing those cases where it becomes difficult or impossible to distinguish between therapy and enhancement. For example, a policeman’s use of steroids can have a medical rationale. A model Ohio county deputy and Gulf War Marine Corps veteran convicted of steroid possession in 2003 said he had imported the drugs from Yugoslavia as an effective therapy for his chronic fatigue syndrome. “I never wanted to look like Arnold,” he said. “I was tired of being tired. I wanted to feel better.” (22)
How can we explain our society’s current steroid policy, which treats the drug use of a baseball player as more reprehensible than that of a police officer?
First, there is the importance of image. Athletes who double as entertainers do not benefit from the halo effect that wraps public safety personnel in a presumption of innocence, regardless of whether this aura is firmly rooted in reality. We are accustomed to the idea of the police confiscating steroids, not injecting or ingesting them.
Second, there is the matter of logistics. Subjecting America’s half million police officers to systematic steroid screening would impose huge additional costs on city governments that already face chronic deficits. Similar budgetary considerations have drastically limited the drug testing of the nation’s school children, despite the court decisions that have legalized such procedures. Forcing a miniscule number of elite athletes to serve as our society’s pharmacological virgins is a far more practical way to pledge allegiance to the illusion of a “drug-free” society.
Finally, there is our society’s profoundly ambivalent attitude toward male hormone drugs that produce tangible benefits. The new social acceptability of bodybuilding, embracing its worship of muscularity and its unabashed ethos of self-improvement, represents an unmistakable, if camouflaged, acceptance of synthetic testosterone drugs and their desired effects, ranging from sculptured torsos to sexual self-confidence. In a similar vein, significant numbers of sports fans already accept athletic doping drugs as acceptable enhancements that make possible the performances they want to see. Finally, popular hormone-based “anti-aging” therapies employ the same drugs that could put a steroid-using policeman in prison.
The problem for those monitoring police forces for steroid abuse is that some steroid users will not display obviously disordered behaviors. In the absence of systematic drug testing, the most promising policy would be to investigate every case of hyper-aggressive behavior by police officers and employ targeted drug testing in such cases. Above all, officials must keep an eagle eye on those members of the force who find special fulfillment in competitive bodybuilding, including those bodybuilding competitions that are sponsored by police departments. (23) As police authorities in Berlin found out in 2002, it is likely that a disproportionate number of these people should not be entrusted with power and a gun. (24)
Story here.