CHRIS BELL: January 23, 1984.
It was a day that changed my life forever.
PRESIDENT REAGAN: ...The muscle, the moral courage that built
the greatest, freest nation the world has ever known.
CHRIS: Ronald Reagan was our President
and there was trouble brewing in Iran.
I was just a kid,
but I knew who was behind it.
His name was The Iron Sheik.
ANNOUNCER: From Tehran, Iran,
weighing 258 lbs,
The Iron Sheik!
COMMENTATOR: They have a lot of hate in their hearts for this man.
Iran-- number one! U.S.A.-- ( spits )
CHRIS: You see, Reagan may have freed the hostages
but The Sheik still had the championship belt.
There was only one man
that could save us.
# I am a real American... #
ANNOUNCER: From Venice Beach, California,
the incredible Hulk Hogan!
COMMENTATOR: And the Hulkster rips off that shirt.
CHRIS: But three minutes into the match
Hulk Hogan was locked in the dreaded camel clutch.
COMMENTATOR: It's over for the Hulk.
CHRIS: This move would snap the back of a normal man,
But this wasn't a normal man.
This was Hulk Hogan
and he was fighting for our country.
The Hulkster got out of the camel clutch
with the Sheik on his back,
dropped the big leg
and he pinned the Sheik.
Hulkamania was born and the message was clear--
You don't mess with Hulk Hogan
and you certainly don't mess with America.
I must break you.
CHRIS: Look what happened to Ivan Drago.
He tried to mess with America
and Rocky kicked his ass.
And then when the Vietnamese were holding P.O.W.S
Rambo went in and he kicked their ass.
And in the spirit of Rambo
let me tell you we're gonna win this time.
CHRIS: Then came Arnold Schwarzenegger,
The ultimate ass-kicker.
I never saw "Gone With the Wind" or "Casablanca,"
but I can tell you every line of every Arnold movie.
"Crush your enemies, see them driven before you
and hear the lamentations of the women."
( mimics ) "Dylan, you son of a bitch."
And they go bam! And they're all oiled up and their veins are popping out.
I have the power!
TV ANNOUNCER: Better, Stronger, Faster.
CHRIS: I was just 12 years old
and there was an explosion of ass-kicking in America.
REAGAN: And like our Olympic athletes
we set our sights on the stars
and we're going for the gold.
# the eye of the tiger. #
CHRIS: I wanted to tear off my shirt
and be ripped, tanned and larger than life.
But in reality
I was a fat, pale kid from Poughkeepsie.
You see, I come from an overweight family.
My parents were always a little on the heavy side.
I couldn't ask for a better mom.
She did everything for her three boys.
We went to church three times a week
and she even taught Sunday school.
My dad was always there for us too
and he even coached our little league teams.
I love my dad, but he was never really my hero.
I didn't want to be like him.
I wanted to be like Arnold.
Problem is, I was always too small, too short.
People would say, "Hey, Little Bell. What's up, Little Bell?"
And I didn't want to be Little Bell.
I wanted to be Big Bell.
My older brother Mike was a little chubby
and every morning when he went to school
he'd get on the bus and the kids would call him Pugsley.
He didn't like that too much,
so he beat some of those kids up.
That's where he got the nickname "Mad Dog."
Mark was the baby of the family.
He had a hard time in school.
He was separated from his friends
and put in the class with the special kids.
It didn't make him feel very special at all.
He hated school,
So he spent all of his time playing sports.
He'd come to the dinner table dripping with sweat.
Mad Dog and I nicknamed him "Smelly."
So I was the short kid, Mad Dog was the fat kid
And Smelly had a learning disability.
Okay, I get it. We're never gonna make it, right?
But for us, we knew muscles were the answer
and the Hulkster showed us the way.
Train, say your prayers, eat your vitamins.
Be true to yourself, true to your country.
Be a real American. ( exhales )
CHRIS: So we started training in the basement.
We'd body-slam each other,
drop elbows, D.D.T.S
Double noggin knocker, the abdominal stretch,
the iron claw, the Boston crab
the piledriver.
And when Mad Dog was too tough for me
I would break out the steel chair.
My mom's brother John was a bodybuilder
and he gave me and my brothers our first muscle magazines
and showed us how to work out.
And the next Christmas instead of video games
we got the Hulkamania workout set.
- Are you ready to feel the power? - ( crowd cheering )
Ladies and gentlemen, we are
the power team!
CHRIS: Mad Dog became the captain of the football team
and Smelly and I both started competing in power lifting.
ANNOUNCER: Chris Bell is next at 425.
CHRIS: Soon I was the strongest kid in my high school.
Then I broke the New York State record.
And that's when I first got accused of using steroids.
I knew guys who used them, but they were losers.
If my heroes didn't need steroids then neither did I.
By the time I was a senior
I was one of the strongest kids in the country.
Hulk Hogan was always talking about
"hanging and banging down at Gold's Gym, Venice Beach, brother."
I thought, "that's where Arnold trains.
that's where I need to be."
I was gonna be an American hero
And I was willing to do whatever it takes.
( alarm buzzes )
( sighs )
( buzzing )
CHRIS: It's been 15 years since I got to California
and now I'm 33 years old.
When Arnold was 33 he'd already won
the Mr. Olympia seven times.
Stallone had already made "Rocky I and Rocky II."
And the Hulkster had already been
the heavyweight champion four years in a row.
I really thought muscles were gonna be the answer.
But all they got me was a job selling gym memberships.
I still train every day at Gold's,
But the only thing left of Arnold is a cheap mural on the wall
and a bunch of guys telling stories about the old days,
like my buddy Paul.
It's changed a lot in all these years, you know.
How long have you been here?
Since 1980.
Of course, Arnold was on the scene and Arnold--
Nobody had ever seen anybody who looked like Arnold.
Sylvester Stallone had just done the "Rocky" movies
and he was the type of guy that I could relate to.
CHRIS: Paul even got a chance to work with Sly in "Over the Top."
I should be able to blow them away real easy.
PAUL: I couldn't believe the dream was coming true.
And did you get a chance to do it again?
No, but I'm hoping to get back in shape
to be able to make that a reality.
You can be on the street one day
and you can be in the penthouse the next.
Anything's possible.
This is my humble abode.
- Your humble abode right here? - Yeah.
So do you actually live in the van?
I actually live-- well, I sleep in it,
let's put it this way, yes.
You sleep in it. And then you train over here.
I train here, yeah.
You would see vans like this--
Guys would come from all over the world,
sleep in their cars, this and that--
Anything to get a chance to train at Gold's Gym
because we had something special here.
What would you say to people that say,
"the dream's over, man. You're 50 years old."
What would you say to those people?
They're the ones that are short-sighted.
Now in six months I could still be in the van,
but if I can outlift everybody,
I can outsquat them, outbench them, out-dead-lift them,
- Who's the king? - ( chuckles )
Guys like you and me
Can fulfill our dreams.
We can train.
Game ain't over. The sun is shining.
And it ain't over.
CHRIS: Is that gonna be me in 20 years?
I did everything my heroes said--
I trained, I said my prayers,
I had my vitamins. Where did I go wrong?
- Hey, good morning. - Good morning.
How are you?
I always make the cookie bars 'cause cookie bars are important.
What teams did you make these for?
I made them for Arlington football teams
first time ever they won a ball game.
They used to call them "Rosie's cookie bars"
and they really believe that they help them win all the games.
Wouldn't that be like performance enhancement?
It's not an enhancement. It's a little bit of sugar,
which can get you going, carbs.
But it's all natural ingredients.
There's no steroids in here.
Eating your mom's cooking is sort of comforting, don't you think?
Sure.
Things change,
but the cookie bars remain, that's for sure.
CHRIS: My mom likes to think
that the world is as pure as her cookie bars.
But life isn't always like that.
And a lot of things we grew up believing ended up not being true.
First I found out there's no such thing as Santa Claus
or the easter bunny. That kind of sucks.
Then I saw this news report.
REPORTER: The Iron Sheik had been arrested recently
along with wrestler Hacksaw Jim Duggan
while driving along the Garden State Parkway.
The Iron Sheik was charged with possession of cocaine and marijuana.
What has interested most wrestling fans in this case
is that the Iron Sheik and Hacksaw are known to be adversaries.
So why were they traveling together?
CHRIS: Yeah, I thought these guys hated each other.
COMMENTATOR: Wham! Right on the back of the Iron Sheik!
CHRIS: Was their feud all made up?
Was wrestling fake?
Who's left to believe in anymore?
Well, at least I still had my heroes.
Those guys would never let me down.
# I need a hero... #
REPORTER: Today Hogan admits the famous physique
was the result of 12 years of steroids.
CHRIS: Truth is, all my heroes had a dirty little secret.
Hollywood actor Sylvester Stallone has been charged
with importing bodybuilding drugs
when he visited Australia last month.
- MAN: Did you take steroids? - I take them.
I took them, yeah, up until the competition.
CHRIS: I was always against steroids
and when I found out that all my heroes used them
I'd like to say it didn't bother me, but it really did.
I can't imagine how my mom would feel
if she found out that both of my brothers
are on steroids right now.
My older brother started using steroids
when he went to play Division I football
at the University of Cincinnati.
When I got to Cincinnati the practices were so grueling,
much more than what I expected.
Coaches would say, "you gotta get bigger, stronger, faster."
- CHRIS: Was it intimidating? - Oh, man,
A lot different than I thought it was gonna be.
SHELDON BELL: He called me from Cincinnati and asked me for money for steroids.
I said, "what do you need that for?" he says, "I can't compete here."
So I'm like, "I don't know what that is. It sounds like drugs."
He goes, "it is drugs." I said, "I'm not gonna send you money for drugs.
If you want drugs go get a job."
I remember at one point I think you maybe came home
for a break or you did something
and you told me, "hey, come here, help me out."
And you pulled down your pants and you're like, "you have to inject this in me."
And I hated it 'cause I was totally against steroids.
And you were like, "come on, just do it. You have to do it."
You gotta help your big brother out, man. So it was no decision at all.
Everybody else that was doing well was on 'em.
CHRIS: Shortly after getting on the juice
Mad Dog quit college to pursue an even bigger dream.
COMMENTATOR: Oh, look at that now!
Here we go! Mike Bell!
CHRIS: I couldn't believe it.
That was my big brother wrestling on T.V.
COMMENTATOR: Right hand by Bell. Oh, man!
CHRIS: Mad Dog wanted to be a superstar,
But he was what they call a "jobber."
That's the guy they pay to get beat up
to make the other guys look good. He didn't care, though.
He was gonna get himself a contract and headline "Wrestlemania."
COMMENTATOR: Why did you even come in the ring?
You should have gone home, dummy.
CHRIS: But he never got the contract
And eventually the W.W.E. stopped calling.
Why did you think you didn't make it?
Probably mostly my own fault.
I went from being a guy who used steroids
to a guy who used steroids and pot.
And I still needed to escape reality
so I started taking ecstasy, cocaine, acid, painkillers.
COMMENTATOR: Mike Bell is where he does not need to be now.
He's in the wrong corner and he's paying the price.
CHRIS: Mad Dog always told me
that he'd rather be dead than average.
And when he thought his dream was over
he couldn't cope with the failure.
MIKE: So I had a bottle of liquid lead,
a bottle of NyQuil and four boxes of sleeping pills.
I went down to the river
down by the railroad tracks,
parked my car, took everything.
ROSEMARY: And he tried to walk into the--
He tried to walk into the Hudson river.
CHRIS: So did you take all the sleeping pills?
- Everything. - And the lead additive?
There's no way I should be alive right now. There's no way.
CHRIS: It's 10 years later
and despite everything that happened
Mad Dog is still trying to get that contract,
Trying to keep the dream alive.
'Cause I've been all over the world
from Singapore to Louisville, and it doesn't matter--
You line 'em up, I'll knock 'em down.
I can see why you never made it.
( laughing )
CHRIS: Mad Dog used to wrestle in front of a television audience
of 10 million people every week,
but tonight he's wrestling at the Portuguese Men's Center
In front of 200 people for about 50 bucks.
( yells )
CHRIS: And instead of wrestling Bret the Hitman Hart
He's facing Midgeto
And he's getting his ass kicked.
( crowd cheering )
Come on, man, come on.
CHRIS: My baby brother Smelly was always trying to keep up
and despite everything that happened to Mad Dog
he followed in his footsteps anyway,
becoming a pro wrestler and using steroids.
The reason I decided to use steroids was simple.
I just needed to get bigger.
That was pretty much it.
CHRIS: But unlike when Mad Dog started using steroids,
Smelly had a wife to consider.
When you got married did you ever think
that your husband would be injecting himself with something?
No, that didn't even enter in my conscious thought.
When I first met him he was against steroids.
He was like, "you don't need to do it.
I've never done 'em. I just don't believe in 'em."
MARK: I was pretty upset about it
Because I didn't want it to come to that. I was kind of scared.
I didn't want to inject this oil into my body.
I thought it was weird.
He's not a huge guy, you know.
He's 6' if he's lucky
and so I knew that it was definitely going to help
because that's what it does,
what steroids do-- make you bigger.
She basically said, "do what you need to do."
ANDEE: Here's Jake with the daddy.
CHRIS: After their son was born Smelly decided
The life of a pro wrestler was not exactly what he wanted anymore.
Here's my little Jake in his swing.
Mark: Looking back, I don't really know what the hell I wanted.
Having a contract means that you belong to W.W.E.
And you have to travel. I was married with a kid.
I mean, that's really all I need--
A house, a kid and a wife. I'm set.
One, two, three!
CHRIS: They settled down in the suburbs
and Smelly even opened up his own gym.
Yeah, my little brother gave up
the wrestling dream for a respectable family life,
but he didn't quite give up everything.
( crowd cheering )
MARK: Now that I'm into it
I realize it's not really all that bad. I love steroids.
I think I'll probably be on and off of them
probably forever.
This is what you trained for! This is what you do!
Come on, boy!
ANDEE: I thought that we had an agreement
that he did it for wrestling.
Now he's not wrestling anymore
so naturally I thought he would just stop.
MARK: In my mind there's no excuse
for not being as strong as you possibly can be.
( crowd cheering )
You do what you gotta do to win.
ANNOUNCER: Come on, Chris, let's do this now.
ANNOUNCER: Let's give it up for him. It's a lot of weight.
MAN: There it is.
Come on now!
( cheering )
ANNOUNCER: Smoke show! Come on, Chris.
- Take it, take it. - MEN: Take it, take it.
ANNOUNCER: Nice try, Chris, nice try.
MARK: If you are apprehensive
about taking a steroid or you're apprehensive
about trying some new methods
then maybe you're not cut out to be a champion.
ANNOUNCER: In first place, Mark Bell.
CHRIS: I guess I'm not cut out to be a champion,
because I tried steroids but I felt so guilty I had to stop.
- Are you gonna win worst overall lifter? - Yeah.
CHRIS: And now I can't even compete
In the sport I grew up loving.
I mean, my baby brother just beat me by 130 lbs.
( sighs )
We all grew up in the same house,
so why are my brothers fine with steroids but I'm not?
What would you say the differences are
- between the three kids. - Between the three?
Well, I always kind of say it like this--
you were in the middle of two guys
that were very strapping, athletic,
and you were tiny and short in stature,
so I worked extra hard to make you feel extra special.
One day I took you in your room--
I don't know if you remember this conversation where I said,
"Christopher, what's the best part of an Oreo cookie?"
What is the best part of an Oreo cookie?
- The middle. - The middle. That's right.
So even though you have two sides of a cookie on this end,
the middle part is the most delicious.
Everybody wants the middle. They even made double stuff.
CHRIS: Yep, this is pretty much how it was growing up.
Mom stayed at home with the kids
while Dad wore a suit and tie and went to work.
He was at I.B.M. for 20 years until he was downsized.
But now he has his own business doing taxes.
SHELDON: Everybody thinks that success in America
is in the amount of dollars that you have. And that's not true.
The real true heroes are people
who go to work every day and do their job
and bring up their kids to the best of their ability.
CHRIS: I wanted to be Hulk Hogan.
I wanted to be Arnold. I wanted to be Sylvester Stallone.
Did you have heroes like that growing up, when you were a kid?
SHELDON: Yeah, we did. We had heroes
like Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris.
But I knew I could never aspire to it
because back then you grew up,
you graduated, you got married and you had kids.
CHRIS: Yeah, my dad had the American dream--
you know, marry your high-school sweetheart,
buy a house and take your kids to see the Yankees.
But things are different now.
And even baseball's changed from when my dad was growing up.
And now when I think of baseball
I don't think about the Babe or Hammerin' Hank.
I think of steroids.
COMMENTATOR: This one is a monster! It is out of here!
CHRIS: After the strike of '94 baseball was almost dead.
But then Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa
started smashing home runs,
racing toward the single-season record.
You see, about 1000 years ago
Babe Ruth had 60 home runs in one season.
And then when my parents were still kids
Roger Maris hit number 61.
He was the home-run champ for 37 years
until Big Mac came along and crushed that record
with 70 home runs and baseball was saved.
COMMENTATOR: Gone!
Mark McGuire, you have just broken the home-run record.
What are you going to do next?
We're going to Disney World.
CHRIS: I guess Barry Bonds wanted to go to Disney world too
'cause in 2001
he smashed 73 bombs to break McGuire's record.
COMMENTATOR: This is the one!
There's a new record homer!
CHRIS: See, baseball players used to be scrawny,
but now these guys were jacked and it was cool.
They started looking like pro wrestlers.
JOE BUCK: If you were to construct a home-run hitter
in a lab, put him together, he'd look like that.
CHRIS: Turns out, that was kind of what was going on.
The man with ties to some big-name athletes
has been charged with providing
performance-enhancing drugs to the pros.
CHRIS: The guy with the pencil-thin mustache is Victor Conte.
He used to be the bass player for Tower of Power,
but when that career didn't work out
he did what any failed musician would do--
he started selling undetectable steroids to athletes.
REPORTER: Will you name names?
There will be naming of names.
CHRIS: Conte's files named over 250 athletes,
including the home-run king himself, Barry Bonds.
And then something even crazier happened--
Jose Canseco wrote a book.
The surprise wasn't that he was literate, it's what he wrote about.
He said he'd been taking steroids since '86,
that 80% of baseball was on the juice
and that he personally injected his former bash brother
Mark McGuire in the ass.
But why, Mr. McGuire?
Do you want to know the terrifying truth
or do you want to see me sock a few dingers?
Dingers! Dingers!
Ooh.
All right, Congress wants to haul
a bunch of baseball players
up to Capitol Hill to talk about steroids.
CHRIS: In 2005 Congress spent 151 days in session.
They spent eight of those days debating steroids in sports.
That's more time than they spent on national healthcare,
why the levees broke in New Orleans,
and more than ending the war in Iraq.
Apparently, the United States Congress
takes this whole national pastime thing kind of seriously.
I'm a baseball fan. I always have been.
Let me just start by saying that I am a huge baseball fan.
For me baseball is not a game, it's a passion.
We have every right to be concerned
that the national pastime and all that it represents
has been threatened by the selfish actions of a few.
There's something simply un-American about this.
CHRIS: If using steroids makes the Bash brothers un-American,
what does that make the Bell brothers?
Congressman Kanjorski, do you think that this is not a matter
for the U.S. Congress to be deliberating?
I just don't think it's necessary.
Why are we just gonna call seven people
and of what importance are they?
In the last 52 years we've only done it 25 times.
14 of those times were
by the un-American activities committee.
Are you now or have ever been a member of the Communist Party?
Well, sir, I'm not here to talk about the past.
I have never used steroids, period.
Did you know that other players were using steroids?
I have never seen a syringe. I have never seen steroids.
But in locker-room gossip-- you may not have seen it.
People talk, right? "this guy's doing something, that guy's doing something."
Now Mr. McGuire, would you like to comment on that?
You don't want to comment?
Are you taking the fifth?
This is about values. It's about our culture.
It's about who we define ourselves to be.
When we want to define to a foreign country
what we're about and you're gonna show a film,
what would you go show?
CHRIS: Hey, how about "Rocky IV"?
There's nothing more American than that.
The big Russian trains in a high-tech facility
with a whole team of scientists and trainers,
and of course he takes steroids.
Meanwhile, Rocky's out there lifting logs,
chopping wood, training in a barn the all-natural way,
'cause only Commies would take steroids, right?
Sure, Sly, whatever you say.
Truth is, steroids were the secret weapon
that helped American fight the Russians
on the Olympic battlefield.
And it all began here,
York BarHenry in Pennsylvania.
CHRIS: When you were an Olympic coach
did you see a lot of steroid use going on?
( laughs ) Much.
- Yeah. - Much.
Smitty's 83, one of the old-timers.
He was the coach of the Olympic weight-lifting team back then.
Was it ever thought of as cheating at that point?
No. No, because we figured everybody was taking it.
We figured even steven.
Smitty told me the story about how anabolic steroids
were first introduced to the U.S. Olympic team.
- ( Soviet hymn playing ) - It was the late 1950s
and the Russians were dominating America
in the space race and at the Olympics.
But one night the Russian coach got drunk
and told the American coach
they'd been injecting their athletes with steroids.
The American coach raced home
and developed an even more powerful steroid
specifically for team U.S.A.
So if steroids actually helped America beat the commies,
How did it get such a bad rap?
MARIA SHRIVER: Last week former N.F.L. Defensive lineman Lyle Alzado
told N.B.C. News that steroids were the cause
of his inoperable brain cancer.
How long were you on steroids?
Most of my pro career.
You know, I played 16 years.
And it got me where I wanted but also got me very sick.
CHRIS: Lyle Alzado went from being
the toughest son of a bitch in the N.F.L.
to being a sad dying man.
Everything I saw on T.V. taught me that steroids kill.
Some alarming news about steroid use tonight.
REPORTER: A drug bust in Phoenix, Arizona,
not for heroin or cocaine,
but for something just as dangerous.
Health damage from steroids can include
heart, joint and reproductive problems,
this is a drug that kills.
What happens is that these retarded idiots
that give us the news, these talking heads
that babble on T.V. give us this rhetoric
that comes from not one single expert.
And they say ridiculous things like steroids will kill you,
they'll rot your kidneys, they'll give you cancer,
they'll do all these horrible things that are just not true.
CHRIS: John Romano is the senior editor of a bodybuilding magazine
and he disagrees with what his media colleagues think of steroids.
Well, how come we hear constantly in the news
that people are dying through taking steroids?
- Show me the bodies. - Lyle Alzado.
Lyle Alzado didn't die from steroids.
I trained with him for two years.
He didn't die from steroids. He died from a brain tumor.
I don't know of any of my colleagues that link
his central nervous system lymphoma to his use of steroids.
CHRIS: Dr. Charles Yesalis has published
over 70 articles on the use of steroids
and is one of the top experts in the world on drugs in sports.
- Are steroids killing people? - good question.
They've been used in medicine
since the late 1930s.
I hope we haven't been purposely killing people.
Can they be used safely? Yeah.
These drugs are a boon in the medical profession.
They're a miracle drug for people with muscle wasting.
They are a miracle drug for burn victims,
for cancer patients, people recovering from surgery.
CHRIS: And for people with A.I.D.S. like Jeff Taylor.
Jeff has been fighting H.I.V. for 25 years
and he says steroids saved his life.
Back in '92 I was down to two "T" cells
and very sick. I'd developed P.C.P. pneumonia.
Both my lungs collapsed. I almost didn't make it.
I came out of a hospital weighing 125 lbs.
So I started researching and found a clinical trial in L.A.
They were studying Anavar, an old bodybuilding drug,
to test how it worked for people with H.I.V.
So I signed myself up, got a fairly high dose
and responded amazingly.
I gained 30 lbs in six weeks
and I gained 300 "T" cells.
JOHN ROMANO: So these drugs have cognitive powers--
if you're sick they'll help you;
if you're a healthy athlete they'll kill you?
How can you say steroids are a national public health crisis
when you have people dropping dead at a rate you can measure by the minute
as a result of alcohol and tobacco?
CHRIS: According to the C.D.C.,
tobacco kills about 435,000 Americans every year,
alcohol kills about 75,000,
and deaths from anabolic steroid abuse-- three.
But steroids also show up in some other statistics--
emergency room visits.
But it's not exactly number one on the list--
that would be alcohol; or number two--
that's cocaine;
or number three-- that's marijuana.
Gotta be top 10, though, right?
Uh, not quite.
How about top 25?
Top 100? Keep going.
Try number 142.
That's even after multivitamins.
# yabba-dabba-doo yabba-dabba-doo, Flintstones vitamins... #
DR. YESALIS: Education is important,
but what you have to watch out for
is emChrisishing.
If you look at "Reefer Madness,"
it caused you to be a stark-raving, murdering lunatic--
Very funny to watch because it goes so over the edge.
The next tragedy may be that of your daughter,
of your son, or yours.
Physicians and sports scientists have done that
with the best of intentions in this area--
"Oh, steroids are going to cause you
to drop over dead in your tracks" and so on.
And the athletes are looking around saying, "Jesus,
haven't seen that many guys die."
Are steroids killing people?
Steroids clearly are killing people
both in the short term and in the long term.
CHRIS: Dr. Gary Wadler is an advisor to the world anti-doping agency
and the media's go-to guy when it comes to steroids.
We know it's been associated
with stroke in young people
for which there was no other obvious explanation.
We know it's been associated with heart attacks
for which there was no other obvious explanation.
We know it increases clotting.
What bothers me are people like Dr. Gary Wadler
who's a physician and going before Congress
and saying these things, and when confronted--
"Please produce a single article
that shows any of this in any scientific way," can't do it.
CHRIS: Dr. Norm Fost is a professor of medical ethics
with a research focus on performance-enhancing drugs.
So I'm not denying that there aren't
some serious adverse effects from anabolic steroids.
It's just that we haven't been able to demonstrate any of them.
Maybe that's because we don't study them.
One of the problems with the ban on steroids
is that it's impossible to do the kind of research
that would answer these questions.
Some purists would like to see those studies done.
Well, I can assure you they never will be done.
It would be a totally unethical study to do.
So we have to use the information we have at hand.
Depression, convulsions,
anxiety, jaundice,
myocardial infarction-- which is heart attack--
eczema, abscess,
vaginal pain, vaginal discharge.
You wanna know what I'm reading this from? What does that say?
- "Vitamin c." - Thank you.
I mean, look, peanuts are dangerous. You understand?
There are people that take a peanut
and have a peanut and they go into anaphylactic shock.
Okay? The airway closes up. That's it. They die.
Now does that mean that we ban peanuts
and sue God for making them?
- No. - Right.
What we do is we say, "okay, peanut warnings."
There is no safe drug.
There is no safe drug that ever exists.
There's always the benefit-to-risk ratio.
You name the drug-- "X" percent of people
will suffer adverse effects.
CHRIS: Do you feel any side effects ever?
MARK: Yeah, I've had some side effects--
acne, hair growth.
Some side effects that I've had are--
What do you mean by hair growth? On your head?
No, just on my chest and my back and stuff.
I never break out. My back doesn't break out.
I don't get hairy from it.
You get a little testicular atrophy,
but then they come back. It's normal.
- Your balls shrank? - The balls shank.
- Who needs 'em? - Who needs 'em?
What about testosterone? I have some friends who say
it is like a wonder drug. It makes them feel great.
It makes them feel, you know, frisky
and young and it's great for their skin.
The negative side effects would be my lovely singing voice,
hair like a monkey from my head to my toes,
I mean, hair growing out places you don't even want to talk about.
( low voice ) I mean, I want to stay feminine.
And I think that's why I get so much work.
It's because I still look like a woman
and I still have hard muscles.
DR. COLKER: In my experience,
steroids are just gonna make you more of whatever you are.
If you're a jerk and you take steroids
- You're a super jerk, right? - An asshole.
You've seen that, right? You go beyond. You're an asshole.
ANDEE: I've never seen Roid Rage.
I've never seen any difference in his personality
or how he is with me, how he is with Jake.
It hasn't done anything
that all those after-school specials tell you that it's gonna do.
Bryce, I gotta get bigger, man.
- Here, this might help. - Steroids?
WOMAN: What is going on with you?
God damn it!
( sobbing )
CHRIS: While I was visiting my brother and his family
they told me they were thinking of having another child
but that another possible side effect of steroids was on their minds.
If you couldn't have another kid
would it be something that you'd regret
because you did steroids?
Yeah. If it was simply from that, yeah.
I'd probably regret it. But there's a lot of things
people regret in their lives, so I'm not, you know--
it's a decision I made and it's a decision I'll have to live with,
whatever the consequences are.
CHRIS: It's been 15 years since Alzado died.
- Why did you lie to me? - I was afraid...
CHRIS: Looking back at Maria Shriver's interview
I can't help but wonder,
why wasn't she asking the real questions like
"is this gonna happen to my husband?"
Did she really believe Lyle
or was this just the beginning
of the steroid myth?
And even though the experts know a lot more about steroids,
you sure wouldn't know it from watching the news.
Tonight, one of the nation's most serious drug problems
and it's only getting worse. It's steroids.
Professional wrestler Chris Benoit
killed his wife, his seven-year-old son,
and then hung himself.
Why did he do it? Steroids found in the house.
Steroids cause suicidal tendencies.
MAN: They hallucinate. They hear voices.
MAN #2: Depression, paranoia.
Steroids could be the actual cause...
Speculation is running wild.
Do you think these drugs could affect one's mind?
Now we know.
- Testosterone... - Steroids...
( overlapping voices )
CHRIS: Let's cut through the crap.
This is steroids 101.
First of all, the term "steroids"
Is often misused to describe any performance-enhancing drug
When in fact many of these drugs
are not actually steroids at all.
So what are steroids?
Well, steroids are synthetic versions
of hormones that your body produces naturally,
like cortisone-- that's a steroid.
It signals the body to break down inflammation.
Birth control pills are steroids too
Made from the female sex hormones
estrogen and progesterone.
But the steroids that get all the negative attention
are anabolic steroids,
Made from the male sex hormone testosterone
which tells the body to increase muscle size and strength
and helps to recover from workouts faster.
Like any drug, anabolic steroids do have side effects.
And if you abuse them the side effects will be worse.
For men, they can cause acne,
hair growth, raised cholesterol,
shrink your testicles and lower your sperm count,
which could even make you sterile.
But all of these side effects
are reversible when you go off the drugs.
Otherwise, steroids don't cause baldness,
but if it runs in your family
they might make you go bald faster.
And they can also cause gynecomastia,
or what the gym rats call "bitch tits."
For women, in addition to acne and hair growth,
steroids can cause a deepened voice, menstrual problems
and can enlarge the clitoris.
And some of these are not reversible.
And for kids, some experts think
steroids can stunt growth by closing growth plates prematurely.
But that's actually never been proven.
There's also no proof that steroids cause cancer, kidney failure,
and only oral steroids in high dosages
can cause liver problems.
And it's true that steroids can be one of 1000 risk factors
that could lead to heart disease, but then again
low testosterone is another big risk factor.
And Roid Rage? Steroids can increase aggression,
but that only happens in about 5% of the population.
And even then, they can't make you psychotic.
And as for the long-term side effects,
we don't know. No one's ever done those studies.
At what point do we say that a behavior is such
that people just shouldn't be allowed to engage in it?
I mean, we do allow people
to do lots of things that can hurt themselves.
REPORTER: America's new junkies-- plastic surgery addicts.
I've had my eyes done,
rhinoplasty, chin cleft,
pectoral implants, bicep implants,
buttock augmentation.
And those are the ones I can remember right offhand.
TV NARRATOR: Common sense tells you this is dangerous and foolish.
You wouldn't risk your neck in a trick like this.
Common sense tells us that being shot out of a cannon
Is dangerous business. Handling dynamite--
This too looks dangerous.
RICK COLLINS: Whether it's bungee jumping
or skydiving
or black-diamond skiing--
All of them are fun to do
But would subject one to tremendous risks
with no real necessity.
And so if we allow all of those other risks,
why is it that we're taking this position
with respect to anabolic steroids?
- ( gunshot ) - COMMENTATOR: And it's a fair start.
CHRIS: 1988, Seoul, Korea.
A Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson
defeated his archrival Carl Lewis
in the 100-meter sprint
to become the fastest man in history.
MAN: It sure got our spirit up.
Just great. Hey, Benny!
CHRIS: But 24 hours later
he tested positive for steroids
and they gave the gold medal to our guy, Carl Lewis.
COLLINS: There was an international uproar
over the idea that this Canadian sprinter
had gotten an advantage based on his use
of anabolic steroids for its performance effect.
And Congress responded by holding some hearings.
Ben Johnson would not have been in the finals.
He probably would not have been on the Olympic team
had he not taken steroids.
CHRIS: Congress wanted to pass a law that would control steroids
the same way as drugs like cocaine and heroin
and they called experts from the D.E.A.,
the F.D.A. and the American Medical Association.
But they all testified that steroids should not be treated
like illicit drugs. So Congress disregarded their experts
and in 1990 they passed the Anabolic Steroid Control Act,
turning non-medical users into federal drug criminals.
COLLINS: This wasn't so much about health effects.
It was really on what these things do that's good
in the sense that they build muscle,
they improve the way that people can perform.
And that in a sports context
was seen as the ultimate evil.
If we took a pie chart of steroid use
and we looked at what percentage of that pie
is comprised of athletes
it would be a very very small slice of that pie.
The overwhelming majority of the pie
is comprised of the recreational gym rat
who's doing it purely for cosmetic reasons.
The irony is that we've addressed
a sports cheating issue
by creating a law
that affects all the folks who aren't cheating in sports.
REPORTER: One look at Gregory Valentino's arms
and you know something's going on.
The 40-year-old is charged with criminal possession
of anabolic steroids with intent to sell.
CHRIS: Some people may call Gregg Valentino
a freak and a felon. I call him a neighbor.
He lives down the block from my grandma.
He also happens to have the biggest biceps in the world.
Holy crap.
Do you have difficulty with just sort of
the regular things in life, like making a sandwich?
No. No no.
I can hit a 90-mile-an-hour fastball.
Any body wants to challenge me-- let's do it.
I'll show you. Watch this.
Oh! Oh! Oh!
( laughs ) Come on, Gregg.
Oof!
I told you I'm no Barry Bonds.
I'm a red-meat man. I eat a lot of red meat.
Why do you think people in America are so uptight
About steroids and steroid users?
Because they fear--
they fear what they don't know.
You know?
That's ugly. Who the hell would want to look like that?
I don't want to look like that.
Why did you want to look like that then?
Um, I mean, I like being big.
I had small-man complex, you know.
I'd be like, "I don't want to be little."
I wanted to be taller. I couldn't grow taller, so I grew wider.
Personally I think in the picture that you showed me--
- Oh, I look better. - Your arms look a lot better there
- than they look now, right? Wouldn't you agree? - Without a doubt.
I would rather look like that. Do you think girls
look at me and go, "oh My God, that's hot"?
They like... ( gags ) "that's --ing gross."
I walk into a club and the hottest girl could be there with her boyfriend
and her boyfriend will see me
and mush her in the face to get over to me
just to say to me, like, "dude, what the --?"
You're getting attention from the guys, not from the girl.
I don't give a shit. It's attention. I can't explain it to you.
It's like a mindset. Does that make sense or no?
But I tell you what-- when I'm done
my biceps are humongous, humongous.
Like that-- bam!
For myself, I'm kind of on the fence.
I have two brothers. They're both taking steroids
right as we speak right now.
I don't know if I want people
to think I'm not cheating
or to look at me and say,
"Wow, you know, you really have a great build."
But do you think I should take steroids to get there?
I think steroids are as American as apple pie.
We live in a society today that--
You got M.T.V. And reality shows,
Madonna's making out with Britney Spears,
Rap music and all that shit, and you're worried about steroids?
Kids are like, "-- you, cop. -- you, man,"
Playing video games like grand theft auto where you're killing cops.
That's worse influence in my opinion than steroids will ever be,
than Barry Bonds hitting home runs.
There's a big difference between a kid taking steroids
who's only had hair on his dick a couple of years,
as opposed to a grown man who's looking to perform better
At a better level in sports.
And where is Schwarzenegger in all this?
I mean, he is the poster boy for steroids.
He's the poster boy for "hey, look, look at me, look what I did.
I came, I conquered, I kicked ass."
That autobiography says he was doing it when he was 15-16.
Hey, he won Mr. Universe at 19 years old-- 19.
Did you ever see what he looked like when he was 19?
Do you think it was god-given genetics or do you think
that maybe he took the performance enhancers?
A lot of people idolize these guys,
whether it's a rock star, a bodybuilder, a movie star, whoever,
and all of a sudden you get to meet them
and, man, is it a let-down.
Because they're never ever what they appear to be.
The guy you see in public like this
has got the middle finger under the table going like this.
It's never "what you see is what you get."
It's "what you see is what they want you to see."
Everybody idolized Schwarzenegger growing up.
Everybody thought, "man, I wanna lift weights
and life a pure life like Arnold.
And I'm gonna eat all my vegetables and take my protein shakes.
Maybe I'll move out to California, train at Gold's Gym.
And I'm gonna get really big. I'm gonna win contests.
I'm gonna be a movie star too."
ANNOUNCER: Please welcome a man
whose story embodies the American dream.
One thing I learned about America is
that if you work hard and if you play by the rules
this country is truly open to you.
You can achieve anything.
Dude, that is--
That is a pipe dream.
That is a pipe dream, okay?
To get where Arnold got in life
you have to be willing to step on a few fingers
and step on a few friends and fuck a few people over.
You don't get to that level without that.
In this world you're either the barracuda
or you're that little minnow swimming around like this.
And Arnold's the barracuda.
And we'll all exercise a little bit together
with the dumbbells. Come on now, let's do some presses here.
CHRIS: In the same year that George Bush Sr. signed
the Steroid Control Act he also made Arnold Schwarzenegger
the chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness.
So I'm confused.
Was the President saying that a former steroid user
could still be a role model for kids?
- Are you gonna exercise? - Yeah!
We're gonna pump up muscle!
TV NARRATOR: Enter Steve Rogers,
Too puny to be accepted by the army,
but willing to risk death for his country.
He's changing right before our eyes!
TV NARRATOR: Suddenly it is over
and America has a new champion.
CHRIS: Why do you think in America superheroes are so important?
STAN LEE: People need heroes,
Whether in real life or in fiction,
because they need somebody to inspire them,
something to aim for,
somebody to try to be like.
I think any boy would want
to be built like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Did you ever want to be big a muscular like that?
I wanted to be a little-- when I'd go to the beach
I used to wish that my arms were a little stronger.
I looked more like the 98-lb weakling.
Did that ever inspire you, that Charles Atlas comic strip?
- Did that inspire some of your characters? - It inspired everybody.
CHARLES ATLAS: Let me teach you how to become strong.
( fanfare )
When you're young you get impressions
That pretty much last you all your life.
If you step up and show up
and play hard, you're gonna play.
All right, get a break.
- ( boys cheer ) - Rock 'n' roll, fellas!
CHRIS: Smelly's now a coach
for the local high-school football team.
Kind of like Arnold, he just wants to give back to the kids.
MARK: Going to school was pretty painful for me.
Oftentimes I can find the kid who is like me
and maybe doesn't have the best confidence
and show him how to lift weights
and build him up physically and mentally.
( cheering )
BOY: He's the kind of guy
who would get in your life and slowly turn it around.
He keeps me going. He keeps me motivated about something.
When he works with those high school kids
that's his passion. Not a lot of kids
Have a strong male figure in their life.
I mean, a lot of people-- they're usually very selfish,
but he's not. I've never really met anyone that's like that.
CHRIS: There's a gym in Columbus, Ohio,
Where the strongest guys in the world train.
It's called West Side Barbell.
And this is where Smelly learned from his role model, Louie Simmons.
I've got a philosophy like many-- when you go to war
you go to kill. You don't go to get killed.
There's nobody in this place
that's not trying to be the best athlete in the world.
Everybody here is trying to achieve an elite level of success.
Pretty much as you're a kid you always want to be the strongest.
I always wanted to be the strongest guy.
And I still want to be that, you know.
( all cheering )
SIMMONS: In 1959 my father showed me a book.
It was about the Russians taking testosterone.
So I said, "what the hell?
First chance I got, I'm gonna do some of this." and so I did.
I've actually been on anabolic steroids for 36 years.
Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt!
Up up up up up!
CHRIS: Is it something I should be morally battling
or should I be fine with doing it?
Your morals are your morals, not mine.
Who am I to judge you? And who are you to judge me?
You want to be strong or you want to be weak?
But you can't be strong without doing steroids?
You can't be as strong as possible.
If you want to reach the top you're gonna have to do it.
Everybody thinks anabolic steroids is the easy way out.
The people that train with anabolic steroids
train way harder than people that don't.
Regardless of what people think of Barry Bonds,
you can't take a bottle of testosterone,
put on Barry's baseball uniform
and make him hit 700 home runs.
Barry's got to go out, train and hit the 700 home runs.
But what if the scientists came up
with something better than anabolic steroids?
You see cows, you see immense, powerful cows,
And they basically have changed their genes.
If they can change your genes, would that be illegal?
What would they do then? Just ban sports in general?
( chuckles ) Oh My Lord.
( laughing )
When people see these, is the first question
"how many hormones do you pump into them?"
Well, it's two comments. One would be,
"oh my gosh, what did you do to that thing?"
And secondly, "it looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger."
CHRIS: This is a Belgian Blue Bull--
( moos )
2600 lbs, all muscle, all natural.
So tell me again, you're all natural?
You're not taking anything?
I think you're ready for Congress.
He has a genetic mutation
that allows him to grow double muscle.
And scientists have figured out
how to genetically alter humans the same way.
Dr. Lee Sweeney is using this technology
to try to cure muscular dystrophy.
It's obviously going to become more and more evident
that what we call talent
is really genetic variation.
There's genetic enhancement available that might be able
to give you what nature didn't give you.
Trying to figure out how to do it in the safest way
Is something that hasn't been worked out.
If you find out that it's safe,
would you be somebody who would say, "hey--"?
Yeah, I would be first in line.
'Cause it seems like this is
the future of sports-- gene doping.
Gene doping, yeah. I wouldn't do it.
( chuckles )
Will gene doping ruin sports in America?
I don't think so. I mean, I think
any time there's a new technology
everyone says, "okay, we have to stand back
and think about what this is really gonna mean to society."
And I think that's the debate
we will come to in the coming decades.
TV NARRATOR: Good sportsmanship-- you know what that means?
Play fair.
CHRIS: When I was a kid cheating was pretty clear-cut,
like when the million dollar man hired the referee's
evil twin brother to cheat the Hulkster out of his title.
COMMENTATOR: Is that Dave Hebner or is that Dave Hebner?
You know, cheating in other sports wasn't all that different.
was hot-scuffing the ball with an emery board?
Remember when Joe Necro
COMMENTATOR: Something came out of his pocket.
Chris: And what about when the Patriots were playing the Dolphins
And they hired an ex-con to clear
a spot in the snow for the field-goal kicker?
You can't do that.
I think it's the most unfair thing
that I've ever been associated in.
CHRIS: Or like when Rosie Ruiz won the Boston Marathon.
The mystery woman winner. We missed her at all our checkpoints.
CHRIS: Why take steroids when you can take a bus?
And who can forget when Tonya Harding
hired a goon to take out Nancy Kerrigan's knee?
Why? Why? ( sobbing )
I guess if you can't beat 'em,
beat 'em with a lead pipe.
But somehow steroids seem kind of different.
I thought in undergraduate school and in college
I was a pretty good athlete.
But I find myself angry,
angry in my gut
because these are the same guys that would have taken me out,
taken me out not because they had
more god-given natural talent than me
but because they enhanced with artificial means.
CHRIS: If using steroids is cheating,
seems like a whole bunch of other stuff should be cheating too.
Take Tiger Woods, for example. He had Lasik eye surgery
and now his vision is 20/15. That's better than perfect.
WOODS: My eyes are stable. My game's a lot better.
I felt pretty good coming in.
CHRIS: In a game that relies so much on depth perception,
wouldn't superhuman vision be a performance enhancement?
Then there's cortisone shots.
They helped Curt Schilling win the World Series.
And those are steroids too.
Truth is, corticosteroids can have worse side effects than anabolic steroids,
but they're used in sports every day.
He had a 20-minute cortisone shot
after Monday's match after his back tightened up.
CHRIS: Here's an even more confusing example--
Floyd Landis claims
that he did not take steroids to win the Tour De France.
LANDIS: Truth is, I didn't use testosterone
like I'm accused of doing. I didn't cheat.
I didn't do anything outside of the rules.
I won the Tour clean and I deserved to win.
I'm proud of it and I always will be.
CHRIS: But he did sleep in his own altitude chamber.
I got my altitude chamber
out by the garage these days.
So you made this?
Yeah, it's not actually that hard to make.
I didn't make the pipe. I got the pipe from some construction site.
They were putting in a water main.
Is the result pretty good?
For me it makes a difference, yeah.
And how long do you stay in here for?
Just sleep in there all night. I don't know, six or seven hours.
Is your wife like, "what are you doing?"
"I'm gonna sleep in the chamber."
( laughs ) She hates it.
So you just climb in there?
Yeah, you want to try it out?
You won't have a monitor in there, but I have it set
to, like, about 13,000'.
( air hissing )
CHRIS: See, sleeping in an altitude chamber
produces a lot more red blood cells,
which means more oxygen in your system,
which means more endurance for a cyclist or a long-distance runner.
There are four ways to increase your red blood cell count.
You can sleep in an altitude chamber like Floyd
or you can just train at the U.S. Olympic training center
at 6,000' in Colorado.
Then there's blood doping.
That's when you draw your own blood a month before the big race,
then re-inject it the night before.
Finally, there's a drug called E.P.O.
which simply tells your body
to produce more red blood cells.
So that's four ways to do the exact same thing,
but two are allowed and two are cheating.
You done yet?
( laughs )
Hey. That's kind of weird.
No, it's nice, man. Once you get used to it it's nice sleeping in there.
SCOTT REID: What's heartbreaking is my eight-year-old--
his two favorite athletes are Barry Bonds and Lance Armstrong.
My four-year-old is obsessed with Floyd Landis.
So what do you tell these kids? I talk to people all the time
That they go, "who can my kids believe in?"
And I want to tell them is "nobody."
I ask not to be judged and much less
to be sentenced by anyone.
You can't trust anybody now because the testing is so ineffective.
You don't know who's really clean, who's really dirty.
CHRIS: Were you taking any sort of drugs for that race?
Not what they fined me with, no.
- But you were taking other stuff. - Other stuff, yeah.
But isn't that still cheating?
Still cheating, yeah, like everybody else.
So that's how you justify it--
- Everybody's cheating? - Yes.
When I interviewed Ben Johnson he basically said,
"look, everybody was on something."
Well, you know, Ben-- and bless his heart,
he's got to say everyone was on something.
That's justifying his own means.
So he has a problem with you beating--
he has a problem-- he has a problem
- of, you know, me beating him. - Yeah.
When we were taking that victory stand,
we were on the stand and he got the gold medal,
he didn't smile. He never smiled.
He never celebrated. And the thing is,
he couldn't really inside share in the joy of winning. He cheated.
You cheat. Everybody cheats.
Nobody in this world is perfect.
Nobody in this life is perfect-- nobody.
They know that in 1988 six Americans at least
tested positive in Seoul. And they all shut up
because the biggest money comes from America.
So who's gonna get shafted,
Americans or Ben Johnson?
DR. WADE EXUM: I think that Ben Johnson was unfairly singled out.
I think that there's always scapegoats.
Is there a lot of drug use going on in Olympics?
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
CHRIS: Dr. Exum was the Director of Anti-Doping
at the U.S. Olympic Committee for 10 years.
He thought his job was to stop drugs in sports,
but his bosses had other priorities.
He told me that over 2000 American athletes
failed their drug tests, including Carl Lewis,
and they were covered up.
Nobody believes Carl Lewis ever failed a drug test.
- Do you have any proof? - Oh, certainly.
We have just boxes of proof for everything that I say.
There it is, book three.
Here's a letter from then Executive Director
Baaron Pittenger to Mr. Lewis.
CHRIS: "I must confirm that the analysis for your specimen 'B'
was positive for pseudoephedrine, ephedrine,
And phenylpropanolee-- lamine--
- Is that what is is? - Phenylpropanolamine, yeah.
--IOC banned stimulants.
By policy of the U.S.O.C., this finding is cause
for disqualification from the Olympic team
to the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea."
Wow.
This is basically a letter that said
that you had failed the test
and that there was a consequence to that failure.
As we all know, that didn't come about.
You actually received a letter, or a call--
- Yes. - --that you had failed the drug test--
- Right. - --because of some stimulants?
Yeah, it was like
a cold medicine type thing, the herbal supplement.
They made up this term. It was called "inadvertent use"--
an athlete took something without meaning to take it
or without meaning to gain an advantage from taking it.
Mm-hmm. And so they made that up
to basically kind of let people off the hook?
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Carl's story is-- it's been a cold medicine;
it's been a tea; it's been some kind of a nutrient.
- It's a stimulant. - CHRIS: So you're saying these athletes--
- they know what's on the banned substance list? - They totally know.
They are bombarded with the banned substance list.
A lot of people say you failed the drug test,
you raced against Ben Johnson,
and that maybe-- maybe the gold medal
- should go to the guy next on the stand. - I understand.
There are a lot of people that are going to go to their graves saying,
"I know he did it." and you know what? To hell with them.
DR. EXUM: You really cannot fault the athlete for doing that.
You can't fault Carl when Carl's belief is
that the system sets some rules and that you need to follow them.
And they made an exception in his case.
They made an exception in a lot of people's cases.
But it's the system
that actually teaches athletes to think that way.
You know, for me
the whole "level playing field" was a myth.
If we could not do anything to take doping out of sports
then doping was meant to be in sports.
The first all-drug Olympics opened today in Bogota, Colombia.
Athletes are allowed to take any substance whatsoever
before, after, and even during the competition.
- ( screams ) - ( laughter )
Oh! He's pulled his arms off!
He's pulled his arms off. That's got to be disappointing to the big Russian.
Yeah!
What has made every major sport
a multi-billion-dollar entity?
Well, after you distill it all down,
it's the desire of the customer,
the fans that fill these seats and others,
to see bigger-than-life people doing bigger-than-life things.
CHRIS: What do you think about athletes using steroids in sports?
Steroids? I love it if they're on my team.
I think it's totally wrong, totally wrong.
- Worst offense. Throw them out. - It's cheating?
Hell yeah, it's cheating. Are you kidding me?
MAN: Oh!
- ( man cheering ) - ( belches )
MAN: It all gets back to money.
As long as people continue to buy
Mark McGuire shirts, Barry Bonds hats,
we're feeding that monster.
You vote for the Raiders by wearing the Raiders hat.
You cast your vote for Nike with your T-shirt.
You know, every day when you pick a dollar out of your pocket
you're voting. And if you don't like
athletes juicing up, then don't vote to have that done.
Don't buy their stuff. Don't go to the game.
Do steroids. Become governor.
Be big and strong, no girly man.
- The Giants, baby! - Whoo!
Shockey!
Whoo!
CHRIS: Since the steroid scandals broke
sports revenue has gone through the roof.
People are buying more tickets, T-shirts as souvenirs than ever.
So if this is what we the people are voting for,
why did Congress get involved?
They always tell you that if you have a problem,
Talk to your Congressman.
Lucky for me, my Congressman is Henry Waxman.
- Hey, how are you? - I'm fine. How are you?
Very nice to meet you. Chris Bell.
CHRIS: He's the one who called
the baseball hearings in the first place.
He's got to have some answers.
I think it's important
for sports figures
in major league sports
not to be allowed
to use steroids under any circumstance.
And for young people--
we certainly don't want them to be using it.
So the drug is a restricted drug.
It's not-- there's not a--
Let me--
Brian, is it illegal to use--?
it's illegal-- it's legal
under some circumstances. What's--?
BRIAN: It's legal with a prescription--
- legal with-- okay. - --A medical prescription.
It's legal with a medical prescription.
And the other drug was the...
testosterone or just steroids in general.
Well, I think that they're also banned.
They're already banned in professional sports.
Brian, am I right? Speak up if I'm wrong.
- Yes. - Okay.
Well, these products are already banned.
Cigarettes and alcohol
are legally available,
but not if you're under the age.
And I think the age
is 18 for both all around the country.
Is it 18 or 21? I'm getting confused. What?
- BRIAN: 21. - CHRIS: 21.
- Okay, so strike that. - That's all right.
President Bush allotted
$15 million for steroid education.
Where has that money gone?
Um, I don't know.
Do you know?
Okay, we don't know. ( laughs )
- Okay. - So...
JEFF TAYLOR: It's a war on drugs
and Congressmen want to be tough on drugs,
so they just demonize them all.
And they say, "oh, our children are being exposed to them.
They're gonna kill our children."
And they just paint everything in black and white.
And they really don't see the areas in between.
For those of us who live in the grey areas
and whose life depends on it.
It's a very important issue.
Politicians are always looking
for an issue to get behind.
They're always looking for something
to be able to say to the public,
"hey, look at what my legislation's doing.
Look at what my bill has done.
I'm out there. I'm protecting you.
I'm protecting the children."
CHRIS: Turns out the most important witness
at the baseball hearings was not a famous athlete.
Taylor Hooton was a 17-year-old kid
who committed suicide and his father blamed steroids.
I believe the poor example
being set by professional athletes
is a major catalyst fueling
the high usage of steroids amongst our kids.
And parents across America
should hold you accountable
for behavior that inspires our kids
to do things that put their health at risk
and that teaches them that the ethics
we try to teach them around our kitchen table
somehow don't apply to them.
Please help us to see
that our children's lives were not lost in vain.
You have the power to do something about it
and we're counting on you to do so.
JOHN SWEENEY: Donald Hooton coming in
and putting a human face on it
was more powerful than the scientific--
the statistics or any of that stuff.
CHRIS: On average, 5,000 kids a year
commit suicide in America.
And most parents never know exactly why.
I wanted to find out why Donald Hooton is so sure
that the answer could be as simple as steroids.
- How are you doing? - Fine.
- Chris Henry. - Don Hooton. Nice to meet you.
This is a very very competitive community
all the way from athletics to business.
So you wind up in an affluent area
where these kids can afford to play with this stuff.
And of course in hindsight as we look back,
all of the signs were staring us in the face--
The behavior problems, the physical changes,
but we had no idea what we were looking at.
If we go back to the medical textbook,
the depression that comes along with steroid use is bad,
but it's worse in that four-to-six-week period
following stopping using this stuff.
And it was during that period
that his mother found him
hanging on the door in his bedroom.
Jeez.
Taylor Hooton's dad, Don Hooton,
called me shortly after
Taylor had taken his life.
Together we came up with the idea
of creating a private organization...
...to educate the public
about the dangers
of anabolic steroid abuse.
This is Taylor's room.
You don't have to come in here long to realize
Taylor was a baseball player.
'Cause he started maybe five years old in T-ball.
But Taylor was a great kid.
We took Taylor to a psychiatrist
and she put him on a low dose of Lexapro.
And as far as I know,
this is the only steroid-related case
that this well-meaning psychiatrist had ever had.
And when the psychiatrist recommended that Taylor go cold turkey
and stop using steroids...
it was a formula for disaster.
I feel terrible, obviously, about Taylor Hooton,
But Taylor Hooton had a lot of problems
and he was on other drugs.
According to some newspaper accounts,
he was on S.S.R.I.S-- antidepressants
which have been shown to be associated
with suicidal ideation and suicidal behavior.
So whether his suicide was due to Lexapro
or due to steroids or due to depression
or due to stress of being a great athlete,
there are five other things-- I don't know.
Do you think that perhaps--
when I look at your website,
The Taylor Hooton Foundation--
do you think it's a responsibility
to include antidepressants in there
just in case there are critics
or just to raise the awareness
of how dangerous perhaps antidepressants may be?
No, I don't. And the reason is,
our battle is not with antidepressants. Our battle's with steroids.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse said
the dangers of anabolic steroids
are temporary and reversible.
My son is dead.
All of the intellectual arguments
about whether or not
steroids are dangerous or not
don't matter to me.
I know they're dangerous.
I saw it with my own eyes and I watched my son die.
The only evidence I need is the pictures of my son
that are on the wall behind you.
Mm-hmm.
JOHN ROMANO: Look, I have a son too.
And the last thing in the world I could ever imagine doing
is burying that kid. And it would probably
ruin me for the rest of my life.
And I can see where having a cause
to sort of assuage the feelings of guilt
and depression that are following my son's death
would probably be helpful. "Let's not let this happen to somebody else."
But they're chasing the wrong thing.
They're not doing it right.
We're working with major league baseball
to make that happen now
where hopefully in each local stadium
there's gonna be a steroid awareness night.
Do you find it ironic at all
to have a steroid awareness night for baseball
in a stadium that sells alcohol
which is responsible for a lot of deaths as a drug?
Alcohol's legal to sell.
And we can argue all day long
Whether tobacco kills and whether alcohol kills,
and there's a clear distinction in my mind
between tobacco or alcohol
and steroids and methamphetamines and coke.
- Thanks for sharing that with us. - All right.
I know how hard it can be and everything.
This is important stuff.
( marching band playing, cheerleaders cheering )
MARK: Anybody who asks me about it--
I let them know. I tell them why.
I tell them how much I take. I'll tell them anything
- they want to ask me about them 'cause I think-- - What about the kids?
The kids are different because--
a couple kids asked me in front of the whole group
and I had to lie about it
because this whole steroid thing is just out of hand.
I know coach Henry doesn't take any steroids.
He's just 100% strong.
I think somebody asked him if he was on steroids
and he said no. And I completely believe him.
He just teaches that steroids are basically--
they're a cheap way out of doing hard work.
MARK: I say they're not for kids.
Steroids are not for kids. That's plain and simple.
You should achieve things naturally
and then maybe you should think about them
when you're an adult.
The main reason why I don't take steroids
is 'cause he got it into my head that I don't need 'em,
that I got the potential right now as a teenager to get as strong as I want.
MARK: What good would it do them to know that I take steroids?
It wouldn't do them any good. They'd just be like,
"oh, man, he's a cheater.
Would you ever tell our parents that you do it?
Um, I mean, you know,
if they asked me.
I only cooked two pounds.
I hope it's enough.
CHRIS: You know, we went to church all the time.
I grew up in a great family.
I don't think I could ask
for anybody better to be parents, you know.
And when I went to the U.S.C.
I didn't do any drugs. I didn't do anything.
- 'Cause you're a good boy. - Well...
And then I got to a point where I actually tried steroids.
I tried Winstrol, which is injections.
You injected a needle in yourself?
MIKE: It's just in the muscle.
Yeah, 'cause you get to a point where you're like,
"I'm getting out of shape. I don't feel like I used to."
The reason I stopped doing it was
because I thought it was immoral.
I thought it was so wrong and like,
"what if my parents found out I did this?"
I think it's really hard to hear
- that you tried 'em and everything, but-- - For you.
It's not hard for me.
What I'm saying is that it's hard to hear.
And what about mark? I mean,
how come you're staying big but you're not getting fat?
- You're just-- - I'm getting fatter.
No, but your face is rounder.
- I put on body fat. - MIKE: He's about--
You're about 7% or 8% higher than what you normally are, wouldn't you say?
I have no idea. I don't really care either.
CHRIS: He's already married. He doesn't care.
ROSEMARY: Except Smelly's not saying anything.
Don't let your brothers overrun your conversation.
SHELDON: When you get caught with something
I think the truth is always the fastest way
out of the situation,
but it's not always the best way out.
You know, she's concerned. She's being a mom
and she's just trying to leave it open
where I could say, "Yeah, you know what? I do 'em.
And this is why." I think that's what she's looking for.
But she's still never directly asked me.
So until that time comes I ain't sayin' nothin'.
( chuckles )
SHELDON: People have a tendency to cheat at everything.
And that happens with taxes too,
just like it could with steroids or any other thing.
It's human nature. It's the sinful nature of men.
CHRIS: My dad convinced mad dog and his wife
To settle down in Poughkeepsie.
And he's been doing income taxes for the same guys he used to wrestle with.
I keep a couple things around, not too much.
Big john. John always keeps it real.
This just says "To Mad Dog. Thanks for everything."
CHRIS: Not exactly how he thought his life would turn out.
MIKE: I get up, I go to the office,
you know, I make money for them, I make money for me.
I got a great wife. I got a great family.
But I wanted to be a famous wrestler
and, you know, I wanted to live the life.
I wanted to be on the road, travel, meeting people,
Making money, having fun--
you know, living the life.
SHELDON: He'll break down and he'll be crying
and he'll say, like, "dad, the biggest fear
I ever had in my life was being average Joe.
And I'm 36 years old and that's all I can see for myself."
CHRIS: What do you want to do now?
Where do you see yourself going?
I mean, you know, the immediate goal was to get out of Poughkeepsie,
move to California, establish my name
and then start my own business eventually.
Seemed like he was making good progress, okay?
But he wasn't making any progress.
I told him the other night, I said,
"you might be fooling everybody else,
but you're not fooling me.
You're full of shit. You're still on stuff."
Why do you think he would tell us about it?
He tells me everything else, you know, that he's doing.
I think he's partially embarrassed
and I think he's--
that's part of addictive behavior.
His thing is this-- "I'm gonna be fine as soon as I'm out of here.
I'm gonna go live in California. My life is gonna be perfect."
But if he really believes that-- no, he's not gonna be fine at all.
You know who I feel bad for? I feel bad for Nadine.
'Cause here's a young girl who's married,
whose hopes and dreams and life
is in him, and he's a screw-up.
And if he ends up overdosing and killing himself
or if he ends up on the rocks, he's taking her with him.
I'm not moving out there with the hopes and dreams of--
I'm not gonna wait tables and hope I'm gonna be an actor.
I already did that-- 15 years of wrestling.
You think you'll get noticed?
I'm not moving out to get noticed,
but you're never gonna get noticed in Poughkeepsie.
In Hollywood you're walking down the street, somebody sees you--
"hey, you got a minute?" you just never know.
You don't think there's any way
he can get past it?
A miracle.
I'm serious.
I think they're gonna find him dead someday.
I thought bringing up boys-- this is easy.
At least I don't have a daughter who's, like,
got her face in the bowl throwing up.
You know, did I-- did I do something
as a mother
To make you feel,
like, not good enough?
When Mike went off to college and he calls your father up
and says, "can I try steroids?"
"No, you're not getting money to try steroids."
You know, we both thought that was a crazy thing, so--
but do you know where he ended up getting 'em from?
- No, but I wasn't gonna-- - He got 'em from your brother John.
No--
So that's-- I mean, it's something that's like,
you know, in our family.
I mean, it's something that, like--
Chris, you're already killing me with this as it is.
- Well, I'm telling-- - It just gets worse.
I'm just telling you the truth.
I'm just trying to tell you how I feel as a mother.
I am broken to my soul.
My heart is broken.
When you were growing up Hulk Hogan--
look what he's saying. "take your vitamins,
say your prayers--" and what?
- "believe in yourself." - Yeah, but it's not true.
- So I started working out. - "Take your steroids," okay?
I don't know if he ever prays or not.
Never heard him talk about god in his whole life, okay?
Now that time has gone by,
I'm like, "is this guy a fraud?"
And that's where I think that everybody needs
to begin to accept-- "I am who I am,"
said Popeye the sailor man.
He even was a gyp.
- He had to take spinach. - He had to take spinach.
Everybody needs something. I mean, what's up with that?
If I just accept who I am right now, isn't that just giving up?
No, accept who you are as a person.
Then your body image is something different.
Do you think a fat person hasn't tried everything
that's legal? But I'm not gonna cross the line.
The Bible lays everything out about how to live your life.
- But the bible can't solve all your problems. - It can.
I can't pray to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's not gonna happen.
No, you can't pray to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger,
but neither can you take enough steroids
or enough human growth hormone to look like him either.
- But you can get as close as you can. - It's not gonna happen.
You're fearfully and wonderfully made.
Every sinew in your body, every muscle, every fiber
was made by god. And you're exactly
who he intended you to be.
And so what? To somebody with a six-pack of abs.
Maybe they don't have what you have.
I mean, you know, why don't you ever think that way too?
What I don't get is why did our boys
Not feel that they were good enough?
My father or my grandfather
never worried about
whether they had a six-pack of abdominals
or what percentage of body fat they had.
So why is it now in the 21st century
that there's this huge preoccupation
with body image that just didn't exist before?
CHRIS: Dr. Harrison pope is a psychiatrist
who studies why American men are becoming more obsessed with their bodies.
So here we have G.I. Joe
from the 1960s.
This is when he first came out at the time of the Vietnam war.
He's a perfectly normal-looking dude.
Here is G.I. Joe from about 10 years later,
- from the mid-1970s. - He's got abs now.
He's clearly been putting in some time in the gym.
- And then here is G.I. Joe from the 1990s. - Oh, jeez.
The bicep is up to 16" or so,
full six-pack of abs,
even got serratus muscles visible on the side.
This evolution in the action figures
is a testimony
to this increased preoccupation with body image
that we've been seeing in the United States.
And it's funny that in our culture
we still tend to romanticize
steroids to a certain way--
That you'll see an ad for an S.U.V. that says,
"this is our sedan on steroids."
But you wouldn't see an ad for an S.U.V. saying,
"this is our sedan on cocaine."
REPORTER: Well, it's sort of like a golf cart on steroids.
It looked like an easy-bake oven on steroids.
It's sort of the economy on steroids.
Think of it as Apollo on steroids.
This year the jet stream has really been on steroids.
Kosovo would be Bosnia on steroids.
MAN: Adding more U.S. trainers and advisors,
essentially putting the current strategy on steroids.
We are besieged every day
with images of muscular male bodies on T.V.,
in the movies, in cartoons, on magazines
at the checkout counter in the department store,
all of which seem to give this message
that a real man is big and muscular.
There you go. Just like that.
Good. Give me some good abs, Christian. That's it.
I saw "Conan the Barbarian" when I was 11.
And at that moment I said, "that's exactly what I want to do."
And I started to study Arnold and his achievements.
So I started training with weights when I was 14.
I started taking steroids when I was 16.
So you're advertising a supplement.
So a guy like me goes and looks in the magazine
and I see Christian Boeving and I'm like, "wow, man,
I wanna look like that guy." so I go and take
Hydroxycut or some supplement
because I think that I'm gonna look like you.
But what I don't know is that you were taking steroids.
Do you have any problem with that?
That's a double-edged sword, my friend.
How to answer this?
Somebody looks at an ad with me in it
and says, "Christian Boeving takes Hydroxycut,"
Which I did and I do.
That doesn't necessarily mean that I don't take something else.
If they choose to believe
that that's the only thing I'm taking to look like that,
then so be it. They should be smarter than that.
Is it misleading? Possibly a little bit, yeah.
But is it a lie? Absolutely not.
I'd say probably 80% to 90%-- I'm not kidding you--
of all the stuff I see in magazines
is complete hogwash. It's ridiculous to me.
I don't understand why there's this need in advertising
To really manipulate things--
The bone-thin fashion models
that got all kinds of eating disorders,
and with men it's the opposite.
They get the Adonis complex.
And then there's all kinds of trouble ahead
'cause you have all these kids who are like you and me when we were young
looking at all these people and they're perfect.
And how does that make somebody feel who's not as perfect
as the people they're seeing? Not very good.
So this stuff I've tried--
loaded with sugar.
I've tried this. I've tried this.
Of course I've tried this.
Everybody I think's tried muscle milk.
I've tried this. I've tried this.
I've tried all these drinks.
If speed stack weren't enough, you have extreme speed stack.
REHAN JALALI: The supplement industry is very unregulated.
You don't have to have F.D.A. approval
To come out with a dietary supplement.
That gives people room to come out
with some lower-quality products.
This product says "new legal formula" on it.
( laughs ) I don't know what the old formula really had in it.
"Belizean Man Vine Extract."
( laughs ) I don't want any part of that.
"Best if used by date and lot number on bottom of can."
Yeah.
( laughs )
CHRIS: I always thought the health industry
was about, you know, health.
Why does it feel like we're back in the wild west?
It'll clean your teeth and curl your hair!
The best in the west.
I wouldn't be dead without a bottle.
CHRIS: Well, we can all thank the senator from Utah, Orrin Hatch.
Look how good he looks.
I want to get his brand is what I want to do.
CHRIS: See, the health industry is big business in Utah.
They make almost a quarter of all the dietary supplements in America.
And supplements are a $24-billion industry.
So you do the math.
Making supplements used to be like making prescription drugs.
You had to prove your product was safe and effective
before you could sell it. Well, the supplement cowboys in Utah
thought that was a real hassle.
So they asked their favorite senator to change the rules around.
And now you don't have to prove your product is safe at all.
And the F.D.A. has to prove that it's not safe
If they want to take it off the market.
What is this red goop?
This is the Canadian version of redline.
We had to take out some of the ingredients that aren't legal in Canada.
CHRIS: Thanks to this deregulation, the supplement industry exploded
And all sorts of new and interesting people got in on the action.
We were always a good team, whether we were selling drugs
or whether we were selling a supplement like we are now.
"Jekyll & Hyde" supplements, formulated to awaken your other side.
Take this and all of a sudden you become the freak, the monster.
Everybody wants to become a monster.
CHRIS: If Valentino can make a supplement I bet anyone can do it.
Hola.
- How many guys you need? - I need two guys.
- We're making dietary supplements. - Uh-huh.
And I just need a hand with a couple things. It'd be really easy.
All I need you guys to do is take the white--
- MAN: Put inside? - CHRIS: Boom.
CHRIS: First you buy a bunch of really popular ingredients.
But the trick is I'm just gonna use
- a tiny amount of each one. - Oof.
It's what we like to call in the supplement biz "pixie dusting."
See, I can hide my secret formula
behind the term "proprietary blend"
and not reveal that it's pretty much
just a pillful of rice flour.
- ( man sneezing ) - It's a good way to make a lot of money.
Don't sneeze in the supplements here.
( man laughs )
CHRIS: But with all those expensive ingredients on the label
I can make this bottle for about a buck 40
and sell it for $60.
Thanks, Orrin.
We're in the supplement business now.
CHRIS: The scary part is that everything I just did is by the book--
Well, except for the illegal-immigrant day laborers.
But hey, nobody's regulating them either.
Now I just need a misleading advertisement.
Do you airbrush these guys a lot when you put them in magazines?
Definitely. There's all kinds of techniques and tools
you can use to completely manipulate the body.
- Really? - In fact, some of the "before" and "after" pictures--
They could be done on the same day.
You haven't shot them in the same day, though, have you?
- I have, actually. - Oh, you have?
- Yeah. - What do they do--?
Is this the self-editing part? I should keep my mouth shut?
I could take anybody and take a picture of them,
make them look their worst...
think horrible thoughts, depression.
( giggles )
...and then through all kinds of ways
make them look their best.
Just don't cut my nipple off.
( buzzing )
Agh!
All right. Let me see here. Good.
One, two, three.
Good.
We can take it a step further if we want
in the befores and the afters.
Basically, you can take somebody
and make them a little fatter or shorter.
Are people falling for this?
They fall for it all the time.
And it's beyond what I can understand
because it looks so silly to me,
but of course I'm somebody who's had sort of an inside,
backstage pass to what's really occurred,
and I've been part of some of these scams that have played out.
CHRIS: So if unregulated dietary supplements
are marketed like steroids
and sold by people who are on steroids,
is it any wonder that so many people are just taking the real thing?
I mean, it's not like they're hard to get.
You can cross the border and buy them from a pet store in Mexico.
MAN: Testosterona, $15.
But it's for your dog, right?
Oh, it's for my dog. Yeah, I forgot.
Yeah yeah, my dog's anemic.
CHRIS: Or you can buy them on the internet like Mad Dog.
If you order online you can get the shit for $250 a kit
Instead of paying somebody on the black market $500 or $600 for a kit.
CHRIS: Or, if you have enough money, you can get it legally.
This is the annual convention for the anti-aging medicine--
Booth after booth of all the taboo performance-enhancing drugs.
Stanozolol-- hey, that's what Ben Johnson used.
Nandrolone-- isn't that what Shawne Merriman got caught with?
Oh, and human growth hormone--
They say Marion Jones was taking that.
Human growth hormone usage
has been rampant in baseball and other sports.
CHRIS: Athletes use H.G.H. because it works
A lot like anabolic steroids. And the best part is,
there's no way to test for it. Here's how you get it.
First you go to your anti-aging doctor.
Now the doctor might not be a medical doctor.
Like in my case-- he's a chiropractor.
And chiropractors can't prescribe drugs,
but that's okay. He just has another doctor
write the prescriptions for him.
But be careful-- prescribing hormones for anti-aging
is a felony. So you can't exactly tell your anti-aging doctor
that you're interested in anti-aging.
Not to worry, though-- just use the words
"hormone deficiency" instead.
First thing, doc will want to do a little physical.
BOTH: Aagh.
( dings )
Do you have people come to you to try to get steroids?
Absolutely. But prescribing steroids--
That's not what we do, not at all.
Mm-hmm. But it kind of is what you do
in a way, in a different way.
CHRIS: Next you're gonna get a urine test
to check your hormone levels for 24 hours.
That's a take-home test-- you know, scout's honor.
Send in the test and a week later go get your results.
DOCTOR: We got your labs back here--
Urinary growth hormone output.
CHRIS: But here's the thing-- since the F.D.A.
has never defined what a hormone deficiency really is,
Well, doc can pretty much interpret the results however he wants.
You're a little bit low, coming down.
I'm gonna bring those levels up to optimal.
CHRIS: Now it may seem strange
that the most controversial drugs in America
are being prescribed using take-home tests,
and in my case by a doctor I never met,
but hey, at least I'm not the one breaking the law.
Why don't you just get it legally?
Um, I like getting it the way I get it.
It's cheap and I can get it
anytime I want.
And I don't think there's any real reason for me to--
I mean, I don't want to go to a doctor.
That's a pain in the ass.
You ever worry about getting arrested
or cops coming after you or anything like that?
I'm not all that concerned about it.
You can justify anything to yourself.
And once you've justified it to yourself
then you just think it's cool. You think it's okay.
So in my mind it's okay.
I pose the question to people, say,
"hey, if you had to take a drug
with the side effects-- known side effects
and the unknown effects of the anabolic steroids
To keep your job right now
and support your family, would you do it?"
Maintaining an erection is very easy to do
with the appropriate chemical assistance.
Liquid Viagra injected into the penis.
You inject this in your penis?
Yep.
- Does it hurt? - Um, not really.
CHRIS: It's not just athletes and porn stars
Taking performance-enhancing drugs.
Just about everybody's in on the action.
Probably the most common thing is what we call go-pills.
There's probably different kinds,
but dextramphetamine is the big one.
They work wonders, they really do, especially if you've been
out there a long time and it's hard to stay focused.
What about you?
Yeah, they'll spin you right up.
Many parents may not be aware that their children
are taking a drug by the name of Adderall
to improve their academic performance.
Adderall is a powerful stimulant
very much like cocaine
or methamphetamine.
It's not just for people who have problems.
People who think completely fine-- I've taken Adderall
in college here and there to write a paper.
And I said, "this is a fun way to write a paper."
Your test scores go up and you're
doing homework faster, so you can do more work.
All I did when I went to class-- my friends, should I talk to them?
Nope, hold on. And I'd be doing all my work.
CHRIS: And for every performance
there's a way to enhance it.
So you take beta-blockers to calm you down?
It actually doesn't calm me down.
It prevents me from getting nervous.
- Here we go. - WOMAN: I was in college
and I was having really really bad problems with performance anxiety
and it was actually making me question what I was doing in the first place.
A friend gave me beta-blockers and I just couldn't believe it.
I felt like I could get up there and do exactly what I wanted to do
and I wasn't hindered by what my body was reacting to.
( applause )
Blocking that adrenaline goes a long way
towards enhancing performance.
CHRIS: So it's okay to enhance your performance
if you're a pilot, a porn star,
a musician or a student,
but if your job is to play professional baseball,
well, somehow that makes you a cheater.
CHRIS: Do you feel it's cheating?
Not at all. Oh, no, certainly not.
MAN: There is no competition in music.
You know, this is completely unlike sports.
What about in an audition situation?
- Is there competition there? - Yeah, there is.
And, you know, a lot of people take 'em
and I don't see that there's a problem with it.
Was there any sort of moral bridge to cross when you did it?
Well, we're in the porn business.
There's not a whole lot of morals to begin with.
Amphetamines in baseball-- they actually take the same pill
- As a go-pill. - Yeah, I've heard that.
In the clubhouse they're called greenies.
And some in the game say they could be
more common than steroids.
In sports you should play fair.
In war you shouldn't play fair at all.
PILOT: I've got some men on a road
And it looks like a piece of artillery firing at us.
I am rolling in in self-defense.
Shaq!
CHRIS: In 2002 over Afghanistan
two American pilots on go-pills
bombed a group of friendly Canadians.
PILOT #2: I hope that was the right thing to do.
PILOT #1: ME too.
REPORTER: Four Canadian soldiers were killed.
Doctors say the pilots' snap judgment to open fire
Is typical of someone on speed.
CHRIS: The pilots were charged with manslaughter,
But they blamed their go-pills
and the charges were dropped.
No other country in the world
allows amphetamines in their Air Force,
But in America we require it.
TUTOR: You know, America is a very competitive place
and people will take advantage of really anything they can
in order to help themselves in that struggle.
I hate to say it, the amount of beta-blockers
that they've got me on right now-- California traffic
- doesn't bother me anymore. - Really?
STUDENT: It's too easy to get it from a doctor.
You say, "I can't focus in class"
And the doctor prescribes it automatically.
And when you got Adderall you just went to the doctor?
No, it's just passed around at school.
- It's passed around at school? - Passed around at school.
You turn on your T.V.
And we push drugs, right?
If you have a headache-- use this.
If you have a pain in your side-- use that.
If you want to go to sleep-- use this.
If you want to wake up-- use that.
We are the only country in the world
that permits drugs of that kind
to be advertised directly to the consumer.
CHRIS: The American pharmaceutical industry
spends almost $5 billion a year on advertising.
And we in turn spend $250 billion on their drugs.
That's more than any other country by far.
Are we the most unhealthy people in the world
Or do we just watch too much T.V.?
Everybody's on a drug. So why because I'm on a drug
does everybody have to point a finger at me?
- Why am I the bad guy? - 'Cause you're on steroids.
And steroids are bad. ( laughs )
( applause )
To help children make right choices
they need good examples.
Athletics play such an important role in our society,
but unfortunately, some in professional sports
are not setting much of an example.
CHRIS: Long before George Bush was the President
he was the owner of the Texas Rangers, a major league baseball team
With none other than Jose Canseco on the roster.
SENATOR WAXMAN: Do you think that the team trainers,
The managers, the general managers and even the owners
might have been aware
that some players were using steroids?
No doubt in my mind. Absolutely.
CHRIS: So did the President know
that his players were on the juice?
You've admitted to using steroids in the past.
Knowing what you know now about them,
- would you have done it? - Yeah, absolutely.
The National Football League has talked more
about steroid testing or human growth hormone.
And I know back in your day
you've admitted that you did that.
Your stand on that right now?
I think it's good to do doping tests
and the trick obviously to find a way
of really doing true testing.
I think that we have to do something
about the drug use in sports.
And I think it does send the wrong message to our children.
CHRIS: So Arnold wants to crack down on steroids,
but every year he sponsors his own bodybuilding show,
The Arnold Classic.
And they don't drug-test at all.
Isn't it unbelievable, the shape these guys are in,
I mean, how ripped they are, how bid they are,
how cut they are, their posing routine and everything?
I'm so proud of them. I tell you, it is really amazing.
CHRIS: This year Governor Schwarzenegger
handed over the winning trophy to Victor Martinez,
a guy who was busted for selling steroids
just a couple of years ago.
And a few days before this competition
he was implicated in another steroid scandal.
The bodybuilder who won a competition
sponsored by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger this past weekend
has been linked to a steroid investigation.
A spokesman for the Governor says Schwarzenegger did not know
of Martinez's links to steroids.
CHRIS: Come on, Arnold, what do you mean you didn't know?
Okay, let's compare.
Here's Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was on steroids--
6'2", 235 lbs.
And here's Victor Martinez,
seven inches shorter and 15 lbs heavier.
Give him a big hand, come on, a big hand.
CHRIS: You know, I've been calling Arnold's office
For over a year to get an interview,
but his people keep telling me
that his position on steroids is very clear.
So the only way to get an answer
was to track him down myself
at a place I knew he would show up--
Muscle Beach.
It was just a few weeks before the Governor's reelection
And Arnold went to where he knew he could depend on support
to cement his voting base.
This was my big chance. I waited for hours.
And finally there he was.
And there was this other guy,
the tall guy, the one in the middle. He saw me.
This is how politics work these days.
The important thing when making an appearance is the photo op.
The tall guy's gonna nod at me.
Then he's gonna point Arnold in my direction.
Arnold, his instincts honed by years of being a huge star,
instantly sizes up the situation,
notices the various cameras
and decides to use me to further his reelection bid.
Look at those arms. Look at those arms.
CHRIS: And instead of talking about steroids
and the cheating culture of America,
he compliments me on my biceps
and we end up on the cover of the L.A. "Times."
There he is. Oh my God.
CHRIS: Not that I mind.
After all, it was kind of like a dream come true.
Son of a bitch.
CHRIS: But I still have all these unanswered questions.
SHELDON: Let me tell you this, first of all--
You can't knock Arnold really, okay?
Because the steroids didn't get him into that office that he's in.
But he basically comes out and he says,
"if you work hard and you play by the rules
this country is truly open to you.
You can achieve anything." but did he get to where he is
playing by the rules? Or would he have ever even been famous
had he not taken those drugs?
Well, let's look at it this way--
Let's talk about other heroes.
Let's talk about John Kennedy. He was a hero in the Navy.
John Kennedy served as the President of the United States.
But John Kennedy cheated on his wife right in the White House
with Marilyn Monroe and who knows how many others, okay?
It's no different than biblical characters.
Moses was a hero but Moses was a heel.
He didn't get into the Promised Land.
He didn't do what God told him to do.
David was a hero-- King David was a hero,
But David was a heel. He chased every woman
in a skirt, or in a toga,
or whatever they wore back then.
Every man is fallible
and even the people
who were the prime examples
of how to run your life in the bible
screwed up. They all screwed up.
So people need to get off their
self-righteous soapboxes
and start loving each other.
We just need to go out there and do our jobs,
just as you professionals do your job.
All of you guys lied.
All of y'all
in a story or whatever have lied.
Should you have an asterisk behind your name?
All of you have lied.
All of you have said something wrong.
All of you have dirt, all of you.
When your closet's clean
then come clean somebody else's.
But clean yours first.
CHRIS: Hi. How are you?
The last name is Bell, B-E-L-L.
SCHWARZENEGGER: I took the oath to serve you.
I say to everyone here today and to all Californians,
I will not forget my oath
And I will not forget you.
( applause and cheering )
CHRIS: A few months after I voted for Arnold
his people told Gold's Gym
to remove all of his images.
What is the meaning of this?
It's a dark day in Gold's Gym.
They're taking down Arnold's poster.
Do you have a lot of respect for Arnold? Is he one of your heroes?
Well, he was until he took his shit down.
You know, that guy's a traitor, man.
CHRIS: The gym feels different now.
The old Arnold's gone
and somehow this time
I don't think he'll be back.
So you're excited to be out here instead of in Poughkeepsie?
Hell yeah, man. I got a job making
three times as much money and my rent's just about the same
and I'm right by the beach and I got a convertible.
Right here next to the mirror, honey.
MIKE: Put a little muscle in it.
- CHRIS: Here you go. - Higher.
So what do you plan on doing here that you weren't doing in Poughkeepsie?
Jeez, like having fun with life instead of hating life.
Think it'll help you with your problems and stuff?
Absolutely. I feel better already.
CHRIS: Now that Mad Dog's in California,
Things seem to be going pretty good for him.
He got a job working as a trainer at a local wrestling school.
Got you! Now if I want to take it here--
Keep your face up, keep your face up.
CHRIS: He'd actually make a great teacher,
but that's not good enough for Mad Dog.
He still wants to be a superstar.
MIKE: So this Sunday night, pay per view, Madison Square Garden!
Hell's Henrys will toll for you.
Just not-- I'm sick, though, dude.
CHRIS: Mad Dog sent his promo to the W.W.E.,
but they rejected him again.
They said he's too old
and not what they're looking for right now.
MIKE: You know, I want to believe that the world is good,
but it's not. And I want to try hard,
but why try when you can't win?
Those who can't do, train.
It's just I never understood why I didn't,
you know?
What's the problem with just being a normal guy?
What's wrong with just being normal?
There's nothing wrong with it.
Well, actually, there is something wrong with it.
the thing that's wrong with it is
that I was born to attain greatness and I'm the only one
that's holding myself back. And I need to attain greatness. I need to do it.
You live down by the beach, you have a beautiful wife,
and nothing's ever good enough.
I can only imagine how she feels.
And do you ever think,
"why am I dragging somebody else in this?"
I know that a lot of times she's crying herself to sleep.
And I know that sometimes she doesn't glow
the way that she did when I first met her.
And I know it's my fault.
And it really tears me up.
Yeah. Well, I mean,
I worry every day that--
What I worry about is you're gonna lose your job,
You're gonna lose your wife and then you're gonna lose yourself.
If I lose my job and my wife, what else do I have?
I just feel
that I have more to offer this world.
And I don't know exactly what it is
or how I'm gonna go about doing it.
I know there's something in here
That's meant for the rest of the world to know.
When you were kids
you all admired
the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner,
big league ballplayers, the toughest boxers.
Americans love a winner
and will not tolerate a loser.
CHRIS: Smelly is now competing
against the best guys in the world
and he hopes to achieve his childhood dream
of bench-pressing 700 lbs.
But he and his wife agreed
that this would be his last meet on steroids.
I knew that she didn't really care for it,
but i didn't know it hurt her that much.
And I didn't know she worried that much about it.
It's definitely something that's not gonna be easy to do.
I don't necessarily want to do it, but, you know,
if I just stay on it and ignore her,
that's just being selfish.
He's trying to have another kid, so he decided
that this is gonna be his last meet
that he ever takes anything.
How do you think that'll affect his lifting?
It'll affect it somewhat,
but once he tapers off and has the child
he can go right back on them.
But he doesn't want to go back on them. His wife doesn't want him
to be on it at all ever again.
The death of Smelly.
You think so?
Smelly will go back on.
So you'll never take it again?
- I'll never take 'em again? - Yeah.
No, I probably will take 'em again
- because this is something-- - How?
Well, I'll figure out a way.
I mean, that's something I'll have to talk out with Andee,
but this is something I've been--
I've been involved in power lifting since I was 12 years old.
This is part of what I like to do.
And I'm not gonna go
from squatting 800 lbs to squatting 700 lbs.
I'm gonna want to get back on 'em for sure.
Which is kind of sad 'cause--
Well, you know, a lot of people have to lie to get ahead.
That's just kind of the way things work.
Well, we weren't brought up as cheaters.
Well, I mean, people aren't brought up
to rob a bank either. You're not really trained to rob a bank
or you're not really trained to do drugs
or taught to do drugs or anything like that,
but just, you know, it's kind of the way you end up.
Yeah! Come on!
- MAN: Let's go, mark! - MAN #2: Go mark!
- ( all cheering ) - MAN: Let's go, Mark. Come on!
- Come on! - Go Mark!
( people continue cheering )
Go Mark! Let's go, Mark!
Come on, you got this.
Come on, you got it! Let's go, come on!
( all cheering )
- Yeah! Yeah! - Yes! Yes!
( cheering )
CHRIS: My baby brother is on steroids
and we all know it.
But look at us. My dad looks like he won the lottery.
And my mom's prayers have been answered.
I was raised to believe that cheaters never prosper,
but in America it seems like cheaters always prosper.
The use of performance-enhancing drugs like steroids
is dangerous and it sends the wrong message
that there are shortcuts to accomplishment
And that performance is more important than character.
CHRIS: There is a clash in America
Between doing the right thing and being the best.
Americans play to win all the time
because the very thought of losing
is hateful to Americans.
COMMENTATOR: It is out of here!
756!
Bonds stands alone!
CHRIS: In a culture where second place
Is the first loser,
the real heroes are the ones who win at all costs.
Everything I have-- my career,
my success, my family--
I owe to America.
CHRIS: This is America.
We're the greatest country in the world.
You could call us a nation on steroids.
But what are those long-term side effects?
For me and my brothers
steroids are not the problem.
They're just another side effect
of being American.
# oh, superman, where are you now? #
# when everything's gone wrong somehow #
# the men of steel, these men of power #
# are losing control by the hour #
# and this is the time #
# this is the place #
# so we look to the future #
# but there's not much left to go around #
# tell me why this is a land of confusion #
# ha ha ha ha #
# this is the world we live in #
# and these are the hands we're given #
# use them and let's start trying #
# to make it #
# a place worth living #
# yeah #
# I remember long ago #
# where the sun was shining #
# and all the stars #
# were bright #
# all through the night #
# in the wake of this madness #
# as I held you tight #
# so long ago #
# there's too many men #
# too many people #
# making too many problems #
# and there's not much left #
# to go around #
# can't you see this is #
# a land of confusion? #
# ha ha ha ha #
# now this is #
# the world we live in #
# and these are #
# the hands we're given #
# stand up #
# and let's start showing #
# just where our lives are going to #
# ha ha ha ha. #