New 'Legal Muscle' Bashes Steroid Laws

An explosive new book about anabolic steroids examines conventional wisdom on the subject and shatters it. "Legal Muscle: Anabolics in America," available at www.teamlegalmuscle.com, Amazon.com, and a growing number of retail stores, makes a compelling case that the criminalization of male hormones has been a legal and medical disaster.

 
Lawyer/author Rick Collins, Esq., a former prosecutor and nationally recognized legal expert on muscle-building drugs, argues that bootstrapping anabolic steroids into the Controlled Substances Act has failed in its intended objectives of keeping them away from teenagers and competitive athletes. Declaring steroids to be illegal drugs may have bolstered their allure to many teens, and steroid use in sports, including professional baseball, has apparently surged.

"Legal Muscle" argues that removing physicians from the equation and substituting unsupervised self-administration, as the law has done since 1991, has escalated the health dangers, has restricted steroids from those who would medically benefit from them, and has stifled needed research. It has also nourished a ballooning foreign black market and has dragged thousands of otherwise law-abiding adults into the criminal justice system.

According to Mr. Collins, most people using steroids are neither teens nor cheating athletes. They're not "drug addicts" either. Rather, they are mature, health-conscious Americans who are using them cosmetically -- simply to have leaner, more muscular bodies. While the drugs do have inherent risks, Mr. Collins asserts that the comparison to plastic surgery is infinitely more on point than the analogy to other controlled substances such as cocaine or heroin.

Mr. Collins' views are attracting widespread media attention, inside and outside the legal community. He was recently the subject of a two-page profile in the January 14 edition of the New York Law Journal, was an invited guest on the Ricki Lake Show (taped February 14), appeared on NBC News (New York), and has been interviewed by ESPN.com, The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Village Voice, the Salt Lake Tribune and many other publications.