Dawn of the War on Steroids

Abstract

In May 1987, the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed a federal indictment naming 36 co-conspirators in the largest anabolic steroid trafficking ring in history. A two-year federal investigation revealed a $100 million black market operating in the continental United States, of which an alleged 70% was supplied by a rag-tag trio of would-be drug barons: David Jenkins, an Olympic silver medallist; Dan Duchaine, a successful author and renowned steroid authority; and William Dillon, an aeronautical engineer from the Midwest. Much like alcohol bootleggers in the Prohibition Era (1920–1933), the men capitalized on a void left in the market by increased government regulation. In the mid-1980s, a 20-year drug review campaign spearheaded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration culminated in the removal all anabolic steroids from the pharmaceutical market; a host of widely-used substances excised in one fell swoop. Revelations of systemic drug use in the Olympic Movement begot a paradigm shift in anti-doping enforcement in the early 1980s; however, no such shifts occurred in the legislative agenda. It was only after the ring was dismantled that American policy makers began to take notice, commencing in earnest a war on steroids that continues to rage on.