Sports nutrition companies that continue to sell Superdrol or similar illegal steroidal ingredients as dietary supplements have been put on notice by the federal government. The same federal prosecutors that pursued defendants in the BALCO steroid scandal have announced the entry of a guilty plea by one of the first distributors of Superdrol.
Anabolic Resources, Inc., doing business as Anabolic Xtreme, pleaded guilty to a felony charge involving the introduction of an unapproved new drug (Anabolic Resources Superdrol) into interstate commerce. The company was sentenced to a $500,000 fine.
The company admitted that Superdrol was fraudulently marketed as a dietary supplement when, in fact, it was a synthetic steroid known as methasteron. Methasteron is also known as methyldrostanolone.
Superdrol was not legally defined as an anabolic steroid under the Controlled Substances Act. However, Superdrol was never legal to sell as a dietary supplement under the Dietary Health and Supplement Education Act either.
Rick Collins, the leading legal expert on anabolic steroids and sports nutrition, knows very well how determined the government is to eliminate illegal steroidal products from the marketplace.
Collins served as legal counsel for Anabolic Resources, Inc. and has represented numerous other companies that have engaged in similar conduct.
The penalties for selling unapproved new drugs can be severe. In an email to MESO-Rx, Collins explained that selling illegal steroidal products as supplements can have serious consequences for the individuals involved.
“Most targets who are prosecuted for felonies by the Department of Justice go to prison, plain and simple,” said Collins. “Corporate pleas – without any individual people being convicted – are so rare in federal court that most criminal defense attorneys have never even handled one.”
The possibility that the principal owners of supplement companies could be individually prosecuted, convicted of felonies and sent to prison should be a terrifying prospect for many people in the sports nutrition industry.
Rick Collins has argued that imposing fines and forfeitures on corporate entities rather than prosecuting individuals is the most expedient way for the government to handle these cases. He has successfully negotiated several settlements that resulted in a corporate plea.
“[T]he investigative agents as well as the prosecutors I dealt with in these jurisdictions were reasonable. They were tough, but they listened and were fair,” according to Collins. “While in some cases we disagreed on certain legal points, they were smart and came to understand the unique realities and circumstances of the prohormone market as it existed several years ago, as well as the complexity of the overlapping and intermingled laws in the area of anabolic steroids, steroid precursors, dietary ingredients and misbranded and unapproved drugs.”
“Holding the corporate entities accountable, rather than the individual company principals, was the totally appropriate way to dispose of these cases.”
The Anabolic Resources Superdrol case took over 5 years to reach its conclusion. The wheels of justice move slowly but the government has made its point loud and clear.
Collins noted that the illegal conduct (Superdrol sales) of Anabolic Resources stopped nearly 6 years ago, that the corporation is no longer manufacturing products, and that the corporation currently using the brand name of Anabolic Xtreme never sold Superdrol. He expressed concerned for companies that have continued to sell Superdrol and related illegal steroidal ingredients.
“For the future, I strongly suspect that the Government will attempt to take a harder line, arguing that any entities which are today still selling illegal steroidal ingredients as supplements are sufficiently on notice for the company principals to be fair game for indictment,” according to Collins. “Be warned. That’s not a good place to be.”
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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