The growth and use of performance enhancing drugs make them no longer a taboo subject among professional athletes and is starting to become in fact rampant among athletes. There appears to be no end in sight since leagues like the NFL and NCAA have weak testing programs. Traditional locker rooms in the NFL have a few steroid users and have many HGH abusers due to the NFL's ineffective testing programs. HGH has become a serious issue for the NFL because HGH allows the average NFL player to gain an edge on the competition with no risk of getting caught. Steroids in sports is an epidemic among players trying to gain an edge, which leads to increased usage of steroids. The use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs are unacceptable. However, with testing by the NFL and the NCAA which is sporadic at best, it allows players to get away with repeated use and abuse of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. Both leagues have had many players use steroids and many more are getting away with it. .
The NFL has a few gaps in its system, which gives some players an incentive to use steroids. The NFL doesn't even test for HGH (human growth hormone) which helps people put on significant weight in a short time. Steroid maker and former body builder David Jacobs directed football players to use HGH during the season and to use steroids during the offseason. Athletes can easily get away with this because they can buy time during the offseason, and push their random test back by using simple excuses. For instance, David Jacobs directed them to say that "they are on vacation" and can take the test the next week. During that time they can take a supplement which drains the body of any lingering steroids which are left in their system, which obviously would result in a negative steroid test.