An exploration of evolving forms of access to performance and image enhancing drugs (PIED), and body image, on Gold Coast, Australia, with particular emphasis on how users reconcile their drift into criminality

In contemporary culture, the growing importance of body image has created a context where pharmacological and surgical enhancement of the body is accepted in numerous forms. By extension, although controlled or illegal in many countries, Performance and Image Enhancing Drug (PIED) use is also becoming increasingly prevalent among gym attendees in mainstream society. This investigation attempts to understand, and situate growing PIED use and to explore the extent to which theoretical explanations such as drift, normalisation and risk denial help explain individuals’ drift into criminality and how PIED are now permeating the realms of wider acceptance. How PIED are supplied and how this is changing is also considered. A mixed methods approach utilising online surveys (n40), and semi-structured interviews (22 Gold Coast residents) was undertaken, with current and former PIED users. The Gold Coast, in Queensland, Australia was selected as a focus due to its comparatively high numbers of PIED users. Overall the data suggests that for many on the Gold Coast, the body plays a large role in the formation their identity, as it appears to for increasing numbers today. As such, the rise of a gym culture appears to be bringing PIED use on the Gold Coast further into the mainstream, and for some, it is now an accepted practice.