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If you’re injecting steroids it’s important that you look after your health and take care to reduce your risk of catching bacterial infections and viruses like hepatitis and HIV.

Intramuscular injecting has many serious risks - learn all you can so that you can make an informed decision. To keep the risks to a minimum:

  • always use sterile needles, syringes and other injecting paraphernalia;
     
  • never borrow injecting equipment from anyone, no matter how healthy they look;
     
  • when drawing up through a rubber cap, always swab it with an alcohol swab to reduce bacterial contamination of the needle (wait at least 30 seconds for the alcohol to dry off before piercing the cap with the drawing up needle);
     
  • never recap used needles - not even your own - the risk of accidental injury is too high;
     
  • place all used injecting equipment in a proper sharps bin or a rigid-walled, puncture resistant sealed container immediately after use; and
     
  • return all used injecting equipment to your nearest Needle and Syringe Program (NSP) or public sharps bin.

In Queensland, for further information on steroid use and safer injecting contact the Alcohol and Drug Information Service on (07) 3236 2414 or regional freecall on 1800 177 833.

Below is the information the briefing paper gives to pharmacists to support the text on the calendar card.
It will hopefully be of interest both to professionals and injecting drug users.

Most of the interventions on the calendar cards are targeted at users of psychoactive drugs. This month there is information for those who take performance-enhancing drugs.

The term ‘performance-enhancing drugs’ includes the whole range of drugs used to improve athletic performance, muscle development and physical appearance.

These include anabolic-androgenic steroids, along with human growth hormone, insulin, amphetamines and ephedrine, oestrogen antagonists, proviron, human chorionic gonadotrophin, clenbuterol, thyroxine, and other diuretics.

Although these are often diverted supplies of pharmaceutical anabolic-androgenic steroid preparations, there are a number of counterfeit steroids available on the illicit market, many of which are imported from countries where there are fewer controls on the pharmaceutical industry.

Some seem indistinguishable from drugs produced here, but actually have few, if any, active ingredients.

The use of these drugs without proper medical supervision is potentially life-threatening, and may result in long-term organ damage. The risk is increased when these drugs are combined, or when they are combined with recreational drugs like cocaine.

The safer injecting messages are just as important for users of performance-enhancing drugs as many think that because they are amongst healthy people that are concerned about health and appearance, infection is unlikely.

It is important to reinforce their decision to obtain injecting equipment from a pharmacy, and to advise of the risks of even occasional sharing.

Key intervention points:
Just as the cards on hep C, HIV and creating a safe injecting space will be useful for users of performance-enhancing drugs, it won’t do any harm to repeat the basic safer injecting messages to injectors of other drugs.

Introducing the card with a comment like “I know that this month is about steroids, but have a look at what it says, because the safer injecting information is the same for everyone” might help people who would benefit from the information to get past the headline.

Further reading
National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre. (1998). Steroid Facts. Sydney: NDARC.

Stoppard, M. (2000). Australian Drugs Info File: From Alcohol and Tobacco to Ecstasy and Heroin. Sydney: Dorling Kindersley.

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