07/03/09
The use of steroids comes with a great amount of risk. Legally, you risk your freedom by attempting to purchase them from an overseas or domestic source. The penalties are right up there with cocaine and heroin. In terms of your health, the drugs you buy from anonymous sources online are very likely to be tainted, watered-down, or otherwise impure in some manner. You also risk your reputation and standing in the community should you be arrested for your actions. It’s not easy or care-free buying steroids.
Back in the day (okay, five years ago), when a bodybuilder wanted steroids but didn’t want to take the legal and other risks associated with buying them, he would just visit his local supplement or health food store and pick up the latest and greatest prohormone product being advertised. He’d use the product just like a steroid, and the results would be pretty similar. Most prohormones are of the oral variety, which means – much as it does with oral steroids – that users face a high amount of risk in terms of side effects. Internal organs suffer a great deal of wear and stress from orals. Long-term use beyond 4 to 6 weeks can lead to serious long-term health complications. Given the fact that many high school students were using prohormones year-round, one can see why they were banned as well.
Wait, you didn’t know that? Yes, it is true. As of February 1, 2005, all listed prohormones (and any news ones added to the list since then), are illegal to purchase, sell, or even possess. They are listed on the same level as anabolic steroids. That package of prohormones will get your just as much jail time as real steroids will. You may be confused as you read this. After all, you can open up any muscle magazine and you will be blasted with ads offering many products, even prohormones. Each week, we are exposed to “New, Legal Pro-Hormones” in magazines, ads, and elsewhere. But aren’t they illegal? The answer is, not yet. What you are reading is an advertisement for some variant of prohormone which has not yet been classified as illegal.
Prohormones get a bad rap from those in the ‘real’ drug trade who see them as cheap knock-offs, eroding their market share with offerings to keep former steroid buyers happy. Chemically and on the molecular level, prohormones are not all that different from the commonly loved steroids you see available in overseas laboratories that arrive with a great deal of headache. Use of them will lead to gains in muscle size and strength, and loss of body fat. The main concern of lawmakers, other than the association with steroids, was the fact that are very toxic when taken for too long, which many users unfortunately were careless enough to try.
You can argue all day about the validity of a law which equates steroids with cocaine and heroin, and prohormones with steroids. This means a person purchasing prohormones faces the same legal penalties as a person buying a kilo of cocaine. It may seem silly, but it is the way the law is written.
