Beginning of Essay
Since ancient history, many athletes have resorted to performance enhancing aids to give them an edge on their opponents. Greek Olympians used strychnine and hallucinogenic mushrooms to psych up for an event. "In 1886 a French cyclist was the first athlete to di ....

Middle of Essay
.... $400 million per year. One million Americans, half of them adolescents, use black market steroids (Schrof, 54). Anabolic steroids are synthetic compounds that resemble the natural male sex hormone testosterone. Male hormones have two different effects in the body. Hormones have an anabolic effect, which stimulates growth, and they have an androgenic effect, which increases male sexual characteristics. Anabolic steroids are constructed synthetically to maximize the anabolic (growth) effect and minimize the androgenic (male characteristic) effect. Steroids are molecules that occur naturally in the body and are carried in the bloodstream and ....