Jill Atwood, of the ABC 4 News affiliate in Salt Lake City, got caught up in the steroid hysteria at the recent “Anti-steroid National Assembly Tour” at Alta High School in Sandy, Utah on Monday (”High school steroid use on the rise,” April 7).
A local high school football coach calls it an epidemic. He’s talking about illegal steroid use, and experts say is as dangerous, unpredictable, and life threatening as meth use.
The “experts” claiming steroids are as dangerous and deadly as methamphetamines were uncited. The high school coach is Les Hamilton who told his high school student athletes that steroids cause “death, pain and emotional damage.”
The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Agency and the Taylor Hooton Foundation continue to fund steroid education efforts in high schools around the country. The latest steroid public service announcement was made for the benefit of students at Alta High School in Sandy, Utah (”Students get steroid warning,” April 7).
“Steroids are an illegal drug and they can cause you death, pain and emotional damage — it all comes down to choosing right from wrong and being strong enough to encourage those around you to do the right thing,” said Les Hamilton, Alta High’s head football coach.
Coach Hamilton should compare notes with Coach Chris Connolly of Dolgeville High School in New York to maximize the effectiveness of their respective steroid education programs.
I finally had the opportunity to screen the steroid documentary Bigger Stronger Faster* at the AFI Dallas International Film Festival! This is a movie that I have waited over 15 months to see. During this time. I’ve talked to several friends who were interviewed for the film and I’ve had the chance to meet and talk to director Christopher Bell on a few occasions; I even interviewed Chris for MESO-Rx in advance of the world premiere of Bigger Stronger Faster*. As a result, my expectations were quite high for the film.
I was not disappointed as Bigger Stronger Faster* was beautifully done - well-written and well-produced by co-producers Tamsin Rawady and Alex Buono (who were at the screening along with Chris). It was well-received by the audience as well.
Chris Bell has an unassuming and non-confrontational inteview style and combined it with an amazing talent for asking the right questions. This was the key to the film as it allowed the participants to tell the steroid narrative in their own words without directorial editorializing.
I will write a more thoughtful and extensive review in the next few weeks. But I would like to briefly share a couple of thoughts about the documentary.
While this is a documentary that is very much about anabolic steroids, it is about much more. It is as if it uses the topic of steroids to explore larger issues in society. Producer Alex Buono admitted during the post-screening question and answer session that steroids were not a topic that particularly interested him; but Chris Bell’s story was compelling for reasons beyond steroids and that fascinated him.
The documentary reveals a very strong degree of anti-intellectualism that is unashamedly embraced by some participants in the steroid debate. I asked director Chris Bell about these issues after the screening. You may seen the live stream that was posted yesterday. If not, you can see Chris’ comments in the embedded youtube clip below.
I highly recommend this film to all our readers. It premieres at theatres in Los Angeles and New York on May 30, 2008 and at select theatres nationwide on June 6, 2008.
Bodybuilders who use anabolic steroids are very familiar with this problem; it is widely recognized and widely discussed in the bodybuilding community. Various doctors, writers and bodybuilders have offered possible solutions. It is accepted within many bodybuilding circles that ASIH can be largely minimized if not completely avoided.
But nowhere in the article is their any suggestion that the ASIH can be avoided or treated. It is not necessarily the fault of the author; the medical profession does not recognize the treatment of ASIH; the government does not recognize treatment of ASIH. Consequently they do not approve of treatment for the side effects related to the cessation of anabolic steroids.
This just baffles me! Why would the side effects that come along with stopping steroid use, especially if they are as dangerous as claimed, be left untreated especially if that treatment is readily available? I mean it is no secret that Taylor Hooton’s parents and doctors took him off of anabolic steroids and within 6 weeks he committed suicide. Texas has passed legislation claiming “clinical depression [occurs] when steroid use is stopped.” Kirk Brower, M.D. has told Congress during the baseball hearings that “depressive episodes and suicide attempts are most likely to occur within three months of stopping AAS use.”
If there is a treatment to prevent or eliminate the side effects associated with cessation of anabolic steroids, it should be promoted and encouraged by the government and medical community. But why isn’t it?
(1) The steroid prohibition movement is about morality and not about health. To paraphrase Radley Balko, it is better to let a steroid user suffer (and even die) rather than administer a medical treatment that could eliminate steroid side effects and remove threat of suicide. The war against steroids has taken on the characteristics of the overarching war on drugs. Balko explains the drug policy:
This is the mentality of your modern drug warrior. We’re fighting drug use not because it’s dangerous or harmful, but because they believe drug use is, in and of itself, immoral.
Today’s drug war isn’t about saving lives, it’s about saving souls.
(2) If the side effects of steroids are successfully treated, it would encourage steroid users to continue using steroids. This is probably correct, but is that a worse outcome than making steroid users suffer for making a supposedly immoral choice? The Office Of National Drug Control Policy has a strong moral philosophy and opposition to harm reduction when it comes to drug use.
These so-called “harm reduction” strategies are poor public policy because their underlying philosophy involves giving up on those who can successfully recover from drug addiction.
Let’s abandon this morality play and truly focus on the health consequences of anabolic steroid use.
