Steroid Use Widespread and the Drugs Are Easy to Obtain, Assembly Subcommittee Is Told

A former weightlifting champion told a state Assembly subcommittee Tuesday that the use of steroids by athletes is commonplace and that the body-building drugs are easily obtained.

Junior high school and high school athletes are pressured by coaches, sports doctors and even parents to use steroids to gain a competitive advantage, said Terry Todd, now a physical education professor at the University of Texas.

Todd was testifying before the Assembly Subcommittee on Sports and Entertainment. The panel’s hearing was the first of several to be held around the state on the issue.

Steroids aren’t illegal, but their use has been banned for Olympic competitors and by such organizations as the Amateur Athletic Union.

Todd said he used them for three years in the 1950s when athletes were beginning to experiment with the drug.

But he added that their use “has grown in a way we could never have predicted.”

Steroids are readily available from “pushers at the local gym,” Todd said.