Despite increasing interest in the use of human enhancement drugs (HEDs), our understanding of this phenomenon and the regulatory framework used to address it has lagged behind. Encompassing public health, epidemiology, neuroethics, sport science, criminology, and sociology, this book brings together a broad spectrum of scholarly insights and research expertise from leading authorities to examine key international issues in the field of HEDs. As "traditional" and other "new" drug markets have occupied much of the academic attention, there has been a lack of scholarly focus on human enhancement drugs. This book provides readers with a much-needed understanding of the illicit drug market of HEDs. The authors, from a variety of cultural contexts, disciplines and perspectives, include both academics and practitioners. Topics explored in this collection amongst others include: the anti-doping industry and performance and image enhancing drugs, steroids and gender, the use of cognitive enhancing drugs in academia, the use of sunless synthetic tanning products, the (online) trade of HEDs, regulations of the enhancement drugs market. This collection will serve as a reference for students, academics, practitioners, law enforcement and others working in this area to reflect on the current state of research and consider future priorities. This detailed exploration will provide a valuable knowledge base for those interested in human enhancement drugs, while also promoting critical discussion.

Recently the journal Performance Enhancement & Health put out a call to produce a special issue on the dark side of human enhancement, including the use of legal and illegal substances, leading us to ponder whether the “dark side” of anabolic-androgenic steroids (from here on, “steroids”) has been overstated. In this commentary, we will briefly engage with this question by unpacking what we describe here as the “narrative of harm”, which tends to dominate discourses on steroid use in wider society. We then consider an alternative perspective on steroid use which focuses on the users’ experience and understanding, with particular attention to the role of pleasure. Finally, we conclude by exploring some of the negative policy consequences arising from the dominance of the “narrative of harm” and advance a regulatory approach grounded in rational and research informed discussions around both the pleasures and pains of steroid use. A more developed version of this argument can be found in the forthcoming collection Human Enhancement Drugs, published by Routledge in 2019 (Mulrooney, van de Ven, McVeigh, & Collins, 2019).

Although there exists some ambiguity over the precise constitution of Oceania, given the scattering of islands across the Pacific Ocean, it is broadly accepted that the region comprises Australia and the islands to Australia's immediate north, northeast and east contained within the sub-regions of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. The region is often delineated between Near Oceania and Remote Oceania.

Anti-doping has evolved from a historically independent and un-coordinated movement to what is now a largely coherent and unified crusade, inclusive of global government, national government and sport authorities, and headed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The growth of the anti-doping movement has not been limited to size but the scope has likewise expanded as the movement has consistently called for and successfully accrued more powerful weapons in the doping fight. While doping controls within sport have been successively ratcheted up, our attention here is with the breach of anti-doping beyond the boundaries of sport, to target social consumers and traffickers of performance and image enhancing drugs (PIEDs).

This article presents select findings from 'farm crime' victimisation surveys undertaken in the two most populous Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria. We examine the findings in relation to farmer crime victimisation, their willingness to report crime, and their worry about crime, as well as farmer perspectives on policing generally and the policing of farm crime specifically. In both states, there are high levels of victimisation, high levels of worry, low- to mid-levels of confidence in the police, and there remains a gap between experiences of farm crime and reporting. Both states have police tasked specifically with addressing farm crime. The Victoria Police have Farm Crime Liaison Officers that specialise in assisting with farm related crimes, however this is a voluntary role which forms part of an officer's larger workload. By contrast, the New South Wales Police Force Rural Crime Prevention Team is a dedicated team consisting of specialised rural crime investigators and intelligence practitioners focused on proactive and preventative interventions in farm crime. Farmers in both states were surveyed regarding their awareness and engagement with these rural policing teams, and we examined how this may shape victimisation, reporting, worry and the relationships between police and farmers. In New South Wales, awareness and direct contact with rural crime police led to both increased satisfaction with police and crime reporting. Respondents with awareness of this team also express significantly less worry of crime, whilst those with direct contact did not. We conclude the article by discussing and contextualising these findings within rural criminology and considering ways forward for the policing of farm crime.

Doping in sport has become progressively viewed as a social problem and a number of actors have been successively identified as the ‘carriers of this social harm’ (Ellis, 1987; in DeKeseredy & Dragiewicz, 2012). As a result the list of ‘folk devils’ (Cohen, 1985) has grown and so too have the control mechanisms employed to combat them. Performance and Image Enhancing Drugs (PIED) are deemed morally reprehensible by the general population, and considered a practice that should be banned and criminalized (Coomber, 2013; Coakley, 2014). However, there seems to be a tendency amongst policy makers to frame steroid or PIED use outside of elite sport as an issue within sport, and to call for the same types of policies that are being used in anti-doping (Kimergard, 2014). This paper will briefly explore the PIED policies of three countries, Sweden, Belgium and Denmark, highlighting the ways in which anti-doping in elite sport is informing national drug policy and encouraging a zero tolerance approach to PIEDs as a social health issue.

The recreational use of steroids and other image enhancing drugs (SIEDs) to enhance image and/or performance has been firmly recognized as a public health concern (McVeigh, et al. 2016). In a meta-analysis of 187 studies exploring the recreational use of SIEDs, an overall global lifetime prevalence of 3.3 percent, and a lifetime prevalence of 2.3 percent for high school students who use SIEDs, was found (Sagoe, et al. 2014). In addition, looking at fitness training-related groups, such as bodybuilders, we see much higher numbers, with prevalence rates in gyms as high as almost half of all members. While most countries focus on prevention and education to deal with this growing issue, a handful have taken the drastic step of introducing dope-testing programs in gyms (only EU countries) and high schools (mainly the United States).

Has the “dark side” of anabolic-androgenic steroids been overstated? In what follows, we examine this question with the intention of injecting some nuance and much-needed debate into discussions surrounding the non-medical use of steroids. We set out by unpacking what we call here the “narrative of harm” which has tended to dominate discourses around steroids. Next, we introduce an alternative perspective on steroid use which focuses on the user’s voice and understanding, particularly with respect to the capacity of these drugs to provide pleasure. Finally, we explore some of the policy consequences which arise from these outlooks.

There exists scant contemporary empirical consideration of the impacts of illegal hunting or shooting, such as damage to environments; harm to animals (native and livestock); risks of self-harm; harms to people and property; or the role of organized criminal elements. There is, though, a large volume of research related to illegal poaching, particularly poaching of endangered fauna in Africa and East Asia which has attracted transnational criminal elements. A differentiation between poaching and illegal hunting needs to be acknowledged: the former addresses notions of theft for profit; the latter often involves non-economic motivations and, in various instances, can be considered a 'folk crime', a form of political dissent, or resistance to conservation measures (see Pohja-Mykrä, 2016).