Doping Prevention among Recreational Athletes and the Role of the Police

Introduction: The use of doping substances (e.g., anabolic androgenic steroids) is a growing phenomenon among recreational athletes, and users are at risk of negative health effects. Many countries have implemented bans on doping. In Sweden, all use and handling of doping substances are criminalized but doping still remains a problem. Together with stakeholders, including the police, we have previously co-created a multi-component doping prevention program for gyms. Program components are collaboration, training, certification, policy work, and enforcement by the police. The program has been disseminated nationwide and implemented at over 500 gyms in 19 of Sweden’s 21 counties. The police play a crucial role in this preventive work and there is a need to intensify their activities and collaboration with gyms. Together with the police, we have co-produced a 3 hours digital training on doping-related police work targeting police officers. Studies have been conducted to explore police officers’ view on doping in relation to police work, and also how well the police training has been received. 
Methods: Two studies have been conducted among police officers, including a cross-sectional national survey with 597 respondents, and an interview study with 15 informants. Data was collected from October 2020 through May 2022. Course evaluations were collected among 369 attendees. Quantitative data was analyzed descriptively and interview data with content analysis. 
Results: 63% of the respondents think that doping is a large/very large societal problem connected to many other crimes such as violence (96%), drugs (88%), and group-related crimes (86%). 64% think that doping is not prioritized in their local police district and 61% believe that their local police district does not work strategically against doping. 51% have not received any doping training and 74% lack doping training. One barrier for successful doping prevention work is lack of knowledge about doping, and facilitating factors are a motivated police management and officers as well as cooperation between the police and gyms.
More than 800 police officers have been trained since 2021. Course evaluations reveal that 79% think that the training will be useful to a large/very large extent, and 74% think that the training has equipped them with knowledge so that they feel comfortable in doing gym inspections. The police also describes that the number of gym inspections has increased due to the training. 
Conclusions: A majority of police officers think that doping is a societal problem connected to many other crimes, and they express a motivation to counteract it. There is a need to continuously train police officers in doping prevention and to improve their collaboration with gyms. Our training has reached a substantial number of police officers and the police reports that the number of gym inspections has increased due to the training.