CHAPTER 23

Your Tax Dollars at Work

"The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem."
- Milton Friedman (b. 1912)

I like Mike. He's got a friendly, selfless way about him, the kind of guy who'd do anything for a buddy. "Mike" is his real name, by the way; he insisted that I use it. That's just like him. Mike lives in Maryland with his wife and family. He's about the same age as me, and we share a seasoned knowledge of all aspects of physical culture, from exercise performance techniques to diet and nutrition, as well as a love of bodybuilding since we were teenagers. We're both reaching the age where those minor training injuries take a bit longer to heal, and we laughingly compare complaints from time to time. Like me, Mike works hard and then trains in the evenings. We both enjoy our time at the gym, bookending just a little social chitchat around an "all-business" workout. I met Mike after he was arrested. This is the true story of what they did to Mike.

About a year ago, John Romano, the Senior Editor of Muscular Development magazine, contacted me about a project he was thinking about. He wanted to write an article about a real life steroid bust, and he wanted to feature one of my cases. John is a talented and entertaining writer, and I was excited to work with him. The case I suggested was Mike's. Together, John, Mike, and I put together and published the true story of what happened. Here it is, updated and in John's own brash, colorful, inimitable language.

BUSTED!: A True Story By John Romano

Steroid use flies in the face of the medical establishment because we who use them do so not to treat disease, but to enhance our looks or our performance, selfishly, for our own ego satisfaction or personal gain. You can bet that a solid chunk of the AMA is pretty much in agreement that it would be unethical to prescribe powerful hormones and medications to people who are not sick, and most doctors pretty much don't. 

Bodybuilders can't get a script to help themselves become better at what they do. They have to break the law. In some corners of the world there are the odd medical professionals who will oblige us, and those fortunate enough to be availed to such a convenience will get a "You go, boy!" from me every time. At least there's a handful of us cheating death the right way.

Keep the Feds Busy

Our government decided for us that since all major national, and practically every international, sports federation has rules forbidding the use of performance enhancing drugs, the manufacturing, sale, distribution, and importation of such drugs would be deemed illegal by persons not licensed to do so. This ultimately led up to someone in the Bush administration having his/her arm so twisted by the do-gooders, that anabolic steroids were included in the Controlled Substances Act in 1990. This added steroids to Schedule III of the DEA's list of controlled substances, the only drugs on the list devoid of euphoric or consciousness-altering properties.

A tiny minority of alarmist members of the medical community proclaimed that they didn't want athletes to use steroids because steroids are supposedly dangerous to their health; you have to be in bad health first, then you can use them. So, they join the sports lobby and manage to get the Feds to agree, and they do, and why not? More civil servants have become agents; they need to be on task forces and special drug units so they can do something. The cops need something to do so they can justify letting the crackheads keep multiplying while asking the taxpayers for more money.

Then they get to go out and try to rub something as innocuous as steroids off the map by throwing everyone who buys and sells them into prison! Yeah, that makes sense - let guys work out all day and have the government pay for it. They don't want athletes to use steroids so they use taxpayer money to investigate, arrest, and prosecute the offenders with the intent of locking them up in a joint with a huge weight pile so the taxpayers can support the convicts while they train without drugs. Not even in a cavalier sense could this be considered purposeful government spending. The greatest risk there ever is to a bodybuilder is not his health; it's his freedom.

As much as this screams to be fixed, this is the usual course every so-called "battle" in the war on drugs takes. It's so retarded. The federal government has proven time and time again to fail, and fail miserably, fighting this war that it can't possibly win. It costs the taxpayers gazillions in the process, the government keeps losing, but it still keeps "fighting" in its tired, old, ineffective way. The Feds never accomplish anything but throw thousands of people in jail to suck on the tax rolls. All you have to do is reminisce about the touted scourges of the street throughout the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s to see the wreckage.

Has the use of heroin, cocaine, marijuana, amphetamines, and PCP declined significantly over the years? Not significantly; those drugs are certainly still around. Yet each of them, and others, have enjoyed the DEA's spotlight while it champions a reason to increase its budget. Look at all the attention Ecstasy has been getting. Far more people suffer health risks due to over-the-counter drugs, but, dog-gone-it, those rave parties are just not wholesome and by golly they've a mind to do something about it. Unfortunately, these are the very people who should be on Ecstasy. Eventually the news will ebb, the Feds will claim victory and they'll be off looking for another party to stop while the old one keeps rolling. They'll never get people to stop using Ecstasy, just like people still use the other drugs the government fought to get rid of.

The reality is, the Feds are not fighting anything; they are just feeding the machine that keeps the wheels turning. If steroids disappeared off the black market and everyone could get them as legitimately as aspirin, what would all those special agents and task forces and special drug units be going after? They're civil servants; they always have a job. And therein lies the rub. If a federal agency fails to spend all of its budget one year, it won't get what it wants the next. You never hear of a DEA agent getting laid off because there's not enough work. They'll find something for which to bust you, I promise.

However, while much of the media focus is on steroid testing in sports lately, they are as illegal as they ever were to buy, sell, transport, distribute, import, conceal, carry, etc. It's not illegal to use them though. I always thought that was kind of funny - yeah, okay, I can use them, but how the hell am I supposed to get them into my bathroom? Well, my friends, that's where you take the chance. And in doing so, you may end up just another casualty of the war on drugs.

Valid Medical Use? Not!

I'll bet you never think of that when you're getting ready to gear up. Too busy with those blood test results, and who's got what, and is it fake? And if it is a fake, is it a good fake? Will the guy over the Internet really send me my shit after I send him the money orders? And where are all those syringes supposed to come from? Am I going to strangle my girlfriend when the test kicks in? These are but many of the concerns drifting through a would-be steroid user's brain prior to fixing his cycle.

Most guys don't think the bad guys are ever going to get them for buying just a few measly bottles of this or that, and they shop for their gear pretty much like they would shop for a Mother's Day present. In fact, many Internet sites that are still working sell real live steroids delivered to your "address" just as conveniently and as efficiently as FlowersDirect.com will deliver that killer spring bouquet to your mom. That's where the similarities end, though. No matter what, your mom will get the flowers and she'll just love them. The same can't be said about you and your alleged delivery from FarmaciaJuarez.mx.com. Some packages make it, some don't; the ones that do aren't always a hit. That's the chance you take.

But what of the shipments that don't make it? They pile up somewhere and, if the pile gets big enough, it can eventually lead the way to your door. Since it can, I think it's only fitting that you guys understand what you're in for when you order something and instead receive a note from Uncle Sam telling you they have it. Your problems are not over if you just crumple it up and throw it away like you're supposed to. If you keep ordering, eventually a DEA agent dressed as the mailman will come knocking with your alleged package under his arm. He's not working a second job for the post office; he wants to arrest you.

According to renowned New York steroid defense lawyer Rick Collins, "The U.S. Customs Mail Division searches packages that arrive at international airports. Packages from 'hot' areas like Thailand, Eastern Europe and Mexico are reportedly often targeted. Suspicious packages can be opened and examined. When controlled substances are discovered, Customs will seize the package and exercise one of two options. The first is to send a "seizure letter" on "Department of the Treasury, U.S. Customs Service" letterhead. A seizure letter is a notice from Customs notifying the designated recipient that his package has been detained for investigation. In the case of anabolic steroids, this would occur because the importation of controlled substances is a federal offense.

"The letter offers the opportunity to contest the seizure by providing proof of a legitimate medical basis for the importation. Since using steroids for building muscle is not a valid medical basis, steroid seizures are almost never contested. If the designated recipient doesn't respond, there will generally be no follow-up (although the addresses of origin and destination and designated recipient's name will be entered into the Customs computerized data system to help "flag" future packages). A bunch of prior seizure notices will make future packages more likely to be inspected, and will make the second option, a controlled delivery, more probable."

A Normal Kind of Guy

The "controlled delivery" option (when a DEA agent gets to drive the FedEx truck) was the option exercised on one of Mr. Collins' clients - well, sort of. Let's call him Mike. His experience is truly a testament to why those on the "other side" dislike the cops. With all the brouhaha associated with the deleterious health consequences of steroid use, we never seem to hear mention of the deleterious effect getting busted can have on you, your wife and kids, not to mention your health and well-being. How odd is that? Far more steroid users are in jail or awaiting trial than in the hospital or the graveyard, yet you never hear about the legal end. Now, I know "using" steroids isn't, in fact, illegal. However getting them in the U.S. without a prescription, even for free, is. Mike got such a prescription for his first two cycles, yet found that the allotted amount - 200 milligrams of Deca twice a month for two months total - wasn't going to cut it, and he couldn't get a script for more. Mike had the next best thing though: access to the Internet.

As with most things in bodybuilding, everything works, but nothing works all the time. His story is certainly one you should be aware of the next time you order your gear electronically because it goes way beyond the scope of what you might be in for just scoring out of some guy's gym bag. His wife - a prominent member of the community who never had so much as a parking ticket on her record and who had absolutely nothing to do with his steroid use - was busted and charged along with him. Their children were home alone when 15 cops served the search warrant, and they were first rate dickheads. As insane an account as this may sound, the reality is that it not only happened, but it could also happen to you.

I met Mike and his wife, Kim. He's a pretty normal kind of guy; a 42- year-old computer analyst with a stable job. He owns his home with his wife of three years that they share with her three children from a previous marriage. Kim, 39, is a licensed funeral director and mortician, who was previously a registered nurse. Mike began bodybuilding at age 16 as a way to positively focus his energies while he ditched his recreational drug use. While he permanently gave up recreational drugs at 21, his weight training efforts continued, and he still trains today.

He trained naturally until his mid 20s, then became convinced by virtue of the popular bodybuilding publications he regularly read, that anabolic steroids could greatly enhance his training. He started by using 500 milligrams a week of testosterone with 20-30 milligrams a day of D-Bol and he gained 50 pounds in two years. He also experimented with Finajet, Bolasterone and Deca, partially on the advice of late steroid guru Dan Duchaine. He then quit steroids for approximately 10 years and continued to train naturally.

At 37, he decided to try steroids again to enhance his training. At Mike's age, natural hormones are in a state of decline and hard, dedicated training and proper diet and nutrition come with little reward for someone with more youthful aspirations. Of course, this can be terribly frustrating and certainly the impetus for using performance enhancing drugs, just as much as it would be for a 20-year-old Olympian. Although the argument could be made that the Olympian has better reason to use performance enhancing drugs, that argument could be bested easily by the dude in the mirror, as long as he believes: To thine own self be true. Mike's only regret was waiting so long.

Attorney'S Note

"Mike is pretty typical of guys arrested for juice. Without doubt, some teenagers do try steroids. We should target our societal efforts toward stopping them. But the overwhelming majority of my steroid clients are otherwise law-abiding guys in their late 20s to mid 40s with stable jobs and no criminal records. What happened to Mike in this case can happen to anyone ordering steroids through the mail. The extent of the indignities and the unusual coincidences in Mike's case were exceptional, though. So was the degree of combined ineptitude and zeal by the police involved and the degree of negligence by the court." - RC

The Thailand Connection

Mike established a rapport with overseas sources using the Internet and was able to order steroids for himself without restraint. What led to Mike's arrest was the D-Bol he was getting from Thailand. He'd order in 1,000-tablet amounts (the minimum order), typically sent in 10 separate envelopes, a hundred in each. At first, these were received with ease. But soon after, seizure notices were arriving instead of the steroids - a sign that Customs had become more aware of these particular shipments from Thailand.

It was a similar shipment from Thailand for 10 envelopes of 100 tabs each that caused Customs to alert the local authorities. And thus, a case that really should have had federal jurisdiction was handed over to a bunch of inexperienced redneck local cops. Obviously, the Feds couldn't be bothered with such a spindly little case, but to the county cops of this little suburban community just outside Baltimore, it was like Pablo Escobar had just hit town. They proceeded to obtain a warrant and conduct a search of Mike's home and cars, despite the fact that the destination of the order was a P.O. box and no controlled delivery was ever conducted. There really was no link between the drug intended to go to the P.O. Box, and Mike's home and cars, other than speculation that Mike was a big drug dealer. Well, big for Mike and Kim's sleepy little town.

Attorney's Note

"The handling of the investigation - of Mike's entire prosecution, in fact - showed the total inexperience of the authorities involved. While Customs agents reportedly made nearly 9,000 steroid seizures last year, juice remains an area of confusion for most agents, prosecutors, judges and defense lawyers. A controlled delivery of the package is step one in mail importation busts. An agent posing as a courier or letter carrier attempts delivery supported by a hidden back-up team often including postal investigators and local law enforcement. Once the package is accepted, the agents move in to arrest the suspect, question him and ransack his home.

"In situations where a mail drop or post office box is the destination, agents will usually invent some ruse to force the suspect to come out and personally claim the package. Or, if necessary, they'll stake out the scene to see who comes to pick it up. The controlled delivery is a way of getting the package into the suspect's hands, strengthening the case against him, and a way of justifying a warrant to raid the residence. In Mike's case, no delivery was done, yet a judge authorized a search of Mike's house. The validity of a search with little nexus, or connection, between a post office box and the box owner's residence like this is debatable, with courts in different states deciding cases differently." - RC

So, one day, Mike arrived home from the gym, opened the door and was accosted by three armed county cops. He was quickly handcuffed, read his rights and led to his kitchen to wait while more than a dozen other uniformed and plainclothes cops searched his house and car. The cops had been there for hours, entering the home while Mike's three daughters, ages 11, 13 and 17, were home alone. Soon thereafter, Kim arrived. The ladies were made to sit on the couch for five hours and were not even permitted to use the rest room.

As luck would have it, during the search, the children's biological father pulled up. He happened to have been visiting the children at their basketball game that evening. Kim told the officers executing the search that her ex-husband was a Delaware State trooper with a violent temper against whom she once had a restraining order. In deference to the problems her ex-husband could cause if he found out his daughters were home while the house was being searched for Mike's steroids, Kim asked the cops not to make the situation apparent. As soon as the words left her lips, several uniformed officers began hanging around the front of the home for no apparent reason other than to tip the children's father off. He, of course, flashed his badge and inquired as to the nature of the activity, and they explained that a search for anabolic steroids was underway. Let's just say that didn't go over too well and it was totally unnecessary.

Comedy of Errors

The cops concluded their search and made off with 1,000 D-Bol, 1,000 A-bombs, 25 bottles of test, some Primo and nonscheduled items - IGF-1 and insulin. They also took a bottle of Pamprin, the dog's heartworm medication, a blood pressure kit, all Mike's bodybuilding magazines, steroid books, and an old Dan Duchaine price list from the '80s that Mike was keeping as a remembrance of the guru. They got Mike's computer, too. The search warrant expressly stated that no cash was to be seized from the home, yet, $3,660 cash, which could be verified as wedding gifts, was seized and lost to forfeiture.

Attorney's Note

"While Mike hired local civil counsel to deal with the forfeiture issue, the illegal seizure of the wedding money was just the beginning of the bungling by law enforcement in this case. But, while most people who watch TV know police mishandling can be used to get a case tossed out or even sue a municipality, few realize that in the real world it's a stacked deck. Some non-malicious varieties of police or clerical screw-ups are deemed 'harmless error' by the courts and simply hurt the accused. Police mistakes can cut either way. I've seen hundreds of steroid cases with various legal infirmities, but Mike's case was an unprecedented 'comedy of errors.'"
- RC

The cops uncuffed Mike and left with their stash to go assemble their case against him. Mike then hired Rick Collins. Rick communicated with the authorities and found out that Mike and Kim were being charged with "intent to distribute anabolic steroids," at that point in the case a misdemeanor, and that they had to surrender themselves to the authorities. They were jailed for the day and eventually transferred to appear before the commissioner who released them on their own recognizance.

Charging Kim was absolutely ludicrous. She obviously wasn't a steroid user or involved with either the trafficking or the possession of such drugs. The county officer in charge of the case said that if this was repeated he would deny it, but Kim's arrest was only for leverage to insure a conviction of Mike in the case. If he pleaded guilty, Kim's charges would be dropped. Including Kim in Mike's case is just one of the dirty little tricks the cops can get away with. In Kim's case, a conviction would mean losing her mortician's license and putting her out of business, not to mention the extra legal fees for another lawyer.

Attorney's Note:
"Mike contacted me for help. In cases where two people get busted for the same crime, and especially where one is involved and the other has nothing to do with it, a conflict of interest arises. That means it's potentially unethical for one lawyer to represent both. My firm technically represented Kim, with another lawyer representing Mike. But, hey, my personal concern was for both Mike and Kim. A big portion of my work on the case involved supervising and consulting on issues specific to Mike's defense. A key issue in the case against Mike was whether the sheer quantities of anabolics involved were indicative of an 'intent to distribute.'

"While the list of various pharmaceuticals and the amounts recovered from Mike's house were substantial indeed, they were not necessarily inconsistent with personal use for a heavy, hardcore user. Of course, the prosecutors were used to dealing with street drugs like cocaine and heroin, where only 20 or 30 individual product units might prove intent to sell. They were totally convinced from the outset that they had a high-level dealer. In fact, they believed the 1,000 tablets of methandienone alone that came to the P.O. box proved an intent to sell (a totally ludicrous position given that 1,000 was the typical minimum order from the overseas supplier). They were out for blood, absolutely convinced of their position.

"In fact, we actually had a roundtable meeting at the courthouse in which I went head-to-head with the police department's 'steroid expert' on the issue of whether or not the quantity recovered was consistent with one man's personal use." 
-RC

Misdemeanor to Felony

Months went by, and finally it seemed they had worked out a deal for a plea agreement that Mike and Kim would accept in court, in lieu of going through the trial. This would typically be a deal in which the defendant would plead guilty to lesser charges in exchange for saving the government the expense and effort, and sometimes embarrassment, of putting their show on at trial.

At 4 pm the day before the trial date, however, Rick found out that in both cases the misdemeanor charges were going to be dropped and that new felony charges had been filed. The deal was off, which meant Mike and Kim would now have to go through the indignities of being arrested for a felony. This usually includes getting fingerprinted, strip searched and locked up for hours, if not days, in a filthy cell and then formally brought before a judge, magistrate, commissioner, etc., to be charged and hear their plea.

Attorney's Note

"The police in Mike's case originally charged misdemeanor violations related to prescription drugs, not felony 'controlled dangerous substances' charges. Why? Because they were confused about what the substances were and about what their legal status was. To coin a phrase, many cops don't know an Anavar from an aspirin."  
- RC

Mike and Kim were promised that both Rick and Mike's local lawyer would be informed of their surrender date so they could surrender themselves by summonses directly to the court rather than go through the entire process of executing warrants and going to jail, etc., all over again. But that didn't happen. In a sad coincidence, the day the cops decided to execute Mike's warrant happened to be the day Mike's mother passed away. Four hours after her death, Mike arrived home from the hospice and found a county cop waiting for him. Mike assumed he would be served with a summons to appear in court. However, it was a warrant for his arrest. Apparently a "clerical error" caused the foul-up and Mike's warrant had not been changed to a summons as promised. He spent most of the day his mother died waiting to get bailed out of jail.

Kim, knowing she would likely be the victim of a similar "clerical error," surrendered herself to the county police department four days later. Rick made arrangements with the police to have her processed swiftly and requested that her transfer to the commissioner be immediate. That didn't happen either. Kim was made to wait for five hours in a filthy cell, strewn with human waste, where there was only a small patch of ground for her to stand where she felt least likely to contract hepatitis. She was finally transferred, in handcuffs and shackles, to the commissioner's office. In the process, she was led past crowded areas where she encountered many people she knew or with whom she had done business.

Kim and Mike's lawyers filed "notices of appearance," a routine procedure in criminal cases. Once filed, neither the lawyer nor the accused needs to make an initial appearance just to answer the charges. However, the paperwork on Kim's case, though properly filed, was lost by the court clerks in a backlog of papers to be filed. The judge, not in possession of the "notice of appearance" and not seeing Kim in court, issued another warrant for her arrest. The county police went to pick up Kim that evening and arrived while she was bathing. Her 12 year-old daughter answered the door and said that her mother was not there. The poor kid was totally badgered by the cops before they left, threatening to return to take her mother away. The lawyers straightened it out the next day, but not before Mike, Kim, and their kids spent a sleepless night waiting for the cops to return; they never did.

The First Degree

Some time after that incident, another county cop arrived at the house inquiring as to Mike's whereabouts. The same 12-year-old answered the door and was again badgered by the officer. She told the cop Mike would be home shortly, so he left, only to not return again.

Ultimately, several trial dates were postponed because, after a full year, the detective in charge was still busy reviewing all 1,300 pages of e-mail from Mike's computer. The cops needed to provide some evidence that warranted the felony charge of distribution. One sentence, of the 1,300 pages, stating to a supplier that Mike needed "to satisfy some people over here" was exhibited as evidence that he was a steroid dealer.

Switching the blame of urgency to fictitious, impatient associates is a common tactic to coerce a slow moving supplier to begin to send a delayed order. Obviously, if Mike were a big Internet steroid dealer, there would be more than just this one partial sentence out of 1,300 pages of e-mail. Even so, the state insisted on pressing for the felony regardless of the lack of evidence. Their determination to convict was unexplainable, especially in a case of such a victimless crime. One day, Mike was in court with a man who sodomized and raped a 14-year-old; an armed bank robber who had robbed four banks in a year; and an armed robber involved in an assault. What did Mike do to be in such company? According to Rick, sarcastically, it was BODYBUILDING IN THE FIRST DEGREE!

Finally, 15 months after the search warrant was served, a determination on Kim and Mike's case was made in the Circuit Court. Rick had tried to get the state to agree to "Probation Before Judgment" (PBJ) and to dispose of the case since it started, but the prosecution wouldn't hear of it. Ultimately, the prosecutor backed down and Mike received a PBJ with two years' probation and no criminal conviction on his record; Kim's case was dismissed outright.

The money seized has still not been returned. Nor have Mike's computer, or his steroid books and other items not relevant to the case. Mike and Kim also had to pay legal fees and deal with an extraordinary amount of stress and family strife throughout their ordeal with the cops and prosecutors. The good news is that Mike didn't go to jail. You can bet that's because he had Rick Collins and his law firm behind him. Rick is passionately committed to the cause, and has traveled across the country defending steroid cases himself or assisting other lawyers to do so.

So, what did this little skirmish on the drug war battlefield accomplish? Not a damn thing. I'm not an advocate for breaking the law, although I've certainly done my share of it and I've paid the price. However, you will never get me, nor many bodybuilders, to stop using anabolic steroids drugs simply because the government says we can't. First of all, the government doesn't know a damn thing about steroid use and its potential dangers relative to bodybuilding, other than the hype the equally ignorant medical community feeds it.

Any hardcore gym in America has more knowledgeable steroid experts as members than the AMA. The medical community and the government's efforts in eradicating steroid use are clearly a case of the blind leading the blind. So long as cigarettes and alcohol, responsible for tens of thousands of deaths each year, are legal to purchase and pay taxes on in the process, the illegality of steroid use by bodybuilders will always be looked upon as a ludicrous waste of government spending. Clearly, the steroid laws need to be changed to accommodate the mature bodybuilder; bodybuilding is not a crime, and bodybuilders should be free to bodybuild, to whatever degree they choose. We don't need to be protected from ourselves, we need to be protected from our government, and that sucks.

Well, that's Mike's story, in John Romano's vivid prose. I'll never forget Mike being dragged to jail on the day his mother died, for no other reason than bureaucratic bungling. The prosecutor subsequently apologized for it, but it was a little late at that point. Maybe his embarrassment is why he didn't try to freeze Mike's bank accounts or initiate forfeiture proceedings on the family residence. Mike's civil lawyers took the state to court to try to get back his money, but it was ultimately cheaper to compromise with them than drag it out. So Mike lost some of his wedding money, and by the time they returned his computer he'd already bought another.

The taxpayers lost, too. The government man-hours devoted to spying on Mike, drafting
affidavits and warrants, conducting surveillance, executing the delivery and raid, drafting reams of court papers, arresting Mike's innocent wife, repeatedly arresting Mike by mistake, combing through 1,300 e-mails, bouncing in and out of court for various appearances, and taking space on the docket, were all financed by the unwitting populace. In an era of limited resources, all those precious hours devoted to the relentless pursuit of stopping Mike from juicing seems unspeakably wasteful. Mike's as peaceful as a lamb. Mike's not hurting anybody, perhaps not even himself. And here's the scariest part: there are a lot of guys like Mike. What happened to him is being planned for them. You can bet that tomorrow, agents somewhere will be spying on some new poor soul's packages, then bringing an affidavit before a judge. Once again, thousands of dollars will be spent and man-hours squandered in the misguided crusade to save a soul from himself. Another Mike will be put through the ringer.

But before we start bashing the police, though, let's not forget that we're paying them to enforce the laws on the books - not to pick and choose which ones to enforce. Once we allow our politicians to enact laws empowering authorities to act, we foist upon those authorities the responsibility to act. Looking the other way, even if it seems appropriate under all the circumstances at the moment, could later be viewed as dereliction of duty or arbitrary enforcement. You can't give law enforcement the direction to go after something and expect them to pull their punches. In fact, you should expect that many authorities will enforce the law to the highest limit of their authority. And why not? The system is designed to reward that. Next year's budgets will be based on this year's investigation and arrest numbers. In some cases there'll be abuse. You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, as they say. There's a price to protecting society.

From an institutional standpoint, the days of common sense and enforcement discretion are pretty much gone in many jurisdictions, among both police and prosecutors. Their hands are tied. I recently spoke at length about anabolic steroid cases with a former high-ranking Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) for the Middle District of Georgia. He served before the imposition of the sentencing guidelines, and commented on the policy differences that have emerged since he left the office:

"Our philosophy was that every technical violation of federal law did not have to be enforced to its utmost without any input of common sense. In particular where a defendant was clearly a menace and danger to society, we did everything legal and ethical, and with great vigor, to put him (or her) away as long as possible. I understand we were known in the legal community as being basically fair but also very "hard nosed." It's just simple reality that some violations of the law are much more serious and require much more stringent enforcement than others.

"From talking with AUSA's currently serving in an active capacity and former AUSA's from the more recent era, it seems that things have changed considerably, and in my opinion not for the better. I understand that now they basically "keep score" - the more convictions an AUSA gets and the more time the AUSA's defendants get to serve, the better the AUSA will appear on his or her next performance evaluation. It literally seems to be somewhat similar to the old joke about the police officer who has a traffic ticket quota to cover each month, but with far more serious consequences. They no longer are encouraged or even allowed to exercise any judgment or discretion as to how vigorously cases should be prosecuted, and against whom - they simply pursue each and every case with a view toward getting as many convictions as possible, and the harshest sentences possible, absolutely without any regard to the facts involved in each individual case.

"Quite frankly, I am glad I served as a federal prosecutor prior to the demonization of steroids and the passage of the current steroid laws, because if one of those cases had come before me I would have some serious difficulty dealing with it with a clear conscience, given what I know about anabolic steroids. I have no philosophical problem with certain medications being by prescription only, and certainly believe that drugs like heroin and cocaine are very dangerous, and without question have severe addiction potential. However, it is totally incomprehensible to me that anabolic steroids came to be classified the same as morphine, for example, and treated as if they were addicting drugs that are as dangerous as street drugs such as crack or heroin. The process by which this occurred simply suited the ends of the media, sports, political and law enforcement communities. The average citizen has no idea how out of whack it is to apply the 'war on drugs' to anabolic steroids."

This ex-prosecutor's position is consistent with those of many enlightened members of the justice community, including many active police officers with whom I have spoken. These are definite law and order types, who favor an aggressive approach to narcotics interdiction. But with anabolics, they say that they find themselves enforcing laws they plainly disagree with. As for the rest of us, is this the way we want our tax dollars to be spent?

Anyway, long after the case was finished, I saw Mike at the Arnold Classic bodybuilding expo in Columbus. We hung around and had a few laughs. It's so rare for lawyers, especially criminal lawyers, to actually like their clients. How much can criminal lawyers have in common with the rapists, robbers, burglars, prostitutes, crackheads, murderers, and thieves so many of us represent on a regular basis? I'm thankful every day that I'm doing something that makes me feel passionate and righteous. I'm grateful that I have so many clients with whom I have much in common and whose company and conversations I enjoy. I like fighting for worthy principles, and for decent people. I like Mike. I think you would, too.

The material presented is for informational purposes only, and not to be construed as legal or medical advice.