Turning Point's Smart Muscle Service featured on BBC One's Inside Out London
Turning Point’s Smart Muscle Service was featured on BBC One’s Inside Out London in a piece on steroid abuse by teenagers desperate for designer bodies.
Smart Muscle is a unique service, based in Central London and provides specialist advice for people who are using or considering using steroids. It is the only service of its kind in London and was started in response to the increasing number of steroid users who were presenting to needle exchanges in the Soho area.
Some needle exchanges around the country are now seeing more steroid users than opiate users. Without specialist services they are having to rely on information from their dealers or friends and this can be very inaccurate. There are severe side-effects involved with steroid injecting; for instance the dangers for men include shrinking of their testicles and the development of female breast tissue.
Turning Point's Roy Jones says:
"The constant stream of images depicting men with perfect six packs and muscular frames is putting young men under increasing pressure to look good. They think steroids will act as a quick fix but some don’t even know the names of the drugs they are injecting, let alone the dangers associated with them. Whilst steroids users were mainly men in their thirties, users are now more likely to be in their early twenties and some are even younger."
“Luckily, many of the young men are coming to our service before they have actually taken the drug. This gives us the opportunity to look at their training and diet and in some cases prevent them from using steroids at all."
There are a number of issues that lead to some people using steroids in a harmful way:
Most drug services are not equipped to give a full service that meets all their needs because of the complexity of information involved in working with this group.
Steroid users often do not consider themselves to have a drug problem and do not want to be associated with conventional drug services. They are much more likely to attend a service that is specifically for them.
Many people believe that steroids are the domain of athletes but that group makes up less than three percent of the people who use them in this country. Most people are using them for image enhancing reasons only.
Inside Out London was on at 7.30pm on Monday 18 January 2009 on BBC One. To view the piece on BBC iplayer please visit the Inside Out website (opens link in new window)
The free and confidential sessions at Smart Muscle take place every Tuesday evening between 6pm and 9pm at 31 Wardour Street, Soho, London W1D 6PT. Telephone 020 7851 2955.
The service is completely free and confidential. It provides information on diet, training, cycles, stacks, post cycle therapy, side effects and help to identify counterfeit drugs. For more information on Smart Muscle, visit http://www.turning-point.co.uk/servicesthatchangelives/Pages/ServiceInfo.aspx?ct_id=365