Professor and Chair of the Department Criminal law and Criminology, KU Leuven Faculty of Law and Criminology, Tiensestraat 41, B3000 Leuven, Belgium.
KU Leuven, Faculty of Movement and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tervuursevest 101 - box 1500, B3000 Leuven, Belgium.
Int J Drug Policy. 2024 Jan;123:104246. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2023.104246. Epub 2023 Nov 17.
Like many other goods and services, performance and image enhancing drugs (PIEDs), and particularly androgenic anabolic steroids (AAS), are increasingly discussed and promoted by social media influencers. Little, however, is known about the influencers specialized in PIEDs and which drugs and services they promote and sell.
Against this background, the study has been intended to identify prominent influencers specialized in PIEDs, examine the market activities they engage in, and assess the latter's legality.
We first searched the clean internet to identify prominent PIED influencers. Second, we conducted a six-month-long, non-reactive digital ethnography of the social media accounts of 20 influencers and, via a content analysis, identified the market activities they engage in. Third, we assessed the latter's legality, primarily using the EU legislation as a benchmark.
The selected influencers are all current or former bodybuilders, predominantly male and from the United States. Many of them have developed a considerable number of followers, in three cases exceeding one million. They engage in various market activities that span the whole spectrum of legality, from legal to illegal, with many activities having an uncertain, but often dubious, legal status.
Though they may promote harm reduction for some users, PIED influencers also promote the public acceptance of PIED use beyond the bodybuilding community and enhance access to PIEDs for millions of people. Multifaceted policy interventions are required, aiming at preventing influencers from becoming a major source of information on, and route of access to, PIEDs.
与许多其他商品和服务一样，表现和形象增强药物（PIEDs），特别是合成代谢雄激素类固醇（AAS），越来越多地被社交媒体影响者讨论和推广。然而，人们对专门从事 PIED 的影响者以及他们推广和销售哪些药物和服务知之甚少。
在这种背景下，本研究旨在确定专门从事 PIED 的知名影响者，检查他们从事的市场活动，并评估后者的合法性。
我们首先在干净的互联网上搜索以确定知名的 PIED 影响者。其次，我们对 20 名影响者的社交媒体账户进行了为期六个月的非反应性数字民族志研究，并通过内容分析确定了他们从事的市场活动。第三，我们主要使用欧盟立法作为基准来评估后者的合法性。
所选的影响者都是现任或前任健美运动员，主要是男性，来自美国。他们中的许多人已经拥有了相当数量的追随者，其中三人的追随者超过了 100 万。他们从事各种市场活动，从合法到非法，跨越了整个合法性范围，许多活动的法律地位不确定，但通常存在疑问。
尽管一些 PIED 影响者可能会为一些使用者促进减少伤害，但他们也促进了公众对 PIED 使用的接受，超出了健美界，并增加了数百万人获得 PIED 的机会。需要采取多方面的政策干预措施，旨在防止影响者成为 PIED 信息的主要来源和获取途径。
