The review article profiles steroid dealer David Jacobs and his introduction to anabolic steroids, his integration into the bodybuilding scene, his networking with pro football players, his decision to import and manufacture anabolic steroids, his steroid bust, the dismantling of the Texas steroid network, and his ostracism from the bodybuilding community (”Plano resident’s steroid distribution ring was one of the largest in U.S.,” April 24).
I recommend reading the complete article for a better understanding of the chronology and scope of the Texas steroid investigation. Below are a few excerpts.
David Jacobs’ decision to manufacture and distribute anabolic steroids:
At Lewisville Lake’s Party Cove one weekend, he met his first pro bodybuilder, Art Atwood. The two became friends, and Mr. Atwood helped train the up-and-coming rookie.
Both men were taking steroids, but were unhappy with shoddy Mexican imports.
Mr. Jacobs went online and found a solution: recipes for steroids using raw Chinese powder. Mr. Jacobs soon parlayed his knowledge of Asia, gleaned during his Nokia business trips, into contacts with English-speaking middlemen to the Chinese steroid powder factories.
Sloppy packaging that led to steroid bust:
On March 19, 2007, the United Parcel Service intercepted a soggy package sent from Mr. Jacobs’ Plano home, bound for Wichita, Kan. When officials opened the box, they found a broken glass vial of what turned out to be steroids.
Authorities arrested the man in Kansas who had ordered steroids from Mr. Jacobs, court documents say. Jamie Mongeau, an amateur bodybuilder, told investigators that Mr. Jacobs was his supplier.
Ostracism from bodybuilding community:
Brian Dobson, owner of Arlington’s MetroFlex gym, which produced eight-time Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman and where Mr. Jacobs used to train with other bodybuilding friends, said that since his bust, Mr. Jacobs has been ostracized by the bodybuilding community he once serviced.
“A lot of people hate him,” Mr. Dobson said. “To a lot of the other guys who were his buddies, once he got caught, he became the black plague.”
The full text of the article is available on the Dallas Morning News website.
“We have been told by the prosecutors that they do not intend to bring charges against Matt Lehr in connection with their ongoing steroid investigation,” said Paul Coggins in Dallas. “After reviewing the evidence gathered to date, the government reached the right conclusion.”
John Ratcliffe, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas, which is conducting the investigation, would not confirm Mr. Coggins’ statement.
“We are actively investigating the distribution of illegal steroids and human growth hormone,” he said. “As a matter of policy, we neither identify nor comment upon persons of interest in ongoing investigations.”
A source close to the steroid investigation told MESO-Rx that the steroids and football investigation is far from over. Whether the ongoing investigation involves Matt Lehr remains to be seen.
A federal investigation in North Texas uncovered one of the largest anabolic steroid distribution networks in the country; evidence seized during the course of the investigation allegedly implicated Matt Lehr. According to the Dallas Morning News and New York Times, a grand jury was convened with subpoenas for at least a couple of NFL players (former and active) to testify against Lehr for alleged steroid distribution in the NFL.
Australian Customs has reported over 300 anabolic steroid seizures during the first three months of the year. This reportedly exceeds steroid seizures from previous years. The increase in steroid shipments confiscated by customs prior to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing is similar to increases seen prior to the 2000 Sydney Olympics (”Steroid imports not ‘linked to athletes,’” April 22).
The hike comes with the Beijing Olympic Games looming in August and follows a similar increase before the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) chief executive Richard Ings said the organisation works closely with customs and is notified of any involvement by Australian athletes in importing performance-enhancing drugs.
“If customs are indicating that they are seeing an increase in seizures, there is no suggestion those products were bound for athletes,” he told AAP.
Authorities attribute the increase in steroid seizures to greater demand by bodybuilders and weightlifters in an “image culture.”
Following the revelation of an international doping scandal centered in Austria, the Austrian government has announced legislation that will criminalize mere possession of anabolic steroid and/or other performance enhancing drugs. Previously, there was no punishment for possession of steroids (”Austria to tighten anti-doping law,” April 18).
Legislation to tighten Austria’s anti-doping laws by criminalising possession of performance-enhancing substances are to be unveiled this summer, the government announced on Friday.
According to proposals to be unveiled in early July, it will be a criminal offence to be found in possession of doping substances above a certain quantity, said Roland Achatz, spokesperson for sports secretary Reinhold Lopatka.
Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis pledged yesterday to tighten the country’s anti-doping laws in a bid to stamp out illegal substance abuse among athletes.
”A special committee was formed… to consider more stringent administrative and criminal sanctions against those who use, provide and market banned substances,” Karamanlis told Parliament.
The “internationalization of steroid law” predicted by Philip Sweitzer is becoming a reality.
The internationalized, fascistic nature of current steroid law enforcement policy thus emerges. Hegemony is its stated goal, that U.S. policy must be tantamount to international policy: all nations must conform to the legal standard of the United States. We must all think alike… The “internationalization” of steroid law, however, is also troubling for its politicization and heavy-handed reliance on dishonest notions of morality, cheating, and “protecting our children,” rather than science…
A full analysis of the internationalization of steroid law by Sweitzer can be found in “AAS Across the Atlantic: The “Americanization” and Politicization of International Steroid Law” (appearing on MESO-Rx this month).
Joseph Dion, currently a Miami-based personal trainer, told two Sports Illustrated reporters that he was the individual identified as “Max” in Jose Canseco’s book Vindicated. Canseco claimed that Max was a steroid dealer who provided baseball player Alex Rodriguez with steroids.
Dion has refuted Canseco’s claims and told Sports Illustrated that he is completely anti-steroid (”The man behind the Max,” April 18).
“That’s really, really funny because I am the one person that hates steroids,” Dion said. “I’m against it 100 percent. And, A-Rod, at the time that I trained him — and this I swear to God — was 100 percent against steroids. He was one of the hardest working guys, and most natural guy, that I’ve met in my life. He hated steroids. We talked about it.”
It remains to be seen how this latest revelation will affect the steroid witch hunt in baseball. Federal investigators are scheduled to meet with Jose Canseco on Tuesday to discuss steroids in baseball; investigators are expected to ask Canseco about Joseph Dion, Alex Rodriguez, Roger Clemens, and other Major League Baseball players.
When he meets with investigators on Tuesday, he could be in a vulnerable position, said Daniel C. Richman, a professor of law at Columbia University and a former federal prosecutor.
“It sounds like the government is looking at Canseco as just a witness,” Richman said. “But a witness who proves uncooperative can easily turn into a subject or even a target if the government wants to push hard. And the range of statements that Canseco has already made in his book and to Congress will make it easier for investigators to pin him down, forcing him to either reaffirm past claims or explicitly deny them. He has far less wiggle room than witnesses who can fairly claim not to remember.”
Eleven members of the Greek Olympic Weightlifting Team tested positive for three banned substances. These have been identified as methyltrienolone (an anabolic steroid), buprenorphine (an opioid antagonist), and an anti-estrogen compound. There has been some speculation as to why, if the Greek athletes intentionally doped, would they use an opioid drug commonly used to overcome heroin and oxycodone addiction?
The managing editor of HellenicAthletes.com suspects that buprenorphine was used to counteract the highly addictive effects of the anabolic steroid methyltrienolone.
The second substance is reported to be an opiate, used to purge the body of the drug-addiction tendencies of methyltrienolone.
Professor Demetrios Kouretas of the University of Thessaly believes buprenorphine was used to counteract the extreme aggressiveness caused by methyltrienolone.
The biochemistry professor suggests that the combination of substances was designed to “improve the athlete’s psychological disposition because the anabolic steroid triggers extreme aggressiveness”.
In the case of Canseco, federal authorities are hoping that his unapologetic use of steroids will lead them not only to Max, but to other suppliers, according to the lawyer familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Canseco’s lawyer, Greg S. Emerson, plans to ask federal authorities for immunity so that Canseco does not risk incriminating himself. If a grand jury convenes in the Roger Clemens’ perjury case, Canseco may be subpoenaed to testify under oath.
The Athens News, an English-language newspaper in Greece, has been covering the recent steroid scandal plaguing the Greek Weightlifting Olympic Team. The newspaper discusses the anabolic steroid methyltrienolone, one of the three substances in the failed drug tests for the eleven Greek weightlifters. The newspaper makes the preposterous and irresponsible claim that methyltrienolone killed 200 bodybuilders in the 1960s.
Steroid expert Patrick Arnold (Ergopharm) has told me he doesn’t believe methyltrienolone was ever formally introduced commercially; therefore it is extremely unlikely that any bodybuilders were even aware of its existence in the 1960s. It is “completely inconceivable” that 200 bodybuilders died from using methyltrienolone, according to Arnold.
“This [methyltrienolone] is a very old drug and no one has tested positive for it in the [recent] past. It is on the banned drugs list. But because it is extremely toxic, especially for the liver, it is not used,” Kouretas said. “Those that tested positive are in a sense very lucky because if they continued, they could have died.”
Of the three banned substances for which the Greek athletes tested positive, methyltrienolone is the most dangerous. The drug was held responsible for the death of about 200 people, mainly bodybuilders, in the 1960s.
“After three or four weeks of taking it, you get severe liver problems, and if you don’t stop, it could lead to death in a few months,” Kouretas.
“For the last 25 years, methyltrienolone has been used in hundreds of laboratory experiments on killing cancer cells. It is commercially called R-1881. But it is not used as an anabolic steroid,” Kouretas said.
The newspaper article quotes Professor Demetrios Kouretas extensively. Dr. Kouretas received a postdoctoral degree from Harvard Medical School and has had over 40 articles published in scientific journals.
Nowhere is Dr. Kouretas directly quoted with the absurd and blatantly false propagandistic statement that the anabolic steroid methyltrienolone killed 200 bodybuilders?! Unfortunately, the author of the Athens News article interjected the statement giving the impression that it may be attributable to Dr. Kouretas.
Greek journalists apparently have no qualms about (mis)using university experts when publishing their steroid misinformation. Dr. Kouretas’ fearmongering about Greek weightlifters (being on the verge of death only to be saved by a positive doping result) was not enough for the author of the report.
Dr. Jay Hoffman is a Professor of Health and Exercise Science at the College of New Jersey and a member of the board of directors for the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). Dr. Hoffman recently shared his views of steroid use in professional sports with Express (a free daily published by the Washington Post).
Dr. Hoffman explains why he has no regrets about is own use of anabolic steroids during the 1980s in collegiate and professional football (”Sports Talk: Off the Field with Dr. Jay Hoffman,” April 15).
Because, one, it wasn’t illegal. I did it with a physician. I had constant blood and liver function tests. I did it with someone who cared about me as a patient, making sure it was done the right way. I never did anything black market. I did it in specific time frames, that would maximize my ability as an athlete used it for a specific purpose: to be a better football player. And people have to understand there is a difference between a strength power athlete that uses it to get ready for a season versus a body builder that uses it on a consistent basis. Most individuals who use it, use it in a cyclic fashion and stacking several different drugs for certain period of time, and then come off it. There are side effects that are associated with that and the side effects are greater with the amount of anabolic steroid being used. But it’s transient. And unless there’s an underlying disease — and that’s why it’s important to go with a physician — unless there’s an underlying disease, the risks associated with it are not as great as people make it out to be. But for those individuals who never come off a cycle, the risks are very real. Many of the athletes who have died, are generally those body builders or wrestlers who never come off it.
I think Dr. Hoffman touches on some very interesting points.
(1) The patterns of steroid use by most professional athletes and competitive bodybuilders are substantially different. The implication is that it is unfair to extrapolate the side effects from extreme users of anabolic steroids to all athletes (and individuals) who use anabolic steroids for non-medical purposes.
(2) The side effects of anabolic steroids are transient in nature for the most part.
(3) The side effects of anabolic steroids have been overstated if there is no underlying disease in the individual using steroids for non-medical purposes.
(3) Steroid use can be done the “right way” with proper medical monitoring by a physician with necessary lab work.
“Why should your child, or anybody’s child, become a chemical stockpile in order to be successful in sport simply because there’s some sociopath out there that pays no attention to his or her promise of doping-free sport,” said Pound.
With this statement, not only does Dick Pound equate steroid use with mental illness, he asserts that mental illness is widespread in elite sports.
. Canseco says that baseball player Alex Rodriguez received steroids from “Max” (”
