Addiction to steroid drugs in Ireland is increasing, though those who take them don’t identify themselves as drug users.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/steroid-drug-use-on-the-increase-in-ireland-study-of-drug-users-in-dublin-has-found-1.1409012

Profiling more than 300 drug users who used services at a needle exchange centre in Dublin 7 per cent of were using steroids, used to enhance performance and image. For the majority, steroids were the only drugs they were using and all users were men.

This places greater focus on gymnasia and health clubs, and tanning salons, where illicit drug use – of steroids and tanning enhancers – is at its greatest. The wish to ‘look good’, top heavy and muscle bound with a nice tan, can be achieved the hard way or through the injection of illicit and often unregulated and therefore unsafe drug supplies.

Sharps bins are now increasingly common in the gents toilets of many gyms and health clubs, for use by the staff clearing discarded needles, or permanently fixed to the wall in the expectation that users will behave responsibly and place their own sharps into the bin. It seems that only a modest proportion of this self-injecting group – these drugs are mostly administered intramuscularly – engage with needle exchange schemes or a GP. Needle & syringe re-use and sharing is therefore common. This increases the risk of abscesses and other soft tissue infections from dirty needles or poor injection technique, and sharing of bloodborne virus infection.