Anabolic Steroids should be legalized and regulated. This should be the case for a plethora of reasons. The ban is ineffective at stopping use. Most anabolic steroid tracking takes place over seas according to the Nation Institution on Drug Abuse, and according to Shimko et al. (2020, pp. 8, 10), a psychoactive substance analyzer at QAEHS, the weight of seized steroids increased by 24.1% in Australia during the turn of the decade. Despite governmental efforts, Shimko found that the prevalence of PIEDs in needle and syringe programs increased from 2% in 2010 to 13% in 2015. In addition, many PIEDs are widely available online with labels contraindicating human use, and are bought with the intent for humans to consume them. This is evidence that a black market clearly exists for steroids, which is dangerous for consumers of steroids. A study conducted by the Official Medicines Control Laboratories of the European Union found that of over 1600 samples of steroids, 88% of which were from the black market, over half of the samples were incorrectly labelled and 38% of the products had undeclared active substance (Official Medicines Control Laboratories). If steroids were regulated, steroid users would be able to purchase safer steroids since it would take away the uncertainty of the black market. A regulated steroid market is also an opportunity for the government. According to the Tax Foundation, an independent organization that analyzes tax colelction and tax codes, if all states legalize weed, they would bring in an extra 5-18 billion dollars in tax revenue based off of numbers form Colorado and Washington. This statistic can transfer to a regulated steroid market. The tax revenue collected for steroids may not be as much as that for marijuana, but this is proof that taxes on regulated steroids can produce tax revenue.

While there are multiple side effects that are caused by steroid use, the ban on steroids has proven ineffective in stopping use of steroids. Therefore, regulation should be perused in order to create a safer market for steroids.