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[Definitie:] "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance."
(Wilmore and Costill) 
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2 5 - 0 2 - 2 0 0 5 Dangerous cycles
Steroid abuse hits closer to home than some parents may want to acknowledge
Posted on Sun, Feb. 20, 2005
It wasn't hard to get the "juice." Austin Blackburn was a senior at Keller High School when he called his cousin at Plano High, looking for a shortcut to a better physique. Blackburn's cousin put him in touch with a college athlete who'd graduated from Plano High, and within four days Blackburn was injecting himself with Deca-Durabolin, a commonly abused muscle-building steroid. "I wanted to look better, feel better, feel stronger -- feel more like you want to feel as a guy," said Blackburn, 21, who played football and wrestled in high school and is now in college. While steroid abuse may not set off the alarms that heroin, cocaine and marijuana do, teens say the drugs are prevalent in Texas high schools, where football is king. And they're easy to get. Anabolic steroids cross the border from Mexico and come from other unregulated countries as far away as Russia and Thailand, where the drug is not regulated. Steroids are available over the Internet, too. But North Texas students interviewed for this story said they usually get them through friends and acquaintances to avoid being caught in an Internet sting. Local law enforcement and school authorities are grappling with the problem after nine Colleyville Heritage High School athletes admitted in December that they had used steroids during the 2003-04 school year. A meeting aimed at informing parents and teens about the dangers of steroid abuse is set for Thursday at the Colleyville Heritage High School auditorium. Guest speakers include Don Hooton of Plano, whose son committed suicide in 2003 after abusing steroids. The need to succeed tempts jocks, and sometimes even their parents, to seek out the drug, which can quickly increase muscle mass and improve performance. For some teens, vanity and a desire to succeed outweigh the risks. Blackburn and other athletes said steroids are openly discussed in locker rooms and weight rooms. That's where they often make connections to buy the drugs, which are commonly called "gym candy," "Arnolds," "pumpers," "stackers" or "juice." In Blackburn's case, he approached his cousin, who had used the drugs. He also befriended steroid-using weightlifters at a Southlake gym. "It usually comes from someone a little older," Blackburn said. "When you see someone who looks like they are on steroids, you can get it from them." Blackburn said he was willing to discuss his steroid use because it was a short chapter of his life that he now sees as a mistake. Others who discussed their steroid use were unwilling to have their names published because they did not want friends and family to know. Police get involved In Tarrant County, illegal anabolic steroid distribution is not investigated as frequently as other controlled substances, said Ronnie Clout, northeast sector commander for the Tarrant County Narcotics Unit. The narcotics unit began investigating the steroids pipeline after Grapevine-Colleyville school district officials met with the Grapevine and Colleyville police chiefs. The unit has leads on three suspects who may have supplied high school athletes with steroids, a spokesman said. Administrators with the Grapevine-Colleyville school district are continuing their investigation, which goes beyond nine students at Colleyville Heritage High School. The results will be turned over to the narcotics unit. "We've just put out this districtwide appeal for anybody who has any information," said Robin McClure, district spokeswoman. Students have come forward with information, but she declined to say whether the district suspects that other students used steroids. The number who have admitted using them has not changed, McClure said. Since December, coaches at Colleyville Heritage High School have talked to all athletic teams about the dangers of steroid use. Athletes had to sign a form indicating that they had received the lecture. A Colleyville Heritage football player said coaches and parents should have known about the illegal steroid use. "Everybody on the football team knew it was going on. Some of the kids were putting 40 or 50 pounds on over the summer," he said. "I find it kind of ironic that everyone else could see it happening. ... It was just a complete blind eye. It was kind of like 'Don't ask, don't tell.' " Colleyville Heritage football coach Chris Cunningham said he has tried to be aware of signs of steroid use. "I disagree that the coaches turned a deaf ear to it and looked the other way," Cunningham said. He referred other questions to McClure, who said that the district has been educating students about steroid dangers for years. Anabolic steroids can create serious health problems, including heart attacks, liver damage and high cholesterol. They can also lower sperm count and cause impotence, baldness, excessive body odor, acne, sudden mood swings and aggression. McClure said district officials and coaches were unaware of the students' steroid abuse, and that it is hard to identify. "Teen-agers are growing. Acne occurs. They are in the weight room, building muscles and getting bigger, which is what you want from your athletes," McClure said. Dodging the law Prescriptions for anabolic steroids must be issued by a practicing physician who has physically examined the patient, said Gay Dodson, executive director of the Texas State Board of Pharmacy. But a doctor would never prescribe anabolic steroids for a young, healthy person who simply wants a better body, experts said. Steroid use is openly discussed on Web sites, as are methods for getting illegal prescriptions online. "It's very hard to keep up with on the Internet because if you close one down, the next day they're up on another site," Dodson said. It is illegal to carry or mail anabolic steroids into the United States, but people do it anyway. The drugs are carried here from Mexico, flown in from Europe and Asia or shipped through the mail, experts said. Along the nation's borders and at international airports, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers often confiscate anabolic steroids. "They are easily smuggled into the United States," said an undercover North Texas narcotics investigator, who has worked more than 20 steroid cases. "The price you pay for them in Mexico is usually a third or a quarter of the price here." In June 2000, the U.S. Border Patrol in San Diego discovered a cache of illegal steroids valued at $64,000, including 90 vials of liquid testosterone inside a ceramic Winnie the Pooh statue. "Sometimes they come in vials," said Rick Pauza, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Laredo. "They are hidden in vehicles or on a person's clothing. Sometimes they are hidden under the car seats." Customs officers at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport mail facility scrutinize packages entering the United States. They are on the lookout for narcotics and other drugs and controlled substances, as well as plants and food. Steroids have been hidden in disposable cameras, flashlights and videotapes, they said. In 2004, customs officers made about 600 steroid seizures at the mail facility, said Paul Rimmer, port director for customs and border protection at the airport. He said his officers make an average of 20 to 40 seizures a year of passenger baggage that contains steroids. "Most people don't declare it because they know they don't have a prescription and they know it's illegal," Rimmer said. Federal officers said anabolic steroids are seized weekly at San Diego's San Ysidro land port -- the busiest in the world. "It can be anybody. It can be a grandparent. It can be a young man. It can be a bodybuilder's girlfriend," said Vincent Bond, public affairs officer for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in San Diego. The role of parents In Texas, 6.6 percent of male high-schoolers said they had used illegal steroids, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention youth risk behavior survey for 2003. That same survey showed that 3.3 percent of Texas high school females admitted to using the drug. A 19-year-old Carroll Senior High School graduate, who briefly played football for the Dragons, described how he obtained three cycles of steroids through a network of friends. He and a friend drove to Katy and car-pooled with a group of users to Galveston, where they bought steroids that had been smuggled through Mexico. "He would have several boxes of it," he said. But he stayed away from the Web. "You don't mess with the Internet," he said. "That's how people get your address." Blackburn, the Keller High School graduate, said the source is often in the next bedroom. "If you're in Texas, the level of competition and the way people compete here -- it's a totally different degree of intensity than in any other state," Blackburn said. "Parents are willing to give kids steroids." Like Blackburn, the former Carroll athlete bought Deca-Durabolin. He paid $150 to $200 for two to three cycles. He injected himself with steroids over a six-month span and ballooned from 115 pounds when he entered high school to 155 by his sophomore year. In three weeks, Blackburn went from 220 pounds to 235 pounds. His bench press increased by 25 pounds to 415. Blackburn said he stopped injecting steroids before graduating from high school because it was becoming obvious to his parents and friends. "I looked like a water hose had been put in my veins," he said. Controlling the influx of illegal steroids is impossible if parents don't recognize the problem and stop the demand, said Becky Lennox, a certified chemical dependency counselor in Arlington. "It's a real hush-hush, very secretive type of thing. These kids and these parents literally see these kids getting better, so it's almost acceptable," Lennox said. |
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