Up until the 1980s it wasnt that difficult to locate a cooperative doctor who would prescribe the drugs to you. He or she would then monitor your health. But since the reclassification of steroids as controlled substances in 1990, most physicians wont touch steroids for nonmedical uses with a ten-foot pole. The penalties for which include the suspension of their medical license. In response to this, bodybuilders have switched to the seedier world of the blackmarket to buy the drugs for their cycles and stacks. Blackmarkets have always existed to supply illegal products no matter what the risks.

The majority of the real steroids (as opposed to fakes and counterfeit drugs) found on the blackmarket originate from two sources; other countries and pharmacies. Given its close proximity its not surprising that most of the steroids smuggled into the US originate in Mexico; with border states such as California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, serving as receiving stations. From here the drugs are usually sent by mail or couriered to suppliers in other U.S. states or Canada. Other steroids are stolen from legitimate pharmacies in the US.

The major issue with the existence of any black market is that it invariably becomes linked with other criminal activities. And the bigger the profits to be made the more dangerous the people running it became. After steroids became illegal drugs in the early 1990s, most small-time anabolic steroid suppliers left the profession as big-time dealers moved in. As steroid prices increased because of reduced supply and higher risk, the profits to be made became attractive to the dealers of such hardcore street drugs as cocaine and heroin. The end result was a dramatic shift in the nature of the anabolic steroid black market. Instead of making contact with some otherwise law-abiding citizen at the gym for buying anabolic steroids, bodybuilders had to start associating with hardcore drug dealers. Is it surprising then that the market for anabolic steroid alternatives has exploded over the last decade?