THEY offer a quick fix for young men craving the muscle-bound body of a movie or sporting hero.

But as well as boosting muscle, anabolic steroids can wreak more sinister havoc with both mind and body.

They cause severe mood swings, depression and chronic physical illness - even

 DEATH.

And steroids have recently been linked to some brutal crimes that shocked the nation - including crazed gunman Raoul Moat's murderous rampage.

Tragedy ... Moat shootings reported in Sun

Moat, 37, shot and seriously injured his ex-girlfriend, fatally blasted her new lover and shot and blinded a policeman in a two-day spree earlier this month in Northumbria.

The ex-doorman with a record of violent outbursts was a known steroid user and "roid rage" is believed to have helped fuel his attacks.

Yesterday The Sun also reported how steroid user Jonathan Vass had been held on suspicion of murdering his ex-girlfriend, nurse Jane Clough.

Ex-doorman Vass, 26, was last night still being quizzed over the murder of 26-year-old Jane, whose throat was cut as she walked to her car after a shift at Blackpool Victoria Hospital on Sunday night.

It also emerged he had been charged with raping Jane nine times, although he was freed on conditional bail despite objections from police.

Anabolic steroids are a Class C drug, which users inject or take as tablets, but are illegal to own and use unless with a medical prescription.

They make the body over-produce testosterone, so increasing muscle size and strength in a matter of weeks.

For many young men they are seen as the only way to achieve the same body as their sporting or screen idols.

Schools

The 2009-10 British Crime Survey estimates 226,000 people in the UK have used steroids. But experts warn these official figures are too low.

Dr Ken Checinski, consultant psychologist for drugs information charity FRANK, says: "I do a lot of work with needle-exchange services, run by Addaction, the UK's biggest drug-treatment charity, and half of the needles now requested are steroid packs - which is a huge increase.

"It used to be mostly needles used for injection of drugs like heroin.

"Steroids definitely make people who are already prone to mood issues worse, and can make a placid person irritable, depressed and violent in extreme cases.

"Even when used for legitimate medical reasons they cause what is known as Mood Disorder, which can be depression or anger."

Enlarge

The facts ... about common steroids

Roy Jones, of drugs charity Turning Point, agrees that needle-exchange programmes in the UK are flooded with steroid users, often more than by heroin addicts.

He says: "We're seeing more and more people come in with steroid use - from all walks of life, including doctors and lawyers."

Worryingly, he adds: "Their average age used to be around 34 but now a lot of users are in their late teens or early twenties.

"We also have a young people's service that goes into schools, and kids around the age of 12 are aware of these drugs. A colleague of mine came across a child of 12 who wanted to take steroids."

Steroid expert Dr Jim McVeigh, at Liverpool John Moores University, adds: "We're now seeing a much higher proportion of people turning to anabolic steroids as a quick fix. They take them too lightly. The number of users is definitely greater than stated in the official statistics."

Please read the rest of the article which can be found at:  http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/3071634/The-dangers-to-mind-and-body-of-taking-steroids.html 

By RICHARD MORIARTY

Published: Today

THE bodybuilder held over the murder of his ex-girlfriend in a hospital car park became "bigger and angrier" after getting hooked on steroids, pals revealed last night.

Jonathan Vass, 30 - a 17st ex-bouncer known as Jonny - was last night still being quizzed by police probing the murder of nurse Jane Clough, 26.

A pal spoke out to warn about the dangers of steroid abuse. He said: "All his friends were concerned, his behaviour became a real worry.

"He was building up and building up with the steroids. His mind has been completely altered. As he's got bigger, he's got more and more angry.

"He was taking steroids and other drugs including speed on nights out.

"His eyes were all over the place, he was permanently on edge and would make others jittery.

"It's not the Jonny we knew. He's got more and more weird. Steroids have turned him into a completely different person."

Jane's throat was cut as she walked to her car on Sunday night after finishing her shift at Blackpool Victoria Hospital.

She and paramedic Vass split last December, when he was charged with repeatedly raping and assaulting Jane, of Barrowford, Lancs.

Parents John and Penny last night paid tribute to Jane, saying: "Jane was our beautiful precious daughter, loving mother of her baby Imogen and loving sister of Peter and Louise.

"She was a fabulous girl in every sense, she was so gentle and lovely and we are absolutely heartbroken."

The couple also praised police and thanked Jane's colleagues for their support.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3071647/Jane-Clough-suspect-Jonathan-Vass-rage-on-steroids.html

In an interview with The Connecticut Post, former WWE and ECW diva Dawn Marie made revealed that she used steroids. The article which digs into Vince MacMahon and his wife's pursuit of a Senate seat, WWE's drug testing policy, and other WWE related issues. Here is a quote from the article.

"Did Vince tell me to take that shortcut? No. Did WWE? No. Why did I do it? Because I thought that's what I needed to do in order to keep up... There was not testing policy."

Marie speculates that the current roster in WWE does not appear to be using steroids and she feels the current testing policy is also stopping wrestlers from abusing painkillers. You can read the entire article at this link.

Dawn Marie has supposedly been helping out many former wrestlers with her  Wrestler's Rescue charity.

The charity has been under investigation for not actually getting any health funding to former wrestlers who are need of care. You can read more about that in this blog from the Bleachereport.

http://www.examiner.com/x-43640-Pro-Wrestling-Examiner~y2010m7d26-Former-WWE-diva-admits-to-using-steroids
 

Steroid issue not going away

 

Ct Post, Published: 04:13 p.m., Tuesday, July 27, 2010

The McMahons would probably prefer to stop talking about steroids. Until they stop making questionable statements that downplay the issue's significance, that will be impossible.

Linda McMahon, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment and current U.S. Senate candidate, was asked last month about steroids by BusinessWeek magazine. She said: "I still don't think we know the long-term effects of steroids. They are continuing to study it more and more, but I don't believe there are a lot of studies out there today that are conclusive."

A spokesman quickly softened the statement, reiterating the candidate's stance against illegal drugs. That could have been the end of it, but then came this statement from McMahon's husband, Vince, in a Hearst Connecticut Newspapers profile this past weekend: "I don't know there's really been any great research you can point to that definitely says this is deleterious to your health or in some cases it helps you or whatever. ... So I don't think there's enough empirical research done, certainly not by the government."

That would come as news to anyone who has studied the issue. Research has shown heightened risk from steroid abuse of high blood pressure and heart disease. They can cause liver damage. Studies have also shown psychiatric effects, including heightened tendency toward aggression and violence.

McMahon would very much like to put this issue to rest, but only an honest assessment of illegal drugs and their c

ontribution to her family's business success will allow that.

Continuing to muddy the issue with half-truths and outright falsehoods only serves to keep steroids in the spotlight.

I have a story to tell about Steriods. Not only is Steriod use highly addictive but it affects any children you might have in the future. I have a daughter that has just had major kidney surgury and the reason why? Is that her dad was a bodybuilder that used steriods.

Anyone that has used steriods and fathered a child should have that child under a detailed scan of his or her kidneys to check at an early stage to see if there is any defects. As the damage caused from steriod use, has not been fully investigated but more and more generations of steriod users are having children that have malformed kidneys.

If your child has a constant infection and no reason can be found for it, insist on an indepth scan. My daughter nearly dead because I did not know that a furter investigation was required. I did have second and third opinions but never was it suggested that she should have a scan, until it was almost too late.

If you are a steriod user, reach out for help and keep on reaching out until you get help. 

Ask us: Are steroids addictive?

TeenGrowth.com

Q: I'm a 13 year-old boy and I have just started to lift weights, but I really want to get steroids. I would only use a little bit at a time until I was happy with myself. Are steroids addictive and how much do they cost?

A: Although steroids are not physically addictive, they are especially dangerous at your age, and we advise against any use. First of all, at age 13 you may not have finished growing, and taking steroids can disrupt your pubertal development.Q: I'm a 13 year-old boy and I have just started to lift weights, but I really want to get steroids. I would only use a little bit at a time until I was happy with myself. Are steroids addictive and how much do they cost?

Second, anabolic steroids can adversely affect every organ system in your body while actually increasing your risk of injury. These drugs increase aggressive behavior, worsen acne, and cause hair loss, heart problems, inflammation of the liver, gynecomastia (growth of breast tissue) and shrinking testicles. Also, when taken by injection, anabolic steroids have been associated with transmission of hepatitis B and C as well as HIV infection. Finally, the desired effects of "bulking up" don't last without continued steroid use.

You will be most "happy with yourself" if you achieve your fitness goals naturally, with a healthy diet and a supervised exercise program, including weight training and aerobic activity to strengthen your heart and lungs.

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/07/15/2084832/ask-us-are-steroids-addictive.html

Steroid websites deliver right to your door

July 10, 2010

BY GREG MERCER, RECORD STAFF

WATERLOO REGION — Forget locker-room deals, stuffed gym bags and whispered words from a muscle bound man.

There’s a much simpler way to buy the kind of performance enhancing drugs that brought down the University of Waterloo’s football team – with a credit card and access to the internet.

Ordering steroids and human growth hormone through websites has become the single biggest way that those drugs are bought and sold, says the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

It’s a multimillion-dollar shadow industry that is highly illegal, and very hard to police. And it’s shipping its dangerous products to a mailbox near you.

Last year alone, agents with the Canadian Border Services Agency seized tens of thousands of dollars worth of steroids and growth hormone en route to mailing addresses in Waterloo, Kitchener and Cambridge. Records of those seizures, obtained through federal Access to Information legislation, show that the postal service has become the new pipeline for dealers trying get their products past authorities to demanding customers.

Some of the seized local shipments were as small as two glass vials of testosterone and boldenone, a type of steroid typically used for horses – worth about $100. Others packages that caught the eye of X-ray scanners at the border agency’s mail processing facility in Toronto included 950 pills of methandienone, an anabolic steroid used to aid muscle growth.

A typical order to a Kitchener address was 500 yellow, diamond-shaped pills of Stanozolol – the steroid linked to sports doping scandals from Ben Johnson to Barry Bonds. Another seizure was of 500 Methanoplex tablets, a potent steroid that can cause estrogen-like effects in men.

The seizures – which experts say are just a drop in the bucket in the river flowing into Canada – show just how common ordering from steroid websites has become. With names like steroid.com, buysteroids.com and roidstore.com, they operate out in the open like any other online retailer. Except, of course, they’re illegal.

“This is a lot bigger than most people realize. It’s dirt cheap and it just comes in the mail,” said Dusty Payne, a Washington, DC-based expert on steroids with the U.S. drug enforcement agency. “The biggest way people are selling steroids now is through these websites.”

In Canada and the U.S., buying steroids without a prescription is against the law. But that hasn’t stopped hundreds of websites from popping up, offering huge inventories of the drugs at rock-bottom prices, no questions asked. The operators of these websites are constantly on the move, trying to avoid authorities. Some maintain dozens of domain names as a virtual front for their basement and garage laboratories, making them hard to trace.

Many websites buy their product in raw form from China, repackage it and ship it off to addresses across North America. If your order is stopped by customs officers, don’t sweat it, they say. They’ll simply send out another one.

To read the rest of the article:  http://news.therecord.com/article/743204

Dear Taylor Hooton Foundation,

I am writing this letter to you because I did a research project about steroids.  I chose to write to your foundation because I feel that steroids cause death because no one knows how steroids can harm you.  Your organization looked like a perfect place that will help me.

My essay talks about the harms and side effects of steroids.  For example heart issues, strokes and Roid Rage.  My goal of this essay is any person who reads my essay will not want to use steroids because of the hard facts about steroids.

The action that should be taken should just be awareness.  I'm in high school and I can't tell you how may alcohol assemblies I have had but not once has one of them been about steroids and the harsh side effects.  People just need to become aware of steroids and side effects.

Sincerely,

Christopher M.
Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts

Man charged with possessing steroids worth more than $1 million

Greg A. Kreuz   Zoom | Photo Reprints

BLADE STAFF

A Perrysburg man is being held in the Wood County jail after police seized large amounts of suspected anabolic steroid drugs and cash at his Coe Court home, authorities said Thursday.

Greg A. Kreuz, 39, of 1903 Coe, was arrested Wednesday and charged with two counts of possession of drugs and one count of manufacturing drugs, according to Perrysburg Deputy Police Chief Mike Gilmore, who said additional charges are pending.

The street value of the suspected steroids is estimated in excess of $1 million.

The raid was the culmination of a months-long investigation by Perrysburg police with the assistance of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The Wood County Sheriff's Office and police from Perrysburg and Lake Townships assisted in the raid.

http://toledoblade.com/article/20100708/NEWS02/100709705/0/BUSINESS

Lenny Dykstra ended one season with the Phillies as skinny as an orphan begging for spare change on a street corner. He came to Clearwater, Fla., the following spring looking like a miniature "Incredible Hulk," attributing his new muscles to a weight-lifting regimen and "real good vitamins."

From that moment on, the rumors of steroid use dogged the Dude. He always denied it, sometimes with a snarl, sometimes with a twinkle in his eye.

Now Randall Lane, the former Washington bureau chief of Forbes magazine , has written a book called "The Zeroes: My Misadventures in the Decade Wall Street Went Insane" in which Dykstra allegedly confessed.

One of those misadventures, it seems, was becoming financially involved with Dykstra. And that involvement, he writes, led to an admission by Dykstra that, yes, he used steroids. Book excerpts appear on the Daily Beast Web site.

Wrote Lane, quoting Dysktra: "You gotta understand, there were only 28 people who had my job in the whole world." He was referring to the fact that there were only 28 teams.

"So I needed to do anything I could to protect my job, take care of my family. Do you have any idea how much money was at stake? Do you?"

There are actually now 30 teams in the major leagues.

Lane said the admission came during a late-night conversation in February 2008 when he was in Dykstra's New York hotel room to convince him to pay $250,000 he owed in connection with the publication of a glossy magazine he was publishing at the time.

As it happened, Roger Clemens has testified before Congress that day after being fingered in the Mitchell Report as a user of performance-enhancing substances. Dykstra's name had also been included by Mitchell's investigators. As the reports aired on a continuous cable loop, Dykstra blurted out his confession.

"You know," Lenny said, finally breaking the ice. "I was like a pioneer for that stuff."

"Excuse me, Lenny?"

"The juice. I was like the very first to do that. Me and [Jose] Canseco."

He straightened up, as he prepared, somewhat proudly, to reveal his role in this dangerous, unseemly history.

Lee Thomas was general manager of the Phillies at the time. He has said that he confronted Dykstra at the time and that the player adamantly denied he was doing anything wrong. Thomas noted that, under the terms of the Collective Bargain Agreement then in effect, he was powerless to do anything but tell the player not to do anything illegal.

Dykstra seems to have convinced himself he hadn't really done anything wrong.

"At first it wasn't even illegal. Then, after a few years, I had to go to a doctor, and get a prescription. You know how I got my stuff? Just walking into a pharmacy, bro. It was as simple as that.

Nobody who followed the Phillies at the time will be surprised by this revelation. Steroid cheats almost always deny what they've done, with Rafael Palmeiro setting the standard for outraged denial. The only mild shock is that it took this long for the Dude to get busted.

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/phillies/97401349.html?cmpid=15585797