Hitler developed and used the first androgenic steroid for use during WWII. There are stories about his elite units running around killing and raping without sleep. Drug use had been widespread and at least indirectly encouraged during America’s intermittent wars. From marijuana and acid in vietnam, to the military’s prescription of modafinil during gulf war 2, the soldiers are drugged one way or another.
I recently heard an anecdote from a friend that their military friend used to get served regular food in the dining hall. Except their meat was never cooked there. It always came in individualized cans caked in special sauce… This person reported feeling “different” after eating the meat. He had bulked up considerably during his stay in the military, despite the military’s focus on endurance training over resistence programs.
Also I saw a picture of a guy on facebook who is in the military. He has puffy nipples (gyno).
Anyone have any hard evidence on this? I’m looking at you Clayton, but its not letting me PM you.
Technically speaking the US military only allows steroids as part of a therapy prescribed by a doctor. Soldiers can be tested, either at random or if their superiors suspect they are abusing the substance. Practically speaking tests are rarely (if ever) carried out: between 2008 and 2011 only 300 soldiers were tested for illegal steroid use while 450.000 were tested for cannabis, cocaine and other narcotics in the Army alone. (source: Seattle Times)
Officers aren’t very eager to investigate steroid abuse. In fact the only recent investigation came as a result of an investigation by a civilian police department. The investigation was conducted in a very sloppy manner: Army investigators requested the whole battalion involved (4/23rd Infantry) to be tested but this was refused by Army legals. By pressing the matter investigators were only able to incriminate two officers, one NCO and nine soldiers. They were given very light sentences, 30 days confinement being the norm. Confront with what happens when a professional cyclist is caught using ANY banned substance (including perfectly legal dieuretics): even if he manages to escape the clutches of the law he will face a two year suspension as a minimum.
So the military may not be giving steroid to soldiers, but it really doesn’t seem to mind.
@Sieben: No, I haven’t heard of this before but I wouldn’t be surprised. It is common knowledge that enlisted are the government’s first pick for involuntary guinea pigs… Trinity, MK ULTRA, etc. I’m getting more paranoid about food supply generally. I have found that I cannot eat fast food for more than 2 or 3 days in a row (once a day) without getting serious digestive problems. I’ve noticed odd smells in the fast food, as well… very reminiscent of canned dog food. But it doesn’t stop there. Most fruits and vegetables seem relatively tasteless compared to what I ate when I was a kid. Strawberries are grotesquely oversized, starchy and dry. It’s a crap shoot when you pick up an orange whether it’s going to have any juice in it or just be a clump of dry, orange-colored pulp inside. Just look at water fluoridation, it’s positively horrific. I lived in a city with fluoridated water for about two years and all eight of my rear molars now have cavities. Never had a cavity in my life before that. Even bottled water - why can I detect a “bouquet” in bottled water? Shouldn’t it just be pure? The company where I work has an on-site Cafe with a company that sub-contracts to them. I feel weird every time I eat there, many times, I feel downright ill afterwards. Why? How come all the other people who frequent the Cafe don’t notice this? I eat out on average probably once or twice a week and I don’t feel ill at commercial restaurants but I feel ill after eating at the Cafe. What the hell are they putting in the food, and why?
If I drink a cola I tend to drink Coke. But on the rare occasion that I have a Pepsi, I get a pounding headache immediately afterward. Is there a “customer-loyalty chemical” in these products that punishes you for switching to the other side?
Starbucks is starting to creep me out. Have you noticed that most Starbucks buildings (stand-alone) are cinder-block construction and resemble a bomb-site target building more than anything? I began wondering to myself if Starbucks is a Pentagon-owned or -influenced corporation when I happened to be looking at Google maps the other day which shows - surprise! - there is a Starbucks actually in-house in the Pentagon building. That in itself doesn’t prove anything but it’s piqued my suspicions all the more. (See this book for why you should be suspicious of Pentagon involvement in ordinary commercial products). I’m a caffeine addict but after I started drinking Starbucks coffee, I noticed that if I drink home-made or any non-Starbucks coffee, the same thing happens as when drinking a Pepsi after a Coke - pounding headache.
Of course, everyone’s physiology is unique and people probably react to different things differently. I probably don’t notice things that bother other people and vice-versa. But the point is I have no confidence that the FDA is not permitting all sorts of very, very bad stuff to be done to our food.
Back to the military. I’ve heard they put Alum in the food-supply during boot camp to suppress sexual urges (I’ve heard prisons do this, too). Maybe they put it in a lot of other food. The military’s needs with respect to its enlisted ranks is to keep them busy enough with menial tasks that they don’t have extra mental bandwidth to contemplate their true purpose… to be disposed of whenever needed by the brass. So, I would imagine that drugs and chemicals that tend to suppress day-dreaming, creativity and other imaginitive behaviors would be something they would want to incorporate into the food. Similarly, the military needs to maintain a culture of aggression and indifference to human life within its ranks, so drugs and chemicals that enhance aggression and so on may be something they would want to incorporate in the food (or the “vaccination” stabs they regularly give the enlisted troops.)
Anyway, that’s my two dollars’ (due to inflation) worth.
I have found that I cannot eat fast food for more than 2 or 3 days in a row (once a day) without getting serious digestive problems.
It’s called fast food being crap and really bad for you.
Most fruits and vegetables seem relatively tasteless compared to what I ate when I was a kid.]
What happens when you switch to pass production with chemicals to ripen the fruits. Picking them green off the vine, carrying them thousands of miles.
Strawberries are grotesquely oversized, starchy and dry.
Mass production again + GM (possibly). When quantity goes up, quality goes down.
All of the above are observations I’ve had coming to the US from Europe. In Europe, you are typically closer to your food source and it is generally smaller farmers (assumption here mixed with some info about my home country in Eastern Europe).
It is possible that there are non-conspiratorial reasons behind your experiences with modern food. I won’t go into specifics, but my worldview on diet is that you have to be aggressive or else you get nowhere. People who eat whatever they feel like or whatever is most easily available tend not to have very good success.
With respect to the military, I agree. They have a track record and agenda that suggests they’d be open to AAS usage. On another forum, the military guys vehemently deny any possibility of AAS on the ground that the military drug tests its members regularly. This is kind of a dumb theory because the military would not test for and prosecute against its own drugs.
Though its worth noting that they perceive themselves as strongly drug-free… almost supercompensating. The military is trying to push a very clean/disciplined image, and AAS would destroy that. This total categorical refusal to use performance enhancing drugs would look pretty funny alongside some quote about how badass and dedicated the military is supposed to be.
Well, steroids can cause roid rage, which is not useful in the middle of a wartime situation if the guy turns on his own men.
Also, isn’t alcohol abuse super-high in the military? So to pretend like drug use is not a problem is moot. And I don’t blame the poor devils. They’re being sent to kill others and dies. It makes sense they’d abuse drugs.
Some steroids cause roid rage. Other forms don’t seem to. The knowledge base of the mainstream medical community is very limited, and therefore my ability to substantiate this is limited. However, experimentally, I can’t really think of any incidences of where professional bodybuilders (who both use and know the most about AAS) have gone off the wall. Some of them get kind of ticked off about competition results, but thats like their whole career being determined in those moments. They’re also dieted down to very low bodyfat, which is more stressful on the body than any AAS.
But yeah. Drug abuse, particularly prescription drugs for anxiety are problemmatic in the military.
The media never misrepresented anything. People with pre-existing mental conditions are more likely to use AAS. I mean, this guy was a WWE wrestler…
And my claim isn’t that AAS can’t cause roid rage. Its that some do and some don’t. Studies investigating aggression/steroids turn up inconsistent results, indicating that AAS alone don’t do much.
About the media thing: Yeah, I agree, but it’s a starting point for discussion. Pointing to any source assumes a form of bias, really. I just picked one. Don’t know of any other source of such info besides the media (plus, this is what I had remembered).
Alrighty then.
It is scary to think that the army could/would institutionalize steroids. Oh, man, imagine what that could be.
I’m just drawing on my knowledge of the lives of pro bodybuilders. Interviews and stuff that give me an impression about their lifestyles. They use more steroids than anyone, so you’d figure they’d suffer from the most problems. To be sure they have psychological hangups, but nothing specific to rage.
Here’s a controlled study showing that roid rage doesn’t appear even with supraphysiological doses of AAS, but I still think that the type of AAS likely plays a role.
I think the military probably already drugs the hell out of its special units. Staying awake for days, kill kill kill. The military has used modafinil for “alertness”, but its mechanism of action is closer to amphetamines. Its just a question of getting the military to admit that they dope up their killbots.
There’s one thing to consider. Bodybuilders are usually extremely dedicated persons and as such are often very well informed about side effects of the various supplements they use. For example they know very well Methandrostenolone (commonly called Dianabol) leads to massive water retention and plan their training and dieting/supplementing regime accordingly. Soldiers (or anybody else) taking AAS just to “bulk up” are not as well informed and dedicated as bodybuilders and as such may incur in more severe side effects as the result of improper/excessive use.
Also there are no definitive study about the so called “roid rage” phenomenon, so there’s no consensus. Drug response is highly variable and cannot be explained (at the moment) by demograghic, physiological and psychological factors. Some people become aggressive, other have bouts of depression, the majority seem to show no mood and behavior changes. More studies are needed and the denial of the military to look into the matter seriously is hurting medical research.
Allow me to finally add a personal experience: for a brief period I took AAS myself. It was under medical prescription to repair soft tissue damage and I purchased the drug legally so I have no problem speaking about it in the open. It worked wonders for my injury but during the same period I also experienced the usual effects commonly associated with AAS: I could train harder and longer, I used to eat like a hungry lion and I built up much more mass than I would have otherwise. But when I took the last vial I was really happy to be done with it.
My source sometimes sells to law enforcement in my town. Usually the po po are pretty good about juice since a lot of them use.
These days I just go to a country where they are legal and use them. There are zero penalties for using them if you just want to get stronger and look bigger, because when you compete against yourself you don’t have to penalize yourself. I do not know a single person who is healthier than me, in terms of stuff like cholesterol or triglyceride levels, fasting blood glucose, etc. If you get tired of not making very quick gains in the gym because you’ve been training for years, do your research and then try them.
There’s nothing bad about them. They became bad and “immoral” in the US when the US made them illegal after a Canadian beat an American at the 100 m in the Olympics. Then the US pressured the governments of industrialized countries to make them illegal too. People were using them freely and openly in the 80s at gyms when they were legal. People were getting stronger. And where’s all the deaths? It’s just like pot. Everyone who thinks these things are dangerous when cycled properly has never bothered reading a Pubmed study and does not understand that dosage and duration determine the safety of any drug.
You can go to plenty of countries to use them legally. For example, they are legal to possess in Canada (but illegal to traffic). Just south of the United States, you can buy them at a pharmacia in Mexico or any central American or South American country. In fact, they must be legal to possess without a prescription in every country of the Americas other than the US.
Go American freedom! I guess your politicians couldn’t stand people using medical technology to improve themselves.
