News: Six Times More Anabolic Steroids Smuggled Into Australia Than Narcotics
Blog Entry #25
By Dan Chaiet, Senior Editor – Steroidal.com
Once again, more news of the fallout of the ridiculous prohibition laws upon anabolic steroids, this time in Australia. Anabolic steroids and performance enhancing drugs are now being smuggled at a higher rate and in higher amounts than narcotics, according to Australian customs. They report that this financial year, 22 million people pass through Brisbane domestic and international terminals, which turns out to be 500,000 more people than the previous year. Six times the amount of narcotic seizures were found for anabolic steroids during this year as well, indicating that not only is the smuggling of anabolic steroids and PEDs (Performance Enhancing Drugs) on the rise, but it has far surpassed the smuggling of narcotics.
For those who are unfamiliar with Australia and its policies in regards to anabolic steroids, in a nutshell, Australia is one of the more adamant anti-steroid countries in the Western world. Many consider Australia’s prohibition policies on anabolic steroids and PEDs to be downright authoritarian, draconian, and discriminatory in comparison to the United States (which is already bad enough as it is when it comes to steroid prohibition). The penalties for the use, possession, and buying/selling anabolic steroids without a prescription or license in Australia are known to be particularly brutal. “Australia: the anabolic steroid user’s worst nightmare” is what Australia has been tag lined with among the bodybuilding and anabolic steroid using community. Australia’s government has gone so far as to violate innocent people’s privacy in an effort to catch athletes who use anabolic steroids. Even the action star Sylvester Stallone was slapped with a $9,870 fine several years back when he brought his doctor-prescribed HGH (Human Growth Hormone) through Australian customs with him when he travelled there in order to film Rocky VI. That was a far cry from what Stallone could have faced as the maximum penalty in Australia: a $91,500 fine with five years in prison.
However, despite the draconian (and almost fascist) anti-steroid prohibition policies of the Australian government, it seems as though plenty of Australians every year are continually using anabolic steroids, and it is only growing. Australian Customs spokesperson Keven Gray said that the amounts they would seize “generally vary between say 500 tablets or half-a-dozen vials, up to several thousand tablets and hundreds of vials, depending on how frequent they want to use and how much money they have.”
In early November, 29,000 anabolic steroid pills were found that were disguised in fake medicine bottles. The fine for smuggling anabolic steroids in Australia rises as high as $170,000 and five years in prison.
It has been approximately 23 years since the official criminalizing of anabolic steroids in the United States, and other Western nations such as Australia eventually followed suit under pressure. However, the rate of use over the past 23 years has not gone down – it has only increased. The state of the anabolic steroid black market today is absolutely massive due to the demand for these drugs in countries such as Australia and the United States where it is illegal. If such a significant portion of the population is breaking the law, then perhaps the problem is that the laws are unjustified and needs to be changed, and more importantly: the current government policy/strategy is evidently not working at all.
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-13/more-people-smuggling-steroids-than-narcotics-customs-says/5155108
