Evidence that megadoses of anabolic steroids can affect the brain and produce mental changes in users poses serious questions about possible addiction to the drugs.
While investigations continue, researchers at Yale University have found that long-term steroids users do experience many of the characteristics of classic addiction: cravings, difficulty in ceasing steroids use and withdrawal symptoms.
Pennsylvania State University researchers studied a group of high school seniors who had developed a psychological, if not physical, dependence on anabolic steroids. Adolescent users exhibit a prime trait of addicts-denial. They tend to overlook or simply ignore the physical dangers and moral implications of taking illegal substances.
Certain delusional behavior that is characteristic of addiction can occur. Some athletes who "bulk up" on anabolic steroids are unaware of body changes that Are obvious to others, experiencing what is sometimes called reverse anorexia.
Supply And Demand: The Black Market
Many users maintain their habit with anabolic steroids acquired through a highly organized black market handling up to $400 million worth of the drugs a year.
Until recently most underground steroids were legitimately manufactured pharmaceuticals that were diverted to the black market through theft and fraudulent prescriptions. More effective law enforcement coupled with greater demand forced black marketers to seek new sources.
Now black-market anabolic steroids are either made overseas and smuggled into the United States or are produced in clandestine laboratories in this country. These counterfeit drugs may present greater health risks because they are manufactured without controls and thus may be impure, mislabeled, or simply bogus.
Sales are made in gyms, health dubs, on campuses, and through the mail. Users report that suppliers may be drug dealers or they may be trainers, physicians, pharmacists, or friends.
It's not hard for users to buy the drugs or to learn how to use them. Many of them rely on an underground manual, a "bible" on steroids that circulates around the country.
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