A Washington state psychiatrist concluded that a steroid-induced psychosis was responsible for the “roid rage” that caused a 250-lb former arena football player to violently force his way through airport security at the Tri-Cities Airport and run onto the tarmac to chase a departing Horizon Air flight 2103 to Seattle. Michael Rayfield Hodges proclaimed to be God during the airport security breach when he assaulted a female Transportation Security Administration and punched Port of Pasco Officer Jim Rohman. The former Arena Football League player for the Tri-Cities Fever was charged with first degree assault and two counts of third-degree assault (“Psychiatrist says ex-Fever player now competent to stand trial,” January 17).
His first trial is set Feb. 25 for a jail scuffle in November when Hodges is accused of biting off the fingertip of a corrections officer and repeatedly punching another officer in the face.
The second trial is March 11 for allegedly forcing his way into the Tri-Cities Airport’s secured boarding area four days earlier and hitting a Port of Pasco officer in the process.
State psychiatrist Dr. William H. Grant wrote in a report that Michael Hodges was an experienced anabolic steroid user who had used several cycles while playing in the Arena Football League and as a standout player at Idaho State University. Anabolic steroids never caused psychosis during his previous history of cycling steroids. But apparently, Hodges used a new, unfamiliar steroid for the first time and “did not anticipate its adverse effects.”
The so-called steroid-induced psychosis was so severe that it required treatment with anti-psychotic medications while institutionalized for six weeks at the Eastern State Hospital, a state psychiatric hospital in Medical Lake, Washington.
“Steroid drugs are known to cause aggression and psychosis,” the report said.
After going through treatment for steroid-induced psychosis, Hodges is now “without psychiatric symptoms” and is ready to go to trial, Grant concluded. […]
“He told me, ‘The steroids I was taking messed me up,’ ” Grant’s report said. […]
“So far as we are able to tell, he was not seeking the psychotropic effects of the steroid he took. He was simply trying to ‘bulk up,’ ” the report said. “He would certainly be a substantial danger to other persons if he were to again abuse steroids, but he states he has learned a painful lesson.”
“Absent future steroid abuse or additional reverses in his life, he would appear to present a relatively low risk of future violence,” the report continued. […]
“He said he was God and pushed his way into the checkpoint,” according to Grant’s initial report. […]
Grant said Hodges has “only the most fragmentary recollections of events that took place while he was under the influence of steroids.”
Dr. William Grant asserts that steroids “are known to cause aggression and psychosis” but such an assertion is based upon something other than the available scientific research. Addiction expert Jack Darkes, PhD, notes that the cause-effect relationship between steroids and aggression is inconclusive at best.
The AAS-aggression relationship has been studied and the research can be summed up as inconsistent at best and largely unsupportive of the hypothesis. AAS do not inevitably cause aggression. No critical dose that invariably triggers aggression has been identified.
Michael Rayfield Hodges has been declared mentally competent by Franklin Superior Court Judge Robert Swisher to stand trial on February 25th for the jail incident and March 11th for the airport incident (Case Number: 08-1-50434-3). Hodges has pleaded innocent by reason of steroids insanity. He is being held on $45,000 bond.
About the author
Millard writes about anabolic steroids and performance enhancing drugs and their use and impact in sport and society. He discusses the medical and non-medical uses of anabolic-androgenic steroids while advocating a harm reduction approach to steroid education.
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