Patiala, July 4
Buying performance-enhancing drugs in this town isn’t even close tobeing difficult. On the contrary, Patiala has the dubious distinction of being the place where getting these drugs is as easy as shelling peas.

Many chemists shops, located near the National Institute of Sports (NIS) provide these drugs at cheap prices and any athlete, with a few thousand rupees in his or her pocket, can go on a shopping spree to turn their drugged dreams to reality.

Claims made by suspended Indian athletes Mandeep Kaur and Juana Murmu that they procured some supplements from the local market in Patiala may well be true as there is no check when it comes to sale of banned drugs in the vicinity of NIS.

Several sportspersons confided that banned drugs were not only being bought from the local market but were also being brought by athletes from abroad. Most of these drugs are usually prescribed by gynaecologists and other specialists.

The Tribune team that went shopping for these banned drugs procured steroids like Testosterone, Nandrolone injections, Danazol, Menabolol and Stenozolol and some growth hormones from medical stores in the city without any prescription or billing.

All the drugs procured by The Tribune are Schedule H drugs, which cannot be sold without prescriptions. “I cannot give you the bill as you need a prescription from a doctor to buy these medicines, nor can you get any discount without prescription,” said a chemist. Even the Ginseng supplements which are believed to have been brought from outside India are easily available, without anyone knowing that they contain anabolic steroids.

“While some of the athletes, who recently tested positive, could have procured the steroids from an official, others must have bought it from nearby stores without even knowing about their chemical composition,” claimed a senior coach.

“Ginseng supplements are available at some stores but the fact that they were dope positive was not known until now,” claimed a national level sportsman. As this correspondent approached a national camper, who has returned from abroad recently, he revealed that many others inside NIS were involved in doping for many years.

“You can take their collective samples a few days after they return from abroad or when they are nearing a competition. I guarantee many of them would fail the test,” he said, citing the example of a national boxer caught recently.

“The athletes must not have known about its ingredients as otherwise they would have preferred water-based foreign drugs,” he said, adding that the water-based drugs have a faster wash-out time. Many times top athletes have suffered from jaundice after taking such drugs, which prove that fakes are also being sold in the market in addition to banned drugs,” stated a sportsman,adding such athletes usually preferred treatment from private doctors for the fear of being caught.