Legal Steroids

(By Max Rosten)

There is a lot of confusion among athletes regarding the legality of anabolic steroids. First of all, let’s explain the terms legitimate and legal. There are legitimate and illegitimate steroid producers. Legitimate producers include the large and well-known pharmaceutical companies as well as some less known producers of generic drugs. Generic drugs are exact clones of original drugs and can be produced by any pharmaceutical company if the patent of original producer expired or if the producer happens to be located in a country that didn’t join the international treaty protecting medical patents (like India). Illegitimate producers include underground laboratories and producers that reside in areas with weak law enforcement, and which are not duly registered.

Medicaments made by legitimate producers (as long as they are genuine) contain the exact amount of the active substance that they are supposed to contain. Medicaments made by shady producers often contain different active substance (usually the cheapest steroid available) or contain different amount of it. Underground laboratories also have problems with contamination and dosing; every batch can contain different amounts of active substances. For more on this topic please see Quality of Black Market Steroids.

Obtaining the steroids, genuine or fake, is a completely different legal issue. There are some countries (incl. USA) where steroids are listed as controlled substance, not unlike narcotics. In other countries they are simply treated as prescription medicaments and while it is also illegal to buy them without prescription there, the offense is minor – it would be just as buying Lipitor or Prozac. Then there is a large group of countries where steroids are legally obtainable either OTC (over-the-counter) or only with prescription, but the law is not enforced. This is true about most of the third world: Africa, Middle East, Latin America, most of Asia. The situation is similar in some parts of Southern and Eastern Europe. In these countries anything goes with money, but in some of them you will most likely buy counterfeit medicaments, even in “reputable” pharmacies (typically Mexico, Egypt, much of South-East Asia).

So, if you buy steroids in such areas and do not cross the borders, you are usually not guilty of any major offense. This may, however, not be true if you buy large (commercial) quantities of medicaments. While possessing prescription drugs for personal needs is usually legal, trading in medicaments without proper license, or even buying and selling counterfeits is always illegal. Generally speaking, possessing commercial quantities of steroids can land you in jail in most areas of the world.

Now, what is a commercial quantity? This is a complicated question and many legal disputes turn around this term, especially if the quantity is relatively small. It depends on laws of the country, the common practice in that country and your fortune.

So now you know that you may get steroids in some areas more or less legally (or illegally without consequences) but bringing them home is another issue. If you live in a country where steroids are classified as a controlled substance, you will commit a crime by bringing them in any way.

If your country considers steroids just prescription drugs, you may be able to bring legally a small amount for personal use, if the customs clerk will accept your story about prescription by foreign doctor. Please notice – it may be fully legal in many countries if sold as veterinary drugs. Until the large DEA operation “Gear Grinder” in 2005, most steroids imported to USA were produced by Mexican veterinary drug-makers. The trend in most European countries is to make sales of steroids a more serious offense than illegitimate sales of prescription drugs, although few countries penalize mere possession of anabolic steroids as is the case in United States.

Since the anabolic steroids have been banned, a myriad of companies – most of them Internet-based – started to advertize “Legal Steroids” for sale. They are usually either testosterone/nandrolone precursors, or some fractions or similar compounds supposedly not banned. While the legislation is different in each country, the marketing for these products is usually aimed at US customers. In United States, prohormones (steroid precursors) belong to the same group as anabolic steroids and are thus NOT legal. Generally speaking, what is advertised as legal steroids is either not steroids or not legal – it’s as simple as that. And if it’s not steroids, it will NEVER give you the same results (not even similar ones).