Essendon Black Ops Drug use sparks copycat rush

[go team]

Can Hird be charged with bringing society into disrepute? I hear Bunnings sales of their pre-constructed drug dungeon kits have also go through the roof since the Age started reporting on the issue.


Essendon drug use sparks copycat rush

The Essendon Football Club drug and supplements saga has sparked a rush in the use of cosmetic and performance-enhancing drugs, with experts reporting a disturbing rise in young people injecting hormones and peptides.
The staff of needle centres say recent sports doping revelations have been followed by a spike in new users of steroids and other performance and image-enhancing drugs - known as ''PIEDs''.
RMIT professor Aaron Smith, an expert in drugs in sport, said reports that Essendon players were being injected with peptides had become ''one of the best public relations success stories for performance-enhancing drugs around''.
''It's been amazing at promoting drug use,'' Professor Smith said.
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And there was a big spike in Google searches for the tanning peptide Melanotan II when in August last year it was claimed that Essendon coach James Hird sustained side-effects after injecting it.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration has not registered Melanotan or Melanotan II for use in Australia and it cannot be legally imported - but it can legally be used.
Chief executive of the harm minimisation group Anex, John Ryan, said some outer-eastern drug services had seen more young men asking for Melanotan injecting equipment, ''to get a quick-fix tan for summer''.
''NSW and Queensland have been reporting Melanotan injections amongst the 'body beautiful' set for a few years now. Victoria is catching up, post [the] Essendon publicity splurge,'' Mr Ryan said.
He said buying steroids and peptides on the internet was a growth industry that was impossible to stop.
''The publicity that both performance and image-enhancing drugs got through the Essendon scandal was better than a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign could buy,'' he said.
Essendon Football Club declined to comment on the reports.
Staff at inner-city needle and syringe programs said they had noticed an increase in clients after the Essendon case and also after high-profile sporting busts in cycling and Olympic teams.
North Yarra Community Health manager Danny Jeffcote said the ''subtle message'' of these revelations was that if it is good enough for top athletes ''why should if be different for anyone else''.
At St Kilda's Salvation Army Crisis Services, staff are seeing an increase in men in their early 20s using such drugs in an effort to become and bigger and more buff.
Health services manager Paul Bourke said that in the past steroid injectors were mostly bodybuilders.
Australia Medical Association president Steve Hambleton said boys as young as 15 were now experimenting with these drugs.
He warned: ''If sex hormones are used by people when they are not skeletally mature they might not even reach their full height.''
One Melbourne bodybuilder said some young men ''smash gear'' because they were too impatient about getting results.
''A lot of them are uneducated insecure little boys who have only been training a few months.''
In adult men, side-effects of steroid use include breast growth, shrunken testicles and hair loss. Women can sprout facial hair and acquire a deeper voice.
Professor Smith said athletes who used steroids in the 1960s and 1970s were now dying in disproportionate numbers.
He expects to see a new generation of users hospitalised with health problems in the next 10 to 20 years. ''But it will happen to them younger because the doses are higher,'' he said.
The easiest way to buy steroids here was on the internet, Professor Smith said, with south-east Asia home to most online suppliers. ''Or there are a whole suite of crime syndicates that import en masse and distribute through gyms.''
Health workers are concerned many who inject hormones and peptides remain dangerously ignorant about the risks of contracting hepatitis C and HIV.
Mr Jeffcote said new users of such drugs do not often seek traditional drug and alcohol services because they did not consider themselves to be ''druggies''.
''There's a perception that 'Well, because the other guys at the gym look fit and healthy and beautiful, how could they have a disease'?'' But the situation is completely the opposite.''
Do you know more?
Email aisha.dow@theage.com.au


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/essendon-drug-use-sparks-copycat-rush-20140105-30c3i.html#ixzz2pYk5TLHN

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/essendon-drug-use-sparks-copycat-rush-20140105-30c3i.html

 

[Lance Uppercut]

this is definitely Essendon's fault. Nothing to do with the wall to wall media coverage at all.

Boo Hird!!!

 

[Satan]

And there was a big spike in Google searches for the tanning peptide Melanotan II when in August last year it was claimed that Essendon coach James Hird sustained side-effects after injecting it.

Rubbish we know it was caused by the likes of Jen..., ian., mxet.., lanceup... Etc bumping up google hits

 

[Satan]

If y

this is definitely Essendon's fault. Nothing to do with the wall to wall media coverage at all.

Boo Hird!!!

If you look closely Lance and take off two letters of Tania Hirds name you get Tan Hird

 

[Leather Poisoning]

Race to the bottom for the worst article of the saga.

 

[Lance Uppercut]

Race to the bottom for the worst article of the saga.

Fairfax need a New Year boost in circulation

 

[LanceRomance]

I guess it just shows the influence footballers have on the community.


The bombers must be punished again

 

[DonsRule]

I'm convinced.

I'm off to buy some peptides.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Front page coverage of Hird using drug sparks a rise in people searching google for what the hell that drug actually is!!??

Good lord.

 

[jenny61_99]

Truly a dreadful article.

 

[kelvin_sheedy]

Insert Essendon reference, win Walkley. Reminds me of this twitter exchange..

1. Rohan Connolly ‏@rohan_connolly
   
   31 Dec​
   Cant understand why people think newspapers are struggling when second lead item currently on Herald-Sun website is "Man has piss on train".
   • 
     

Follow​

​

auskadi‏@auskadi
@rohan_connolly if it was in the age and said essendon man ... It would win a Walkley

 

[Linda Lovelace]

I think young Aisha may have 'smashed gear' before she wrote that article.

I am going to do the same so I can forget ever reading it.

 

[rumply]

I see no option to leave comments, I wonder why....

 

[I Remember Bluey]

Race to the bottom for the worst article of the saga.

Come back soon Caroline, all is forgiven

 

[dmc333]

Apparently there's a few buyers' clubs starting up

 

[Armchair Critic]

Insert Essendon reference, win Walkley. Reminds me of this twitter exchange..

1. Rohan Connolly ‏@rohan_connolly
   
   31 Dec​
   Cant understand why people think newspapers are struggling when second lead item currently on Herald-Sun website is "Man has piss on train".

Follow​

​

auskadi‏@auskadi
@rohan_connolly if it was in the age and said essendon man ... It would win a Walkley

Auskadi is truly the biggest w***er in this whole saga, has put out more spin than Essendon, The AFL, The Age and The herald sun together.

 

[I Rock]

 

[the conch]

Race to the bottom for the worst article of the saga.

This is not the worst by a long shot. The article is well researched professional journalism reporting on facts and research tied in with a leading academics interpretation of these facts and the wider social ramifications of EFC's "whatever it takes" approach and consequences into the future. It ain't no opinion piece.

Six out of the eight information sources are individuals willing to put their name to this significant - and I think scary - phenomenon with direct experience and expertise working in the field from the supply side to the end user.

The article highlights how even kids are massively taking up the PEDS and vanity drugs. It is clear Hird, who lacks moral perception, and his enablers, the EFC , by their actions, are only exacerbating the consequences as outlined in this factual article. They are a disgrace until they do the right and moral thing and distance themselves totally from the people that allowed this to happen.. not to further reward them. What disgusting hubris, James Hird… bubble man, king of the heap.

This article demonstrates another reason why Hird should have stood aside as soon as the inquiry was called and the peptide program (and worse, e.g.:muscular dystrophy drugs) was blown open: people read between the lines and the perception is also he is getting away with it - plus the greater realisation he had history with Charters along with other well rewarded individuals such as Darcy, Woewoedin, etc… and stuff about Croad= Hawks? and Bock, etc.. But Hird is setting the example of non responsibility, acting shamelessly and keeps giving the finger to the AFL, the other 17 clubs and all their supporters.

Danny Jeffcote said the ''subtle message'' of these revelations was that if it is good enough for top athletes ''why should if be different for anyone else''.
I agree, but not so subtle, IMO.

Even in the remotest one in a thousand chance Hird did not know what was going on (I'm incredulous), he would still have to be condemned for overseeing what went wrong, gross mismanagement (lacking any records, supposedly) and he should bear responsibility for the perception which has hurt the game more than any other individual… just on the image consequences and perception basis, alone. For Hird and inc to give the finger, get the big pay while seeing the code brought low,
I think Hird and EFC has even tarnished the perception of other leading clubs such as: Geelong (links with Thompson, Dank?, Robinson?); the Hawks (with Croad connection, their desperation to win and remarkable back from injury stories); …. even the perception of the system of ethical medical oversight within the clubs has gone down the gurgler with Hird and the Dons.

After all, it went on for a nearly a year and they nearly got away with it and we now know the recently retired Cochoran (Hirds PA) was actively engaged very late in the piece in ensuring continuation of supply into 2014.

 

[Albert Ross]

Also highlights the faddish nature of PED use. Every month there is a new sure thing; untested, unproven, expensive and ineffective but selling by the bucket load. Bombers scandal has made this stuff hot, by the end of the year it will be out of style.

 

[BigJoeD_]

Front page coverage of Hird using drug sparks a rise in people searching google for what the hell that drug actually is!!??

Good lord.

See above… a good example of Hird fan boys and their selective reading and distortions (bizarro world). They'd make a commercial lawyer proud...

Oh oh, fasten your seat belts...

 

[KennyHunter9]

The theory in the article is certainly plausible.

- A high profile sportsman highly publicised for taking a specific drugs, then:

- An almost immediate rise in the consumption of that drug.

The contemporaneity suggests causation, but there could be other reasons.

Maybe use of the drug spikes every winter, when guys like Jimmy look a little pale.

Maybe there are other reasons.

You'd want to discuss these before claiming that The Age was continuing on with some conspiracy.

Otherwise, you could be accused of being dismissive to the harm of drugs, dismissive of the impact that high profiles sports people have on junior athletes or just being in denial, couldn't you?

 

[the conch]

Even the perception of the system of ethical medical oversight within the clubs has gone down the gurgler with Hird and the Dons.

One bad egg spoils the dozen… and the stench lingers on.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Agreed, but it is only because of what EFC/Hird/et al have done and how they have handled themselves.

Your opinion does carry much weight there. You are certainly one person I wouldn't debate on the topic of handling oneself.

 

[the conch]

This extremely well researched article factually demonstrates how even kids are massively taking up the PEDS and vanity drugs. Experts and coal face practitioners attribute the EFC supplements program and its publicity as being the significant cause of the "rush" / "spike".

''It's been amazing at promoting drug use,'' Professor Smith said.

It is clear Hird, who lacks moral perception, and his enablers, the EFC / Hird inc , by their actions, are only exacerbating the unfortunate, real life consequences as outlined in this factual article.
EFC are a disgrace until they do the right and moral thing and distance themselves totally from the people that allowed this to happen.. not to further reward them. What disgusting hubris, bubble hill. Let's hope that boil can be Lanced

 

[2one2]

If y
If you look closely Lance and take off two letters of Tania Hirds name you get Tan Hird

Or just say her name out loud. That's what it is called on the bottles of Melat now: "Tan Ya Hird"