Why are steroids illegal?

[Qadgop_the_Mercotan]

@Wesley Clark

Define therapeutic. To me perscribing anabolic steroids isn’t much different than prescribing diet pills or anti-depressants.

“Lack of muscle” isn’t exactly a disease or illness and it doesn’t lead to other diseases and illnesses though (unlike obesity and depression), so I can see your point. At the same time using drugs to try to improve yourself is the same no matter if you are using drugs to cut fat or drugs to build muscle.

Treating wasting diseases like AIDS and a host of others. Treating gonadal failure, thus providing the hormones which are absent and retarding normal growth.

There are many valid reasons for prescribing anabolic steroids.

And I don’t understand your opposition to treating mental illness.

QtM, MD

[Wesley_Clark]

@Qadgop the Mercotan

Treating wasting diseases like AIDS and a host of others. Treating gonadal failure, thus providing the hormones which are absent and retarding normal growth.

There are many valid reasons for prescribing anabolic steroids.

And I don’t understand your opposition to treating mental illness.

QtM, MD

I’m not opposed to treating mental illness. And I know anabolic steroids are useful for treating a variety of chronic wasting diseases. They can also function as a male birth control.

I am stating that improving yourself is one of the primary goals of anti-obesity pharmacology and anti-depression pharmacology. Lack of muscle isn’t a disease like depression and obesity and it doesn’t lead to any medical conditions like they do, but there is a very strong trend in treating these two diseases ‘just’ for the quality of life improvements people would get out of changing them and not just because they lead to other medical conditions and because they are medical conditions themselves. In a way alot of antiobesity and antidepression pharmacology is recreational, since it is partially designed to make people more content with themselves and happier. I don’t see the difference between using medications to treat depression or obesity to improve quality of life vs. using medications to become more muscular to improve quality of life.

[ultrafilter]

@Wesley Clark

I am stating that improving yourself is one of the primary goals of anti-obesity pharmacology and anti-depression pharmacology. Lack of muscle isn’t a disease like depression and obesity and it doesn’t lead to any medical conditions like they do, but there is a very strong trend in treating these two diseases ‘just’ for the quality of life improvements people would get out of changing them and not just because they lead to other medical conditions and because they are medical conditions themselves. In a way alot of antiobesity and antidepression pharmacology is recreational, since it is partially designed to make people more content with themselves and happier. I don’t see the difference between using medications to treat depression or obesity to improve quality of life vs. using medications to become more muscular to improve quality of life.

Obesity and depression are both potentially life-threatening conditions. Treating them is hardly recreational.

[Wesley_Clark]

@ultrafilter

Obesity and depression are both potentially life-threatening conditions. Treating them is hardly recreational.

The majority of overweight people are under 50lbs overweight, and not seriously life threatening at ages 20-30 (drugs are prescribed to people in their 20s for obesity). And depression is life threatening yes but noneless in the world today alot of people being treated for obesity or depression want the treatment just for the quality of life improvements the treatments give, and not for medical purposes. Anabolic steroid use is not different in that respect.

[II_Gyan_II]

@ultrafilter

Obesity and depression are both potentially life-threatening conditions. Treating them is hardly recreational.

They can be. Beyond some point on the obesity/depression spectrum, people afflicted will experience lower quality of life and exhibit disruptions. By the same token, not everyone classified with these conditions falls into that category. Good health simply means a slow rate at which one approaches death. Society ought not to condemn those who wish to make it even slower or sweeter.

[chaparralv8]

@Gary T

And there’s pretty much no other way to say, make a nose smaller,

Ever see a bench grinder?