Steroid Abuse Among Police Personnel

Professional athletes are not the ones blamed for using illegal drugs to increase body performance. Along with them, there is another category of social class that draws more attention: copes. Over the last decades were registered numerous cases of exaggerated aggressiveness showed by law enforcement personnel which was proved to be caused by the use of steroids. Anabolic androgenic steroids are illegal drugs. Selling, use or possession of AAS can send you for at least one year on the other side of jail bars.

How then it’s possible that those entitled to defend the law violates it flagrantly?  As some study shows, as many as 20%-25%  or even more law enforcement officers are regularly taking steroids.

Their number could be even higher, but as all those who decided to talk about this phenomenon says, it’s quite difficult to set a particular number as steroids user cops since they form a some of the subcultures hard to get in.

Police Implied in Smuggling Steroids:

Steroids can be bought legally only with the prescription, and are quite mild drugs with low anabolic effects. In order to get illegal anabolics, cops become corrupt and implied in different drug crimes.

They act outside of the law and this is worse than any side effect associated with steroid use. A dangerous equation that has as result the decrease in people’s trust in the law enforcement community.

Steroids Cause Increased Aggressiveness in Cops

Aside from their illegality, steroids use in cops may cause another undesired effect: violent, aggressive behavior which contributes to police brutality, even murder. Cops tend to build a defined physique, meant to provoke respect and fear.

No rare were cases when cops developed a high aggressiveness, getting irritated and agitated very easily when there were no reasons for it.

 Prolonged use of steroids in high doses may cause a range of psychological troubles like:

-Mood swings (even to violence);

-Damaged judgment;

-Depression;

-Nervousness;

-High irritability;

-Hostility and aggression.

There is a term which defines the violent behavior caused by steroid use: steroid rage. This aggressiveness is caused by the modifications occurring in the brain: dopamine receptors responsible for impulse control are changing. As a result, users experience uncontrolled aggressiveness feelings and their judgment is damaged.

In the best case, it is believed that if steroids are not responsible for violence, their increase the likelihood of an aggressiveness act to end up with violence. Why the same aggressiveness is not seen in world sport? If steroids are the main cause for aggressiveness, why it is not observed in athletes who take them vene in higher dosage?

Those who defend steroid use bring as the example the study done on 43 meds (source), which have taken the same amount of testosterone for weeks. In the final, there were no differences between the steroid-treated and other groups.

This leads to the conclusion, that if the individual shows already aggressiveness signs before steroids consumption than due to physical improvement, this symptom just worsens without blaming steroids for this. Largely discussed on reddit.com, the subject of cops on roids has provoked long debates.

Look what a user says in defend of steroid use: “If you take 170 lb asshole and turn him into a 210 lb asshole, he’s more likely to speak his mind and not be scared of another person. However to blame the actions of many cops on steroids is asinine to me.

If “roid rage” was such an actual side effect, where are the fights at baseball games or the Tour de France? It’s a mindset shared by the people who are attracted to “law enforcement” that is the problem. It’s the lacking of checks and balances that need to be on the headline, not steroids and “roid rage.” (source)

What is indeed curious, is that authority takes noticeable steps against the use of steroids in sport, like drug tests able to trace which of them has been on roids. Police officers are monitored for steroids use, but is based on visual aspects too.

Unless the person shows behavior problems,  he is not suspected for steroid use. This raises a warning since many of those who take as may be manipulated with this and continue being on drugs while exerting protective functions. The lack of systematic drug testing has to be fulfilled with a closer attention on law enforcement community.

Especial attention should be on those policies officers who participate in competitive bodybuilding organized in some cases by the police department.  It is very dangerous to put a gun and power on a person which has not total control of his reactions and behavior.

Must Read: Emotional Effects of Steroids