Illegal anabolic steroids are easily purchased over the Internet from foreign Web sites, and the drugs sometimes contain dangerous contaminants, an investigation by The Hartford Courant found.
The Courant spent six months examining the Internet steroid culture before buying the drugs from three Web sites with the same technique a teenager could use. The newspaper received shipments from all three sites and had the drugs tested at a laboratory.
Test results showed that one sample contained small amounts of arsenic and tin. Another contained small amounts of lead, and the other had traces of benzyl chloride, a preservative that can produce pulmonary edema.
“You would not want your loved ones anywhere near this stuff,” said William Ullmann, whose team at Northeast Laboratories in Berlin, Conn., conducted the tests.
The Courant began searching for Web sites on Google that sell anabolic steroids. A Courant reporter spent weeks on steroid-related message boards, where users discuss every facet of the drugs and their effect. The message boards did not provide names of sites that sell steroids, but users warned of scams.
After finding three sites to purchase the drugs, The Courant placed orders and wired money to the overseas addresses.
The first shipment arrived in a plain padded envelope at a post office box within weeks after the order was placed. The second order came hidden in an electronic device and was delivered to a residential address.
The steroids in the second order were concealed in a data switch, a computer peripheral. The package included a bogus invoice with the names of phony companies.
The third order took months to arrive at a residential address; a first shipment may have been seized by U.S. Customs, although no seizure letter was sent. Still, the overseas Web site re-sent the order, and it was delivered in a padded envelope.
The Courant found that law enforcement is unable to track the sale of steroids over the Internet because the Web sites are often based in countries where the drugs are legal.
“The sites are readily accessible to users in this country, but are based in countries where steroids are unregulated,” said Bridget G. Brennan, New York City’s special narcotics prosecutor. “Any steroids we’ve ever seized have been manufactured in foreign countries.”
The Courant also discovered that the Internet is the new conduit for steroid users, replacing dealers at gymnasiums. The pattern described by federal law enforcement officials has first-time users buying from a person they meet — usually at a gym — before turning to the Internet. Tracking the sale of steroids over the Internet is difficult for local and federal authorities. And when packages are seized, prosecutors are challenged to make charges stick.
Meanwhile, The Courant found the drugs being shipped from overseas are not what they are advertised to be. Besides the dangerous contaminants, a sample of Winstrol had a concentration of steroids 82 percent higher than the amount on the label.
“It’s loaded, and there’s no instructions on how much to take,” Ullmann said. “Seems to me, it’s pretty doggone dangerous.”
Steroid message boards also include advertisements for a Web site that says it will provide prescriptions for legal steroids. The Courant found the Oasis Longevity & Rejuvenation Institute of Delray Beach provides prescriptions without a face-to-face meeting with a doctor.
The company sends a prescription if a patient sends a blood test, physical exam, medical history, copy of his or her driver’s license and a signed treatment agreement. But procuring steroids through the Oasis Institute is no more legal than buying from an overseas Internet site, law enforcement officials said.
At no point during the process of purchasing the drugs from the foreign sites was the age of the buyer questioned. The Courant spoke to steroid experts who fear teenagers can find a steroid tutorial on the Internet and can buy the drugs with a few clicks.
Donald Hooton, an anti-steroid activist from Texas whose son, Taylor, was a steroid user before committing suicide, told the newspaper the Internet steroid culture is spreading misinformation about the health and legal risks associated with the drug.
“Parents need to wake up,” Hooton said.
The Hartford Courant is a Tribune Co. newspaper.
