This video explores how a medium-scale steroid importation, ‘brewing’ and supply operation based in the South-West of England operated, presenting findings from a recent paper for the journal Performance Enhancement and Health. This presentation explores several aspects to how supply of IPEDs operates, starting by looking at how ‘drift’ into steroid supply occurs, and how the focus of this case study graduated from ‘social’ to ‘commercial’ and wholesale supply. It then examines how ‘raw’ steroid powders were accessed from China through an online contact, and imported into the UK, before looking at the ‘brewing’ process to turn these powders into injectable-form steroids, and the implications of these processes for product quality in local markets. Finally, the actual operations of local market supply at the ‘wholesale’ level are examined, including particular focus on how labelling of product and ‘branding’ occurred, as well as ‘social supply’ aspects to the market even at this wholesale level, before discussing seller perceptions of violence surrounding the market. Implications of these findings are then discussed before Q&A.
This is a presentation of a research paper published by Performance Enhancement and Health, which can be found here:
. Copyright belongs to Elsevier (this presentation was made in accordance with their standards for author reuse).
Timestamps:
0:00 – Introduction
1:23 – Background context, IPED use & supply
3:22 – Purpose of the article
4:05 – Detailing the research Methodology
8:39 – ‘Drifting’ into steroid supply
11:59 – Underground labs (UGL) & overview of how product is ‘brewed’
13:48 – Prevalence of UGL / steroid importation
15:31 – Accessing raws (powder steroids) from China
17:44 – Shipping & receiving product and insurance
21:32 – Purity of raws and presumptive testing
23:39 – Exploring ‘fakes’ and product quality
25:28 – Setting up the ‘lab’ for brewing
28:08 – Exploring sterility, high-quality product vs ‘bathtub brew’
30:25 – Product branding & labelling in local markets
34:05 – Reputation issues and labelling practices
36:25 – Experiences of product harms in the local market
38:39 – Are harms from unsterile product exaggerated?
41:59 – ‘Social supply’ practices among commercial suppliers
45:09 – Is there risk in this market?
48:06 – Summarising key findings and implications of the research
50:25 – Q&A
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