This link goes to the Sportsletter interview of experienced ESPN writer, and "Steroid Nation" (no relation to us, Forest and Bubba) author Shaun Assael. Assael's beat includes the evolution of PEDs and steroids way back. The interview delivers a broad and honest perspective on the infiltration of PEDs into athletics, by a guy who personally knows some of the protagonists. Here is an excerpt about Dan Duchane, one of the more nutty 'colorful' characters in the steroid scene:
SL: You write a lot about Dan Duchaine, the co-author of the "Underground Steroid Handbook," who believed that he "could unlock human potential through chemistry." Where did Duchaine's vision go so wrong?
SA: One of the things I write about in the book is that steroids are drugs that meet at the crossroad of optimism and avarice. In the early '80s, I think Duchaine saw them as a drug of optimism. The Olympics were coming to Los Angeles, and he believed steroids could turn men into supermen. AIDS was making its migration down the Pacific Coast, and he believed steroids could heal the sick. As I write in the book, he saw steroids as a drug without a constituency.
Where I think he went wrong was in not understanding that steroids are like a smoldering fire: they're very hard to control. And, Duchaine couldn't control his appetite. When he decided to go to Mexico and start smuggling this stuff, that was a pretty good sign that he had decided to break with mainstream society. So, while his co-writer, Mike Zumpano, decided to join conventional society, Duchaine went further and further and further outside of the mainstream. At the end of the book, one of the things Ithink you see is that, while he put on a brave front, he came to regret it. That's why he is such a cautionary tale.
I think Duchaine is one part of the story of steroids that opens the eyes of people who don't know a lot about the culture. I think he brings the reader into the culture in much the same way that Timothy Leary brought his followers into the drug culture.
This is a well thought-out interview which packs tremendous perspective and knowledge from one of the most knowledgeable journalists on the PED scene.
[For full disclosure, Mr Assael sent us a copy of "Steroid Nation". We shredded it, mixed it with alcohol and sesame seed oil and injected it into a large muscle group. We find our writing is Pulitzer Prize quality now, and the old bench press is hitting 300...]
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