We’ve all heard the idiom about death and taxes. They are, so the saying goes, two things of which one can be certain.
Well, let me tell you that if there’s one thing that’s as certain as death and taxes, it’s that the government lies. They lie and lie and lie, and then lie some more.
People lie all the time, to be sure, and public servants are no exception. But when the government, as an agency backed by tax-funded resources, lies about something and then creates policy on the basis of that lie, well, people get harmed — the very people it’s supposed to protect.
To make matters worse, the government will try to cover its lies years later when backed into a corner to escape accountability.
It was only a few decades ago when the government instigated a campaign to criminalize marijuana use. They scared the crap out of everyone by demonizing the plant, and at one point even deigned to call it the world’s deadliest drug.
Imagine someone telling you in this day and age that cannabis is one of the most dangerous drugs. You’d probably laugh in their face. Well, that’s what the government did, despite that no evidence supported the claim.
The distortion, of course, was a scare tactic. And it worked — oh, by golly, did it work. Despite the dubious claims, many at the time believed a single joint was enough to induce full-blown psychosis. When these ideas reached a fever androgel before and after pictures pitch, a lot of cases of rape, murder, and suicide became easily dismissible as just another by-product of “reefer madness.”
“People were murdered? Gosh, it was probably the weed — yeah, that’s what it was. The weed.”
Of course, that wasn’t something someone actually said, but trust us, conversations like that happened thousands of times because of how the dangers of marijuana were framed to the public.
Despite all the studies done and all the evidence released that effectively belied the government’s claims, their dogmatic stance was so insulated by an excessively complicated bureaucratic process that it took years for people to finally learn the truth.
I bet it won’t even be necessary to mention the other lies the government has made because, at this point, you’ve already intuited that lying comes naturally to them. But we just can’t help ourselves — rather than prove to you that they lie, think of this next one as something to get you incensed.
Remember when the Pentagon papers were leaked? That happened in 1971, long before some of you were born. It was a huge thing, nevertheless, that had captured — and continues to capture — peoples’ attention.
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In a nutshell, what the Pentagon Papers revealed is that the government lied about the Vietnam war. To be sure, this wasn’t merely the government stretching the truth to fit a narrative, it was systematic lying on their part, and not just by one president and one administration, but by four. This was duplicity at such a massive scale that it’s no wonder trust in the government took a downward spiral at the time and continues to diminish to this day. Indeed, suspicion of the government is not just more widespread today, it’s ever-growing, thanks in part to those leaked papers.
While the war effort was deteriorating, and while American troops were dying in large numbers, we had mouthpieces like Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara telling us we weren’t just winning, but that we had the Vietcong in its death throes. Of course, from leaked reports, McNamara knew none of it was true. McNamara knew it was all lies, but he told them anyway.
Lies such as these were repeated to the public, to Congress, and to the media, to keep funding for the war going. Indeed, if the Pentagon Papers are to be believed — and there’s literally no reason not to believe them as much of what’s leaked had already been confirmed — then lying by the government about the Vietnam war was the rule, not the exception.
Eventually, someone involved in a study that was made to determine how much of a loss the war was thankfully leaked excerpts of their report to the press, and in 1971, the New York Times published a piece about it and had everyone infuriated.
In short, America wasted close to ten years on the war, and more than 800 billion dollars. Not to mention the more than 200,000 US servicemen deaths, and the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese deaths.
The readily confirmable fact of the matter is that a government with an agenda will lie, intentionally obfuscate, and use fear to produce behavioral changes in people to meet that agenda.
The same pattern of manipulation, distortion, and gaslighting was done — and largely still being done — for steroids, and it all started in the ’60s when female Eastern Bloc athletes started dominating the Olympics.
It was becoming clear back then that some wonder drug, some miraculous compound, was turning Eastern Bloc women into she-hulks and threatening the integrity of sports.
This, of course, was something those with elect viewpoints could not abide! After all, sports was big business. A few years later, in 1975, anabolic steroids was added to the Olympics list of banned substances, and it didn’t take long for other professional and collegiate sports to follow suit. Anabolic steroids became this bogeyman — something that kills, something that seriously injures, and something to which only desperate cheaters would resort.
Unfortunately for the ruling class, the wonders of anabolic steroids, and of testosterone in particular, were already, at that point, known to athletes the world over. Nothing could be said by the overpaid bureaucrats at the time to dissuade its rampant use.
So of course they resorted to a time-tested strategy and lied.
One of the first lies they told was that anabolic steroids were useless. They insisted through the skin of their teeth that steroids can’t build muscle. It was a claim — a lie — that was backed by zero observational data, and they knew that in order for the claim to be convincing, they needed a trustworthy mouthpiece to repeat it.
Soon, the American College of Sports Medicine was making the same claim. Steroids worked no better than placebos, all those muscles were a result of water retention, and yada yada yada.
Many saw the lab coats in their ranks and believed they must be telling the truth. Indeed, what incentive would they have to be lying? The lies worked for a while. People really did start to believe that all the hype surrounding steroids was just that — hype.
Of course, the thing with science is that it forces unreason to be silent when the lab gains its conclusions. Those pesky things called facts have this inconvenient habit of rearing their ugly heads and disrobing even the rankest of con artists.
Eventually, it was becoming undeniable that steroids worked. Once all the data came in, and all the anecdotal evidence piled up, The American College of Sports Medicine had to do a 180-degree and admit they were wrong.
However, inveterate liars, when caught in a lie, can be expected to lie again. The ACSM refused to yield to actual science and concocted another set of lies to dissuade steroid use. This time, they exaggerated the risks and negative effects of steroid use to get people to believe that nothing but an early death awaited those who juiced up. Tumors, heart attacks — these were alleged to be but a few of the consequences of even moderate to little steroid use.
Anabolic steroid use remained rampant, however. Users weren’t dying in large numbers, and most who’ve reported adverse effects were clearly taking more than was healthy. This contradictory state-of-affairs was effectively undermining the elects’ scaremongering campaign so they turned to the next best thing — the government. In 1990, the Anabolic Steroid Control Act was passed and the use of anabolic steroids was criminalized.
It’s been four decades since the ACSM made the claim that anabolic steroid users would be dropping like flies, yet those same users are still alive and well today. The fact is that we’ve been fed the idea that using anabolic steroids is no different from playing Russian Roulette, despite the dearth of evidence.
Just like the cannabis users who realized they were fed a pack of lies, there’s now a creeping realization that the mainstream media’s lurid case against anabolic steroids had been mostly based on fictitious drivel. Indeed, the number of anabolic steroid users, even among high-level athletes, is at its peak. Regular testing cycles don’t stop athletes from using, and while some were unlucky enough to get caught, most don’t get caught and continue juicing up.
The scaremongering did little to dissuade anabolic steroid use, and the increasing number of users year after year bore this out.
This isn’t to say that using anabolic steroids carries zero risk. They do carry risks, and even the most habitual user understands this. But it’s plain as day that the risks have either been wildly exaggerated or inflated beyond recognition. The dozens of studies on anabolic steroid use that have been carried out confirm what conscientious users knew all along: Using anabolic steroids in the right doses and the right cycle lengths carries little risk of harm.
To be sure, anabolic steroids shouldn’t be played around with. We certainly don’t want to be accused of downplaying their negative effects.
These are serious substances that, when abused, can kill or cause life-long complications. These are drugs, after all, and as with any drug, too much can render one seriously injured, if not outright dead. Teenagers, in particular, should steer clear of anabolic steroids. Minimizing the health risks involved with anabolic steroid use is undoubtedly dangerous because it is a fact that many have succumbed to its overuse.
The fact is that anabolic steroids work, and they work so well that the gains can be addictive to some. Some people simply don’t want to stop even when they know they should. They push the boundaries every single time, thinking that since they left unscathed the last time around, they’d end up fine in the next one. It’s this kind of mentality, this kind of addictive personality, and not anabolic steroids per se, that is dangerous. One who thinks this way opens himself up to risks all the time and will find danger everywhere he goes, not just in anabolic steroids.
The bottom line is that much of what we were told about anabolic steroids is biased. You can bet your bottom-dollar that the best thing to do for each topic on which the government has deigned to pontificate is to take what they say with a grain — no, a bag — of salt. The government, along with our health professionals, sporting bodies, and the media, either lied about many things or conveniently stretched the truth in regard to steroids. The risks were greatly exaggerated, and we now know, through years of research, that it’s totally possible to use anabolic steroids responsibly and come out unharmed.
After decades of research on anabolic steroids, we now know more than a few things about them. We know that using them carries risks, and we know that many have died or have acquired life-long health complications from their misuse. But we also know that they work and that when taken responsibly, can proffer a multitude of benefits.
Steroid use does not equate to steroid abuse. Doing one is not to do the other, and anyone saying otherwise hasn’t really followed the science. If you want to use anabolic steroids, then be responsible and educate yourself on the effects and the precautions needed to mitigate these effects. Always keep your doses at a minimum, keep your cycle lengths short, and get yourself regularly checked. If you do these dutifully and use your common sense, you should be fine.
