Jumping the border for performance-enhacing drugs

By: GREG BALL - Staff Writer | Tuesday, August 30, 2005 11:33 PM PDT ∞

TIJUANA ---- Troy Cate is mostly unfamiliar with this Mexican border town, and the language barrier makes it difficult to communicate with the locals here. But to meet his objective during a recent visit, he needed to know just one word: "stanozolol."

Cate, a Mariners minor-leaguer from Temecula who publicly revealed recently that he tested positive this season for the powerful anabolic steroid by that name, obtained the drug here, he said, and he did it easily.

"You ask around. The cab drivers know where to go," Cate said. "They take you into a bar, sit you down and get you a drink. They have a runner go get it and bring it back."

Cate's experience may not be unique. Various other minor-leaguers and former major-league players interviewed said that getting steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs in Mexico is easy.

"If they choose to go down there, there is nothing we can do about it," said Priscilla Oppenheimer, the Padres' director of minor-league operations. "We just try to educate them on the risks."

Cate is one of 81 minor-league players who have tested positive for drugs banned by Minor League Baseball this season. He said he drove to Tijuana last November seeking to buy stanozolol to help him recover from a biceps injury. He purchased a vial with enough of the steroid for a one-month cycle, estimating he spent just 30 minutes in the country.

A recent visit to Tijuana by a reporter confirmed just how accessible the drugs are. Seven anabolic steroids on Minor League Baseball's banned substances list ---- including stanozolol ---- as well as human growth hormone, were all available without a prescription, and all were within a price range affordable for an average minor-leaguer.

Just a baseball's throw from the border crossing, one pharmacy advertised HGH in huge orange letters splashed across its front door. In three different pharmacies, the same package of testosterone (dehydrochloromethyltestosterone) showed up. And on Avenida de Revolucion, just steps away from where taxi drivers leave off patrons following the short drive downtown from the border, a shopkeeper in a veterinary pharmacy produced four different vials of stanozolol.

Also available were boldenone, methandienone, nandrolone and fluoxymesterone, which one pharmacist, when asked about its indications, said, "The people say it's for muscles."

An English-speaking pharmacist at a large pharmacy along Avenida de Revolucion said people using HGH for muscle gains will often "stack" it with stanozolol, doing cycles of both drugs at the same time. Stanozolol is known for building strength without size gains, while HGH builds up muscle tissue.

HGH is not an anabolic steroid and currently can be detected only through a blood test. Baseball does not test players' blood, only their urine.

Dr. Jerry Hizon, who runs a family medical practice in Temecula and Murrieta and has worked with the San Diego Chargers for the last six years, said combining anabolic steroids and HGH can be dangerous.

"Everybody's stacking and cycling, so it's hard to study," Hizon said. "There are quite a few things (to be concerned about) besides the fact that they are illegal.

"Nobody really knows the purity of the drug. Things that are taken orally have more side effects because they go through your liver. The injectables have the possibility of infections."

That steroids and HGH are so readily available in Mexico has long been known to players. One former major-leaguer who played in the late 1980s and early '90s and finished his career in the Mexican League said Tijuana is just like other border towns.

"Tijuana, Juarez, Mexicali ---- you flip a guy an extra 100 bucks ...," the former player said. "As a player there, you can ask any other player and they'll get it for you."

Justin Schuda, a Murrieta Valley High School graduate now playing in an independent league, said a friend who lived near the border once offered to get him some steroids in Mexico. Schuda said he has never used performance-enhancing drugs.

Players from teams with affiliates in the South Division of the California League ---- the Padres (Lake Elsinore), Angels (Rancho Cucamonga), Mariners (San Bernardino), Royals (Adelanto) and Diamondbacks (Lancaster) ---- are all within a day's drive of the border.

Of course, there are more than just medical risks involved with obtaining steroids in Mexico. Steroids are illegal in the U.S. without a prescription. People caught crossing the border into the U.S. with the drugs are subject to fines of $5,000 to $10,000, said Vince Bond, the public affairs officer for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Those discovered crossing the border with a substantial amount of steroids ---- generally defined as anything more than for personal use ---- can be prosecuted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Josh Carter, a Fallbrook resident who played for the Lake Elsinore Storm last year, said players' proximity to Mexico shouldn't be seen as cause for concern, though. Carter tested positive for a banned substance this year, a result he said was triggered by a cold medicine he took containing ephedrine.

"People know people who know people," Carter said. "And those people can eventually get their hands on it. If a guy wants to do something bad enough, he's going to do it."

Conact staff writer Greg Ball at gball@californian.com at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2629 or gball@californian.com