Tackling steroid abuse: Campaign needs more muscle
Let's start with the good news about a public health risk that’s serious but which rarely features in media reporting: the number of anabolic steroids seized in Ireland during the first eight months of this year was up by 400% on the figure for the same period in 2016.
Consequently, more than 443,000 units of drugs — most of them manufactured illicitly — that can wreck grotesquely and sometimes irreversibly the minds and bodies of men and women are now off the market and out of the reach, thanks to a combined and successful offensive by the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA), the gardai and the Revenue’s customs service on illicit supplies.
Their catch as recently as 2013 was just short of a mere 19,000.
The 2017 seizure figure is, however, alarming in that it reflects the size of a thriving market powered by the demands of users — and abusers — for quick fixes as they strive for perfection in body image and athletic performance. Not that it’s a uniquely Irish problem; research in Britain suggests the use of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs is not confined to bodybuilders and professional athletes.
Our public health authorities — along with Interpol — are to be congratulated on their achievements in attacking the supply side of the market, a challenge made tougher by how unregulated websites are used to enable the promotion, sale and distribution of illegal steroids produced in underground laboratories ... a possible exception being Russia, where the laboratories are very probably state-funded.
Action to reduce the demand that keeps the market afloat is the key challenge in a culture, such as our own, in which bigger is better, and being bigger is far more important than how it is achieved. Those most at risk are teenagers, many of whom are led by the advertising, cosmetic and entertainment industries — and by what they see on social media — to feel unhappy with their appearance. Some of them might be aware of the serious and long-term damage anabolic steroids can cause, and choose to take the risk. And then there are others who are simply ignorant of the physical and psychiatric dangers, which include but are by no means limited to early heart attacks, strokes, liver tumours, kidney failure and psychosis. Users who inject the stuff and share needles risk HIV/Aids and hepatitis.
What is needed is a national health education campaign, the message of which must be that, yes, anabolic steroids can certainly make users stronger, but they can destroy, too. It’s the message that has to go out from parents, teachers, sports coaches, and gym managers who might be choosing to look away when they know customers are taking grave risks with their lives.
