Steroid abuse continues to grow

imageSteroid abuse and the risk of infection through drug vial and needle sharing continues to grow.

Our reference to this, and the increasing number of young male gym users and police officers using illicit steroids to bulk up, have been criticised by at least  one ex-senior police officer who chooses to defend the practise while at the same time denying that it exists.  How wrong can he be?

New clinical services in Dublin have been established to address the growing number of people using steroids to “enhance” their bodies, and who are presenting to needle-exchange programmes.

Recent increases in steroid use accounted for up to 10 per cent of those injecting drugs in 2014.

Research conducted in the area last year, and highlighted in the Merchants Quay Ireland Homeless and Drug Services annual report launched on Friday, puts the average age of users at 24 and calls it a “relatively new phenomenon”.

“Traditionally you associate steroids with athletes but the research we are pointing to is people who want to look good,” said Mark Kennedy of the Merchant Quay programme.

The service aims to establish clinics two nights a week in the capital within the next few months to advise users about safe use and harm reduction.

In some parts of the UK, needle-exchange programmes, generally associated with heroin use, have been primarily dealing with people injecting steroids.

While they do not carry the same dependency risk, they have the potential for physical and psychological harm. Indeed, it is foolhardy to expect a level of safety through engagement with a needle exchange programme since dipping into a shared drug vial, even with a new and sterile needle, or more likely with your own previously used needle that may now no longer be sterile, risks virus transmission from multi-use of that vial. The medical and scientific literature has many outbreak descriptions where disease transmission was propagated in this way.

The Merchants Quay study found from a sample of 89 “Performance and Image Enhancing Drugs” users (Pieds), 50 per cent had never tested for HIV or Hepatitis C; 38.2 per cent reported increased aggression; 31.5 per cent mood changes; and 19.1 per cent anxiety and 18 per cent depression.

Every use risks infection from a dirty needle, and more seriously the transmission of bloodborne virus through shared syringes and needles, or sharing of a large bottle of an illicit steroid product.

There are disposal problems too, from discarded drug vials, and from those who do not engage with exchange services, from carelessly discarded needles that are often found in the toilets and changing rooms of high street gyms.

 

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