In The Dominican Republic: 2 Minutes, $19 Gets You 'Roids

Sipkin/News

Admitted steroid user Alex Rodriguez told reporters in a press conference Tuesday that his cousin was getting his steroids from a pharmacy in the Dominican Republic. This left the New York Daily News wanting to see if A-Rod was telling the truth. So, the Daily News sent reporter Christian Red to the Dominican to see how easy (or hard) it was to get steroids on the streets.

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I walked into the Farmacia Carmina, which sits on a nondescript corner of Avenida Independencia and Pasteur in downtown Santo Domingo.

It is one of five pharmacies within a three-block radius where anyone - from regular Joes to millionaire baseball players like Alex Rodriguez - can walk in and buy anabolic steroids. Some are open 24/7.

No prescription? No sweat.

All that was required was my first name.

The transaction took less than two minutes. The pharmacist handed over one 100 mg ampule of testosterone enanthate, a 2.5 ml. syringe and a package of 10 Methandrostenolone pills, the powerful oral anabolic steroid known as Dianabol.

D-Bol, as it is known on the street, was a popular bodybuilding drug in the ’70s before being banned in the United States.

The ampules of testosterone were in the same aisle as baby formula and bottled water. The pharmacist put my first name into a computer.

I then walked 20 steps to the cash register, where the cashier searched for the name on her screen. She rung up the total: 674 Dominican pesos, or $19.

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So all you need is a 20 dollar bill and you can buy any steroid you want, which is pretty unbelievable.

That particlur drug helps build physical endurance in the weight room, but can also cause kidney failure.