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Social suppliers: Exploring the cultural contours of the performance and image enhancing drug (PIED) market among bodybuilders in the Netherlands and Belgium

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2016.07.009Get rights and content

Abstract

Background

This paper explores the understudied phenomenon of performance and image enhancing drug (PIED) markets by examining the structure and formation of the market for PIEDs among bodybuilders in the Netherlands and Belgium. This article specifically seeks to account for individual reasons and motivations for dealing PIEDs within these bodybuilding subcultures. Understanding illicit PIED markets is important for policy decisions as knowledge on the production and distribution of these substances may assist in designing law enforcement efforts, harm reduction initiatives and treatment options.

Methods

This article draws on two years of fieldwork in various bodybuilding settings, 47 semi-structured interviews with individuals who are directly or indirectly involved in the PIED market and 64 PIED dealing cases initiated by criminal justice agencies in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Findings

The data indicates that PIED dealing groups and individuals are often driven by motivations stemming from their social and cultural embeddedness in the bodybuilding subculture. Specifically, these PIED dealers are ‘over-socialized’ into the structure and culture of bodybuilding and follow the cultural scripts that come with their group affiliation and organization. As a result of the cultural context in which these transactions occur, PIED dealing networks among bodybuilders in the Netherlands and Belgium are more likely to consist of friends or ‘friends of friends’ tied together by threads of collective meaning found within the bodybuilding subculture.

Conclusion

We argue that efforts seeking to explain the structure, formation and motivations of illicit PIED dealing must learn to appreciate how culture mediates structural forces and thereby influences individual and collective action. Policy makers, health care professionals and other relevant parties should consider a plurality of factors (social, economic and cultural) when designing and evaluating PIED-related interventions such as law enforcement efforts, harm reduction initiatives and treatment options.

Introduction

While some studies have focused on the supply side of performance and image enhancing drugs (PIEDs) (Antonopoulos and Hall, 2016, Coomber et al., 2015, Koert and van Kleij, 1998; Kraska, Bussard, & Brent, 2010; Maycock & Howat, 2007; Oldersma, Snippe, & Bieleman, 2002; Paoli & Donati, 2014) the topic has generally been ignored in criminology and other related disciplines (Paoli, 2012). Instead, most research tends to favour the consumption side of the phenomenon, with particular attention given to doping in elite sport. Furthermore, while several studies on PIED use mention the source users obtain their products, they do not explore this issue in greater detail (Striegel et al., 2006). The study of PIEDs as a sub-set of illicit drugs has also been neglected in comparison to the study of other illicit substances (e.g., cannabis, MDMA, NPS). A nuanced understanding of illicit drug markets is important for policy decisions and may assist in designing and evaluating source country interventions, other law enforcement efforts, harm reduction initiatives and treatment (Ritter, 2005, Ritter, 2006). It is therefore, imperative to examine the contours of the illicit market for PIEDs.

The aim of this article is to explore the understudied phenomenon of PIED markets by examing the structure and formation of the market for PIEDs among bodybuilders in the Netherlands and Belgium. Specifically, this article seeks to account for the reasons and motivations for people to deal anabolic androgenic steroids (henceforth, “AAS” or “steroids”) as this is the main substance used within bodybuilding subcultures. Nonetheless, as steroids are often accompanied by the use of other substances (e.g., human growth hormone and illegal tanning products) the more inclusive term PIEDs will be used unless stated otherwise. This article proceeds in three main parts. First, three dominant theoretical orientations, ‘the illegal enterprise perspective’, ‘the social network model’, and the ‘socio-cultural approach’, which have been activley applied in efforts to explain the trafficking of other illicit substances, will be unpacked. We suggest that both the economic and the social network approach over-rely on the idea that social institutions and social change arise as the result of the actions and interaction of individuals (methodological individualism) (Clark, 2007). Alternativly, we maintain that human action cannot be fully grasped unless we understand how human agency itself is reflexively and recursively implicated in social structures (Held & Thompson, 1989). As cultural context is generated and regenerated through the interplay of action and structure, we argue that efforts seeking to explain the structure, formation and motivations of illlicit drug trafficking must learn to appreciate how culture mediates structural forces and thereby influences individual and collective action (e.g., see Hayward & Young, 2004; Ferrell, Hayward, & Young, 2008; Siegel, van Gemert, & Bovenkerk, 2008; Schuilenburg, Siegel, Staring, & van Swaaningen, 2011).

To support our argument, in part two we present data based on van de Ven’s extensive fieldwork and semi-structured interviews which indicate that PIED dealing groups and individuals are often driven by motivations derived from their social and cultural embeddedness in the bodybuilding subculture wherein they are ‘over-socialized’ into the structure and culture of bodybuilding, and follow the cultural scripts that come with their group affiliation and organization. As a result of the cultural context in which these transactions occur, PIED dealers in these bodybuilding subcultures are often not far removed from an individual’s PIED use (e.g., being part of their everyday life) and PIED dealing networks among bodybuilders in the Netherlands and Belgium are more likely to consist of friends or ‘friends of friends’, tied together by threads of collective meaning.

Finally, in part three, we conclude that in order to understand how PIED markets form and develop over time in a variety of contexts, it is imperative to appreciate drugs and crime in a three-way relationship between structure, culture, and agency, in which none of these components are simply reducible to the other (Seddon, 2006). Indeed, the structure and formation of illicit drug markets are shaped by a variety of factors including the types of drugs dealt within them, the characteristics of the users served by them, the social structures which sustain them, and the dominant cultural and economic context in which the markets exist (Clark, 2007, Potter, 2009, Sandberg, 2012a). Rather than opting for one perspective or another, it is fundamental to explore the PIED market from multiple perspectives. Indeed, the case study of PIED dealing networks within bodybuilding subcultures in the Netherlands and Belgium reveals the necessity of research to identify the multifarious characteristics of PIED dealing markets. While the findings presented here may not be extrapolated to explain the motivations behind other PIED dealing networks, they do contribute another empirical case study of the proximate realities of illicit PIED markets on which local policy may be built.

Section snippets

Methodology

The data presented in this paper relies on several multi-source qualitative research methods retrieved from van de Ven’s research on PIED dealing networks including: (1) a content analysis of 64 PIED dealing cases initiated by criminal justice agencies in the Netherlands (N = 33) and Belgium (N = 31), or found in policy reports and other secondary sources (e.g., news articles, seizure statistics); (2) ethnographic fieldwork conducted at bodybuilding sites (e.g., competitions, supplement shops,

Theoretical approach: explaining PIED dealing networks

While there is very little research focusing specifically on the dealing of PIEDs, explanations for this phenomenon may be borrowed from the extant literature which seeks to explain the supply of other illicit substances. While we do not have space here to do justice to the variety and complexity of research focused on drug markets in general, it is imperative to briefly review some of the more dominant theoretical approaches in the literature pertaining to the structure of drug markets and the

The cultural normalization and neutralisation of PIED use and supply

The general fitness and lifestyle context in which PIEDs are embedded is important for understanding PIED using and dealing within bodybuilding subcultures. While the supply, purchase and use of PIEDs are considered illegal by society at large; these activities are a normal feature of “the everyday life” (South, 1999) of many bodybuilders (e.g., see Monaghan, 2001; Kartakoullis, Phellas, Pouloukas, Petrou, & Loizou, 2008). Specifically, among bodybuilders PIEDs are often not perceived as

Discussion

Grounded in findings from the extant literature on drug markets as well as van de Ven’s own research, we have developed a typology of PIED markets which aims to acknowledge multiple PIED networks and dealer motivations (see Fig. 1). In particular the model seeks to account for the ways in which the structure and formation of illicit drug markets and actor orientations are shaped by a variety of factors including the types of drugs dealt within them, the characteristics of the users served by

Conclusion

The literature covered here, along with the findings presented suggests that we need to understand drugs and crime in a three-way relationship between structure, culture, and agency, in which none of these components is simply reducible to the other (Seddon, 2006). Indeed, PIED markets may vary drastically depending on the sort of PIEDs used, the reasons for using and supplying, meanings attributed to PIEDs, social relations, market forces, and so on. All of these factors may influence the way

Acknowledgements

Special thanks are due to the School of Social Policy, Sociology & Social Research (SSPSSR) of the University of Kent: the source of funding for this study.

We also would like to thank the Educational, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency of the European Union (Erasmus Mundus Programme): the source of funding for this study.
Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that there is no conflicts of interest.

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