School of Social Sciences, Discipline of Anthropology, 25B Wallys Walk, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2019, Australia.
School of Social Sciences, Discipline of Anthropology, 25B Wallys Walk, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2019, Australia.
Int J Drug Policy. 2022 Sep;107:103776. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2022.103776. Epub 2022 Jul 4.
In response to Australian media coverage that attributed violent attacks to steroids, a new law targeting androgenic anabolic steroids was introduced in 2014, reclassifying steroids as a narcotic and punishing illicit users with lengthy jail terms. Stereotypes about the users were imputed to be the drug's effects: when used by young men, steroids achieved symbolic status as a substance symptomatic of pathological masculinity, but when used by ageing men, steroids were portrayed as a benign medication helping those deficient in testosterone to achieve normality. While drug historians have shown how public images and policy around particular drugs have changed over time depending on the social locus of use, the case of steroids in Australia demonstrates how dual public images and policies can simultaneously coexist around a single drug, such that people use different nomenclature-'steroids' and 'testosterone'-to describe identical substances. This article reports on ethnographic research conducted amongst Australian steroid users in 2013-2014, when laws were changing. While the new law symbolically marked steroid users in terms of excessive masculinity, both legal and illegal steroid users sought to distance themselves from the media's caricatures. Even as different people using the same set of drugs faced radically differing levels of access and legal risk, all used steroids for carefully designed projects of self-improvement and self-realization, not only to build high-performing bodies but also as elements in the crafting of disciplined, responsible, moral selves. Both legal and illegal users were connoisseurs of biomedical knowledge but while legal users of testosterone replacement therapy recruited biomedical authorities to their goals, illegal steroid users evaded biomedical authority and produced their own ethnopharmacological knowledge through self-experimentation. None of the users, regardless of the legality of their steroid use, believed that the new law targeted them.
针对澳大利亚媒体将暴力袭击归咎于类固醇的报道，2014 年出台了一项针对合成代谢雄性类固醇的新法律，将类固醇重新归类为麻醉品，并对非法使用者判处长期监禁。人们将与使用者相关的刻板印象归因于药物的影响：当年轻人使用类固醇时，它们作为一种象征病态男性气质的物质而获得象征性地位，但当老年人使用类固醇时，它们被描绘为一种良性药物，可以帮助那些睾丸激素缺乏的人恢复正常。尽管药物历史学家已经表明，随着时间的推移，特定药物的公众形象和政策会根据使用的社会场所而发生变化，但澳大利亚的类固醇案例表明，单一药物可以同时存在双重公众形象和政策，以至于人们使用不同的术语——“类固醇”和“睾丸激素”——来描述相同的物质。本文报告了 2013-2014 年在澳大利亚类固醇使用者中进行的民族志研究，当时法律正在发生变化。虽然新法律从过度男性化的角度象征性地标记了类固醇使用者，但合法和非法的类固醇使用者都试图与媒体的漫画划清界限。即使使用同一组药物的不同人面临着截然不同的获取和法律风险，但所有人都出于精心设计的自我提升和自我实现项目使用类固醇，不仅是为了打造表现出色的身体，也是为了塑造纪律严明、负责任、有道德的自我。合法和非法使用者都是生物医学知识的鉴赏家，但合法使用睾丸激素替代疗法的使用者招募生物医学权威人士来实现他们的目标，而非法使用类固醇的使用者则规避生物医学权威，并通过自我实验产生自己的民族药理学知识。无论他们使用类固醇是否合法，所有使用者都不认为新法律针对他们。
