Our Call to Policymakers

Demand 1

Data Infrastructure

The Government should commission SteroidSafe to deliver a large-scale, national prevalence study of anabolic steroids and all image and performance enhancing drug use across gyms, needle exchanges and online surveys, including research into long-term physical and mental health outcomes, and build the data infrastructure to measure ongoing consequences.

The ONS should improve its measurement of anabolic steroids in the Crime Survey for England and Wales and include all image and performance enhancing drugs

The ONS should report steroid-related deaths in its mortality statistics

The NHS should establish a new range of dedicated admission codes for steroid-related admissions and their subsequent side effects, ensuring these are consistently applied across the health sector

The Home Office should require police forces to record steroid use as a factor in violent and sexual crime data

Demand 2

Clinical Response & Safeguarding

The NHS should develop clinical pathways specifically for steroid-related conditions, underpinned by clinical guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, ensuring these are consistently applied across the health sector with required inclusion in NHS clinical training including reducing the stigma from clinicians.

Post-cycle depression

Body dysmorphia

Steroid-induced hypogonadism

Cardiovascular screening

Acne scarring revision, funded by the NHS and underpinned by NICE guidelines

DWP: The Department for Work and Pensions should recognise anabolic steroid misuse as a health condition in its own right, and train Personal Independence Payment and Universal Credit assessors to identify steroid use as a contributing factor in physical and mental health conditions.

Safeguarding: The Department for Education should update ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ to include anabolic steroid use as a recognised safeguarding concern, ensuring school Designated Safeguarding Leads are equipped to identify signs of use in under-18s.

Demand 3

Regulated Pathway

Possession being legal while supply and production remain criminalised has created a void in legislation. Users source compounds from the black market via social media with no quality control and no guarantee of purity or dosage.

The Home Office should commission the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to review the scheduling of anabolic steroids. The MHRA should determine which compounds may be dispensed. The Government should then introduce a regulated pathway through licensed pharmacies, substantially self-funding through margins on sales cross-subsidising consultations and blood work while remaining price-competitive with the black market.

Required safeguards

A minimum age of 18

Mental health screening

Evidence of consistent resistance training

Mandatory blood work before, during and after any dispensed cycle

An agreed cycle plan including post-cycle therapy

Harm reduction advice, blood work referral and signposting to mental health support for individuals who do not meet the dispensing criteria

Users currently on unapproved compounds would be offered lower-risk alternatives. Needle exchanges should be required to refer steroid users into the regulated pathway.