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).
Recently, I discussed a potential strategy for the reformation of steroid laws that has been used by drug law reformers seeking to legalizing other scheduled drugs like marijuana. In sum, instead of arguing that steroids are relatively benign drugs whose side effects have been grossly exaggerated, efforts towards reform should focus on arguing that “legalization is safer than prohibition.”
I received an email from attorney Philip Sweitzer, Esq. who strongly disagreed with this approach:
The problem with this approach is that it fails to take into account the widely disparate constitutional differences between steroids and hallucinogens/opiates, making them all part of the same “legalization” regime. Steroids should be legalized, specifically because their profile for addictive abuse is ZERO. This argument plays right into the hands of the prohibitionists, by making one issue (steroids) the same as the other (addictive opiates and non-addictive hallucinogens.) We have to get out of the “one drug is the same as any other drug” mindset, in developing public policy on drugs.
He agrees that prohibition isn’t effective, but we should never forget that anabolic steroids do not meet the traditional Control Substances Act criteria for scheduling and should never be lumped together with other Schedule III substances.
I agree with the “prohibition just doesn’t work anyway,” idea and the concept that incarceration as a tool of prohibition is a waste of tax payer money. But framing the argument around other Schedule III drugs I think buys into the notion that AAS belong there - AAS need to be OFF Schedule III.
I think he is right. While prohibition may represent bad public policy and legalization/regulation would be a better alternative, the circumstances surrounding the scheduling of anabolic-androgenic steroids are unique and deserve to be evaluated independently.
Steroid law reformers should primarily focus on repealing the Anabolic Steroid Control Act and removing them from the list of controlled substances. Regardless of feelings regarding the Controlled Substances Act and prohibition, anabolic steroids do not belong there. We should not cede this point.
