Bigger, Stronger, Faster For quite some time now, people have wanted to become a physically stronger person. Most people whether they just want to gain muscle mass or become a stronger athlete, would go to the gym and put in hours on end doing whatever it takes to reach their goals. When people push their body to limits to finally reach their goals, they feel like they can accomplish anything they want, so they figure they can push it even further to surpass their goals. People who think have this mindset will start supplementing to push their bodies even further than before. When they have reached their max, they still have that mindset of exceeding their goals and resort to a drug that has been around the 50s. When steroids first became available in the public market, the drug was unregulated and anyone could buy and use it for whatever they wanted. It took about forty years for it become regulated, regulations put steroids as a schedule 3 under the controlled substance act making its possession illegal without a prescription. Steroids are one of the most controversial substances to ever be made and are still common today. There are mainly two uses of steroids, medicinal and performance enhancing. Medicinally used steroids can be used to treat anything from a rash to asthma. There are about three names for steroids; corticosteroids, used medically, and anabolic steroids or HGH which in the athletic world is used to boost performance or in the medical field to replace sex hormones. All over the world steroids are being used to treat numerous illnesses. By many people when steroids are brought up they usually think of a big raging bodybuilder injecting steroids. In the bodybuilding building industry steroids are used to build huge muscles. When a natural bodybuilder is lifting weights, they are creating micro tears in their muscles allowing their muscles to get larger; it usually takes a few days to fully recuperate which will result in increased strength. However when a bodybuilder injects anabolic steroids and goes the weight room, just like a regular bodybuilder they are creating micro tears into the muscles, but the steroids allow them to recover during their work out instead of a few days. This allows the steroid users to build muscle faster, last longer in the gym and become bigger than humanly possible without steroids. Steroids would be the greatest drugs ever to be made if it weren’t for the many side effects and adverse effects of the drug. For males they may develop breast like pecs, severe acne all over the body, extreme hair growth all over the body, and the most common side effect, shrinking of the testicles. Females may suffer from many side and adverse effects as well. Bodybuilding women will develop male traits such as a deep toned voice and huge muscle due to the testosterone intake from the steroids. Women’s clitoris will grow overtime, and they will also share some of the effects men suffer through. Internally, in the human body, many things can go wrong while taking steroids. Users may suffer from hypertension, high cholesterol, cysts growing on organs, which leads some people to question whether it’s even worth taking. In my opinion it’s not worth risking my life just to get bigger, I have been lifting weight regularly for almost a year and I am seeing great results. The main reason body builders suffer from so many adverse and side is because they are injecting themselves up to one hundred times the amount of testosterone the human body makes, for females its worse because they hardly make any testosterone. When athletes are using steroids in the sports industry, they aren’t injecting nearly as much as the bodybuilder are, which is why we don’t really hear anything happening to them medically. From what we hear from other athletes who are caught “doping”, most professional athletes are using steroids. Most athletes are pressured with millions of dollars, if they want to be more than just an amazing athlete and keep getting rich they figure they have do whatever is takes in order to do so, which is why they succumb to the pressure and use steroids. Steroids within the medical industry or corticosteroids are widely used. It’s mainly used to supply hormones to where it’s insufficient in patients. Athletes, if they want to obtain steroids “legally” they would go to any prescriber that uses HGH or human growth hormones in their practice, just by proving that they aren’t producing enough sex hormones through a take home urine test. In the medical field, doctors rarely give more hormones than the human body makes which shows that the drug can be very beneficial in a controlled setting. Statistically speaking steroids are actually way down in the list of killers, which raises the question of why it’s illegal in the first place when officials have far greater things to worry about. Before steroids became a schedule 3 drug, ruling it illegal to obtain without a prescription, many health officials actually voted against in doing so. Also, since the drug is under the controlled substance act, steroids go under the drug enforcement administration’s jurisdiction, and most people who are caught taking the drug illegally will go to prison or pay an extra-large fine. Even though steroids are illegal it doesn’t stop people from obtaining the substance from the black market. Steroids are illegal in every sport in the U.S, but are not regulated throughout bodybuilding competitions or anything else for that matter. This also raises the questions the legitimacy of the controlled substance. Even actors are using the drug, that’s how they are able to get such great bodies in such a short time. In my opinion it should not be illegal, if people want to take the drug they should be allowed to do so, it’s their choice. Also it doesn’t even compare to the illicit drugs out on the streets that are killing millions ever year.