are steroids bad for you?

First Ben Johnson tested positive for stanolozol. Then a bottle of androstenedione turned up in Mark McGwire’s locker the year he broke Roger Maris’ home run record. A few years later the Balco scandal blew up followed closely by Jose Canseco’s book, Juiced. That got the politicians all upset and led to congressional hearings on steroid use in baseball. Now we’ve come full circle. Rafael Palmeiro, who categorically denied any drug use at those congressional hearings, has tested positive for stanolozol.

Steroid hysteria is in full bloom. Palmeiro is getting brutal treatment from the press. Sports radio hosts are so sick of talking about him that a radio host cut off a first time caller this evening because the caller abruptly changed the subject to Palmeiro. I understand why fans are so outraged. Years of lies, and bad ones at that, will piss anyone off. But does that mean that steroids are necessarily bad for you?

Steven Kotler has written an excellent article about the history of steroids, Sympathy For The Devil, What If Everything You Think You Know About Steroids Is Wrong?. He traces the development of steroid research from the 1700’s to the present and looks at the effect of drug laws on current research.

As far back as the 1940’s, experiments showed that steroids could alter moods for the better and increase sex drive. There was also evidence that it could extend our lifespan. But the bias against steroids was so great that they were outlawed in the 1990 Steroid Control Act. The 2004 Steroid Control Act added twenty-six new substances to the banned list. The problem is that these laws discourage scientific research. Research that could show the benefits and correctly assess the dangers of these substances.

Current studies of large populations of adult steroid users show that there do not appear to be adverse effects with steroid use.

Kotler points out a parallel between the treatment of hallucinogens and steroids. After initial promising experimental results, hallucinogens such as psilocybin and LSD were outlawed in the U.S. in 1967. Experimentation didn’t start again until 1990. In Timothy Leary’s appropriately titled autobiography, Flashbacks, he describes an experiment called the Concord Prison Experiment. In the 1960’s, Leary and his fellow professor at Harvard, Richard Alpert, better know as Ram Dass, gave psilocybin to prisoners in a clinical setting and found that the prisoners had a reduced rate of recidivism.

Current studies of large populations of adult steroid users show that there do not appear to be adverse effects with steroid use. Kotler quotes Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale, champion power lifter and noted authority on performance enhancing drugs, “As used by most people, including athletes, the adverse effects of anabolic steroids appear to be minimal.” The news is not all positive. Teenagers should not take steroids. If you take excessive amounts over a long period of time, you will have problems. There is also no way to know what goes into substances cooked up in the homegrown designer drug labs which provide the steroids used in gyms around the country.

This brings up another parallel with hallucinogens. Back in the sixties when I took my fair share of acid trips, it was rare to get an acid tab that wasn’t cut with speed. I was as jumpy as a firewalker. Sometimes I could hear the plumbing in the walls clang so loudly that I had to go outside to calm myself down. The one time I did get pure LSD, I had one of the most profound experiences of my life. Though I could hardly call my experimentation scientific, it does demonstrate that some of the side effects that steroids users have can be be traced to non steroid substances found in black market supplies of the drug.

Two areas where steroids are beneficial are AIDS treatment and anti-aging medicine. A regimen of nutrition, exercise and steroids can increase T-cell counts significantly and prevent death from AIDS wasting syndrome. As you age, your hormone levels drop. If this loss can be reversed, the aging process can be slowed. Current anti-aging regimens use DHEA, a steroid hormone, to increase energy levels and restore sex drive.

If you still want to rant and rave at the long line of indignant liars with bad excuses who have tested positive for steroids, go ahead. But don’t let the anti-drug hysteria blind you to scientific research. Read Mr. Kotler’s article and get an accurate picture of the current state of steroid knowledge. Anything we can do to prevent future ill-advised drug laws could help us live longer and reduce the prison population, in more ways than one.