Dancefloor massive: Are more ravers taking steroids to make themselves big?

Key workers in frontline drug services such as needle exchanges agree. Steroid injectors far outnumber any other needle-using group in the UK, and so needle exchange services, where drug users can obtain free sterile injecting kits, offer valuable insights into this secretive world. Some clinics report that there has been a 600 per cent increase in the number of users in the last 10 years. The British Crime Survey last year found 60,000 people in the UK use the drugs, but experts and drug workers say the figure is far higher.

"Injectors of AAS are outstripping injectors of heroin, cocaine and crack right across the UK," says Jim McVeigh of Liverpool John Moores University. "It's the predominant drug that is being injected. It's certainly in the hundreds of thousands of people in the UK using these drugs right now."

David Rourke of the Arundel street drugs project in Sheffield, which helps injecting drug users in and around the South Yorkshire city, says that since around 2010, the numbers of steroid users seeking clean syringes has rocketed. Even as recently as five years ago, he saw barely a handful of injecting steroid users; now he says steroid use is "completely mainstream". His unit sees dozens of clients weekly.

The first warm weekend of every year is always one of his clinic's busiest. "You always know, when it's sunny, that we'll get dozens of guys coming in to get needles," he says. "As soon as the sun comes out they're all thinking of how they can look their best. Young guys want to look good in clubs. Part of the look is being big now. When they go out on the pull it gives them a bit of a boost if they're looking muscular. Steroids do that for them."

Gary Beeny, a needle exchange worker in Manchester, agrees that the steroid season peaks in spring as young men get ready to go on holiday. "A lot of the lads use steroids when they're getting ready to go to Ibiza, Ayia Napa, Magaluf, all that. They know they're gonna have their tops off, so around March and April we always get loads busier."

McVeigh confirms that the profile of users has changed in recent years. "It's a lot of lads in their late teens and twenties now. When I first started working with these groups 25 years ago it was either bodybuilders or doormen. Now it's more casual users, lads who want to put a bit more bulk on, and they often do it just to fall in line with their mates. For these lads, it goes hand-in-hand with going to clubs and bars, drinking and doing cocaine."

Drug workers confirm that the numbers are skewed, as many users deny they use chemical assistance due to the stigma around needles – and because they would lose respect from those who do not use steroids to bulk up.

How do the drugs work? Anabolic-androgenic steroids, to give them their full title (AAS) are synthetic versions of testosterone, the male hormone released naturally into the body when boys hit puberty and which causes a growth spurt, increased muscle mass, and greater sex drive.

Steroids work by helping the body repair the damage that weight-lifting naturally causes. They're typically injected into the muscle that users want to grow. When gym-users lift progressively heavier weights over a few months, they create small tears in their muscle fibres, which the body repairs naturally, using protein from your diet. It then adds bigger cells to build a stronger fibre in a process known as muscular hypertrophy, which makes muscles bigger and stronger. Natural testosterone is the body's main ingredient for this process, but anabolic steroids speed it up.

AAS are legally prescribed for people suffering from body-wasting diseases such as cancer, or complications from AIDS. In fact, their original use on the gay scene was, says Stewart, linked to a wider fear of the disease: "Back in the nineties no-one wanted to look skinny, or like they were losing weight. Getting big was part of a drive to present a healthy and HIV-free image."

There was a corresponding increase in legal and off-label steroid use in the mid-1990s as doctors began prescribing drugs such as androlone and oxandrolone, as well as human growth hormone, in a bid to combat life-threatening wasting in people with AIDS. From there, the drugs' use spread, first into gay clubs, and then into today's straight male clubbing scene.