Relationship Between Multiple Drug Use & Steroids

Ben BA(Hons), PGCert

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Steroids and Recreational Drug Use

LAST UPDATED: December 2018.

Author: Ben has been researching about supplements for over 10 years and established this free resource 3 years ago. He has recently completed his basic army training after feeling disillusioned by working in the corporate sector.

Is there a relationship between the youth in the USA with anabolic steroids and other, recreational drug use?

It is a common statement that drug use leads to further drug use.

Is this the case with anabolic steroid use? Is there a correlation between using steroids and taking other forms of drugs, in particular by young people in the US?

A study was commissioned to find out exactly whether there is a relationship between anabolic use, recreational drug use, the participation of sports, strength training and how it may affect school performance.

The study used data complied from schools (both public and private) across the 50 states in America which consisted of a total 12,272 students from the 9th to 12th grade.

What Was The Outcome?

Those who used recreational drugs such as cocaine, amphetamines, heroin, smoked tobacco and drank alcohol showed a higher correlation of anabolic steroid use.

Those who injected other drugs were the highest users of anabolic steroids, in fact, over half of injected drug users took steroids.

Males were more likely to use anabolic steroids rather than their female counterparts, by a difference of 2.88%.

It seems those students who are geographically located in the Southern regions of the US were more likely to use steroids than students living in the Midwest, West or Northeast.

Students who had a lower perceived academic ability and lower academic achievements were also likely to use steroids.

Strangely, those who were involved in strength training, while they were likely to use anabolic steroids, they were not as high as other recreational drug users.

In fact there is a ratio of those who are likely to use steroids:

Injectable drug users
Other recreational drugs
Male
Alcohol use
Strength training participation

Those at the top of the list have the highest predictor of anabolic use compared to the group at the bottom of the list.

Conclusion

The statistics show that there is a strong correlation between recreational drug use, in particular injectable drugs and the use of anabolic steroids.

In fact, the association between other drug use and steroids is moreso than if you participate in strength training, whereby the ratio of predictability is less although still present.

The highest relationship is between the students who inject drugs; they are the more prevalent users of steroids.

With the lowest ratio of users being those who participate in strength training.

[http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/96/1/23]