Athlete Pushes Anti-Steroid Message

David Jenkins is not about to judge deposed Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson. Or anyone else who chooses, as he did, to take anabolic steroids to enhance athletic performance.

“The man is not a bad man, he’s not a criminal,” the lanky, well-spoken but clearly nervous Jenkins explained during an interview Friday at his lawyer’s office in San Diego. “He chose to try to be excellent in his sport, and . . . to do that he made a decision to take these products. And he knew the penalties. But, when you’re at his level, and you get caught, the fall is phenomenal.”

Jenkins, like the Canadian sprinter, knows about the fall. A one-time Olympic hero--Jenkins was a member of the British silver-medal-winning 1972 Olympic relay team in Munich--he is facing his own personal abyss.

In January, he is scheduled to be sentenced by U. S. District Judge Lawrence J. Irving for his role in a Tijuana-based ring that funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of steroids into the United States. The steroids were counterfeit--produced in a Tijuana laboratory but given phony U. S. and European labels. The pharmaceuticals were marketed throughout the United States.

U. S. authorities arrested Jenkins and a host of other suspects in the spring of 1987 and declared that they had cracked one of the nation’s largest steroid-smuggling operations. Jenkins is one of more than 2 dozen suspects who have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. He was at the organization’s center and acknowledges earning six figures during his one-year association with the ring. He could be sentenced to 16 years in jail and a fine of $1 million.

Now 36 and living in Del Mar, Jenkins agreed to talk to several U. S. reporters Friday; he had previously spoken with the British press. His lawyer, Robert L. Grimes of San Diego, explained that Jenkins is eager to publicize the dangers of counterfeit steroids--the very thing he has admitted marketing. But, Jenkins said, the quality of the product has declined even further.

“Now there are even counterfeits of counterfeits,” Jenkins said animatedly, adding that he would not trust the material now on the market.

Apart from steroids’ inherent dangers--the drugs have been linked to cancer, liver damage, aggressive behavior and a series of other ailments--counterfeit drugs also pose other hazards. The phony drugs may be produced in less-than-sanitary conditions, for instance, adding an additional threat to users. Or, officials say, the counterfeit steroids may be cut with hazardous materials.

Used Steroids Intermittently From 1976 to 1984

Jenkins knows the business. Besides being a smuggler, Jenkins was also an admitted steroid user. He said he used the body-building substances intermittently from 1976 until 1984. In 1976, he noted, he stopped taking them for several weeks before the Olympics so that the drugs would not be detected. He always took them under a doctor’s care, he said.

Jenkins is pessimistic, however, about efforts to abolish use of steroids. He suggests that someone will always find a way to beat the testing procedures, notwithstanding the Ben Johnsons who become ensnared because of bad advice or carelessness. And, clearly, Jenkins feels uncomfortable, even hypocritical, advising others not to abuse a substance that he once subscribed to.

“We’ve got to the point where no one claims (steroids) don’t work,” Jenkins noted. “Ben Johnson didn’t run 9.75 on mom’s apple pie,” he added, referring to the Canadian sprinter’s record time of under 10 seconds in the 100-meter dash during the Seoul Olympics.

His advice to those debating whether to take the drugs?

“I wouldn’t do it to myself,” Jenkins said. “But the message is, you put yourself in an unenviable position. If you go the black market route, you expose yourself to risks. I used steroids, and I’m not going to be judgmental about using them.”

His perspective on professional sports is far from the armchair point of view. “I see it as a war game,” he said of the sports industry, comparing football players to professional gladiators.

After what he has been through, he says, he can’t help but be somewhat jaded. “Sports is fun and play and all those great things, but once you become an aspirant, it’s quite different,” he says.

As for his own involvement in the drug trade, Jenkins describes it as an idea that got out of hand, a suggestion over lunch with a friend and body-builder that grew into a Frankenstein that no one could control. Certainly not Jenkins, who admits he wasn’t up to the task of reigning it all in--or walking away. In fact, he says, by the time he was arrested he had made his mind up to say goodby to the steroid business. But it was too late. Federal authorities didn’t spare him.

Unsavory Business

“The whole thing had become pretty unsavory,” Jenkins said of the business, acknowledging that he was increasingly uncomfortable, was feeling heat from law enforcement, and was losing sleep about the business. “I don’t think we thought beyond the casualness of what we were going to do. . . . It was like an express train, there was no break. At least we couldn’t supply it.”

The personal toll has been high. Jenkins said the tensions led to his separation from his wife. “I wish I hadn’t done it,” said Jenkins, who now runs a vitamin packaging business in Oceanside. “But you can’t change history.”