Unintended Consequences of War on Athletes Using Anabolic Steroids

The federal government’s obsession with eliminating anabolic steroids from Major League Baseball is compromising state law enforcement efforts to fight drug dealers and violent criminals thereby jeopardizing the public safety according to Oakland County Sheriff Michael Brouchard.

“While Congress focuses on the need to eliminate drug use from baseball, law enforcement is struggling to get action on Byrne . . . which fights drugs not just in baseball, but on our streets and in our neighborhoods,” Bouchard said. “Literally thousands of children have been saved from drug scenes by this program.”

“With budgets tightening across the board, we need federal funding for critical law enforcement programs to stay intact. Law enforcement officers need the support and communities need the protection,” Bouchard said.

Federal funding for programs that have allegedly saved “thousands of children from drug scenes” has been cut approximately 60% in the past year.

Last week, Bouchard said he met with federal officials in Washington D.C. about not cutting the money that law enforcement agencies use to target drug dealers and violent criminals. The funding, administrated by the U.S. Department of Justice, was cut from $520 million in 2007 to $170 in the 2008 fiscal year. The money is being shifted to other federal programs.

The grandstanding in Congress on the issue of steroids (purportedly to save the children) increasingly appears to have unintended consequences that ironically may have the opposite effect. This is starting to become apparent with the reallocation of limited federal resources away from more critical issues that are ignored while money is liberally spent to support trivial perjury investigations of professional athletes who lie about their steroid use.

We may be seeing the beginnings of a backlash against the federal governments overzealous pursuit of steroids in baseball. Sheriff Mike Brouchard is politically influential in the State of Michigan; he manages one of the largest Sheriff’s Offices in the country and was the Republican Candidate for U.S. Senate in 2006. Brouchard is considered a frontrunner for the office of Governor of Michigan in 2010.