Legalize Steroids!

Aside from our discussion of exorcisms on this week's Culture Wars, we talked about Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban's comments about steroids in professional sports. This has been getting only a few lines of news copy here and there, and one of them can be read right here.

Predictably, one can read some "outraged" responses to Cuban's comments on most web sports sites. Cuban's just trying to be outrageous and controversial, most of these complaints charge.

Actually, Cuban's being way too low key and conservative in his comments. What he should be saying is that steroids should never have been made illegal in the first place!

The criminalization of steroid use will, hopefully, one day be right up there in the anals of American legal history as one of the all time stupidest laws ever, EVER passed. Right up there with the prohibition of alcohol. It belongs in those humor books listing stupid, archaic laws on the books, all the ill-conceived nonsense like the counties that make walking your aligator on a leash in public illegal. Like the FCC given the power to fine broadcasters for too much sex and violence.

In his comments, Cuban explains that limited, doctor-supervised steroid use should be tolerated as long as it can be proven that there will be no negative side effects...

Come on, Mark, you can be more daring than that! Where is the trademark Cuban bravado and willingness to court controversy?

Doctor-supervised steroid use, of course, is already legal. But what I want to pick some bones with is the statement about allowing steroid use as long as it can be proven that no negative side effects will result. The fact of the matter is that there is HARDLY ANY valid, scientific evidence that steroid use is life-threatening in any way. And I'm talking about scientifically conducted research at a university, research which is then peer-revieved and published in a scientific journal. Scientific evidence that steroids are a threat, something that will hasten your trip to the grave?? DOES NOT EXIST.

What does exist is a whole lot of locker room mythology and stories about the friend of a buddy who heard that his girlfriend's brother got some pills from a training partner that did this and that.

As far as what scant little scientific research exists, there is some evidence of...drumroll...hair loss is some steroids users. Or acne! Or the tenderness in the nipple areas. Some elevated cholesterol levels or some raised blood pressure levels. Hardly the scourge of modern America.

Binging on too much chocolate can also cause acne in some. Too much bacon and greasy meat can also raise cholesterol levels. Too much salt might take up your blood pressure too! Reading anything ever published by L. Brent Bozell can take up the blood pressure of anyone with an IQ higher than the average belt size.

Stronger and clearer data about the side effects of steroids exists when it comes to female steroid use. Women who use too much steroids, like professional female bodybuilders, have shown signs of secondary male characteristics developing. Things like the deepening of the voice or the growth of excess body hair or the coarsening of the skin. But is any of this life threatening?? No! And if female athletes choose to tolerate these effects on their bodies - if they choose to defy a social construct of acceptable appearance and standards of attractiveness - is it really the role of the government to come in and start punishing them? No!!!

The history of steroids and the law is yet another infuriating case of a moral panic running amok. It's a history that goes back to the 1980s and early 90s when the brain cancer and death of football player Lyle Alzado made headlines. Before his death, an emaciated Alzado, a toothpick-thin version of his old self, declared that he believed that his long years of steroid use gave him brain cancer. This captured a lot of media attention. What did not was the fact that Alzado's own oncologists - that's cancer specialist - did not believe that there was any evidence of a link between Alzado's juicing and his cancer. But a sticky little detail like science didn't get in the way of a moral panic sweeping America and over-eager crusaders and politicians passing laws, as usual.

I would have loved hearing Cuban make a few statements like these. But he felt a little too timid that day, unfortunately.

Oh well...gotta hit the gym and pump some iron. But I really wish I could legally do something about this plateau I hit with my bench presses!