According to researchers from the German Sport University Cologne in Germany, non-steroidal and tissue-selective anabolic agents such as Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators (SARMs) that have performance enhancing qualities are sold easily on the black market in today’s times.

It is worth noting that recently easy availability of authentic SARMs was suggested by demonstrating detection of Andarine, a drug candidate, in a product sold via the Internet.

From Sciencedaily.com:

SARMs represent a promising class of therapeutics for the treatment of various diseases such as sarcopenia, osteoporosis, benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), and cancer cachexia. While none of these agents have yet been approved for therapeutic use, SARMs are gaining popularity in the sports doping community because they are believed to provide the benefits of traditional anabolic/androgenic steroids such as testosterone with fewer unwanted side effects.

In 2008, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) prohibited the use of SARMs in sports due to their potential for misuse. WADA closely cooperates with pharmaceutical and biotechnological companies, as well as medicine agencies and drug evaluation bodies on the issue of therapeutics being misused in sports. WADA’s preventive approach was validated with the recent finding of a commercially available, non-approved arylpropionamide-derived SARM termed Andarine. This product, declared as green tea extracts and face moisturizer to pass customs, was available on the Internet at a discount price of $100 USD.

This issue of pharmaceutical agents being sold as sports doping products was recently addressed at the Conference of Parties to the International Convention against Doping in Sport, held October 26-28, 2009 at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) headquarters in Paris.