# Steroids and Bodybuilding Blamed for Heroin Overdose Death



## Arnold (Jan 5, 2012)

*Steroids and Bodybuilding Blamed for Heroin Overdose Death*
_By Millard Baker_ ~ source

The parents of competitive bodybuilder Ian Karl Jens Barlow returned home one afternoon last September to discover their son unresponsive with a syringe sticking out of his left arm. Barlow had recently broken up with his girlfriend and moved into his parents??? house. Now he was dead. Barlow had overdosed on heroin.

A medical examination by North Hampshire coroner Andrew Bradley determined that the death was accidental. A heroin overdose may have been the proximate cause of Barlow???s death but his parents want to blame bodybuilding and anabolic steroids as responsible for leading their son to his tragic fate.

The father told the inquest that his son only turned to heroin after he became addicted to anabolic steroids. The father reached this conclusion since the heroin habit began when his son was involved in bodybuilding.

The father was not too thrilled about his son???s participation in competitive bodybuilding. He learned about his son???s steroid use about ten years ago. He apparently saw bodybuilding and steroids as a gateway to heroin. He supported this assertion by claiming that many of his son???s friends had taken the same path.

???It just started when he was doing bodybuilding and weight lifting,??? according to the father. ???A lot of his friends had gone the same way.???

He was so concerned about his son???s use of steroids that he took him to a drug rehabilitation program administered at a religious monastery.

???I did try to warn him off steroids in the beginning,??? he said. ???It did not work so I took him to the Priory ??? that was a waste of time.???

Clearly, the loss of a child is an unimaginably difficult experience for a parent. Grieving parents often find comfort by desperately blaming something ??? anything ??? to make sense of such a devastating event. Steroids have been so demonized that they are a convenient target in such tragedies.

Unfortunately, blaming steroids and bodybuilding often distracts attention from other predictive causes of such senseless deaths.


Source:
Richards, A. (December 28, 2011). Man turned to heroin after steroids, inquest told. Retrieved from Man turned to heroin after steroids, inquest told - Basingstoke Observer Newspaper


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## vancouver (Jan 5, 2012)

A lot of recent research has pointed to people suffering from addictive personality and not addiction to any particular drug. Some people can actually do heroin once and never again, but it's clearly not the majority.

His son likely had an addictive personality and yes, AAS lead to the Heroin, but not because it's a gateway drug universally, it just was for him.

Addicts will eventually kill themselves, doesn't matter if it's Alcohol, AAS or hard drugs. Nothing will change their fate except for aggressive therapy to change their personality, if this can be done...

End the war on drugs and take a big chunk of the money to convert jails into hospitals. Supply addicts with MJ and provide them with tools to choose the lesser vice. Addict will always be addicts, wether they are addicted to drugs, sex, cleaning house, etc, etc. Teach them to lean towards the lesser harmful vice. Watch your economy explode.


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## SFW (Jan 5, 2012)

vancouver said:


> His son likely had an addictive personality *and yes, AAS lead to the Heroin*,


 

Really?




> Teach them to lean towards the lesser harmful vice. Watch your economy explode.


 
such as?


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## vancouver (Jan 6, 2012)

SFW said:


> *"His son likely had an addictive personality and yes, AAS lead to the Heroin"*
> 
> Really?
> 
> ...


 
I guess you *chose* to read my post out of context. For people who have addictive personality disorder, all drugs (except perhaps pot) are potential gateways to more harsh drugs. The fact that you think AAS is not a gateway drug is irrelevant. I don't think it is either, but if you have an addictive personality, one thing will lead to another and I don't care what the vice is.

People with severe addictive personalities need to have a vice, there is no curring them, enless of course they want to subject themselves to shock therapy wich is controversial. Vancouver is the Pot capital of North America, though I'm sure Oakland will argue they are; either way, Vancouver's research on addiction goes back a long way. There are people who have been able to kick the hard drugs in favor of pot. Is it a perfect solution? No. But when a person is able to kick the harder drug habbit with pot, I don't think any sane person (or educated person) can say it's a bad thing. 


Addictive personality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

*An addictive personality refers to a particular set of personality traits that make an individual predisposed to **addictions**.[1] People who are **substance dependent** are characterized by: a physical or **psychological** dependency that negatively impacts the **quality of life**.[1] They are frequently connected with **substance abuse**; however, people with addictive personalities are also highly at risk of becoming addicted to **gambling**, **food**, **pornography**, **exercise**, **work**, and even **relationships** (**codependency**).[1] Scientists have been able to better understand addictive personalities as researchers delve further into understanding the chemistry of addiction[1] Alan R. Lang of **Florida State University**, author of an addiction study prepared for the **National Academy of Sciences**, said, "If we can better identify the personality factors, they can help us devise better treatment and can open up new strategies to intervene and break the patterns of addiction."[1]*

*Marijuana therapy to treat drug and alcohol addiction « Patients for Medical Cannabis*

*Alcoholism*

_*In December 2009 *__*new findings*__* emerged as to the benefit of cannabis as a treatment for alcoholism:*_
_*Substituting cannabis in place of more harmful drugs may be a winning strategy in the fight against substance misuse. *__*Research*__* published in BioMed Central??? open access Harm Reduction Journal features a poll of 350 cannabis users, finding that 40% used cannabis to control their alcohol cravings, 66% as a replacement for prescription drugs and 26% for other, more potent, illegal drugs.*_​


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