Oconee County (South Carolina) may soon be the latest jurisdiction to test its employees for anabolic steroids. County Administrator Scott Moulder announced that the Oconee County Council is investigating the possibility of adding anabolic steroids to the list of narcotic drugs for which county employees are currently screened.
The chairman of the public safety committee urged the county to adopt steroid testing in response to the increasing problem of steroid use by cops across the country. Chairman Wayne McCall argued that anabolic steroids turn normal people into “Magilla Gorilla” and could cause them to go “coo-coo and kill somebody”.
The committee directed Moulder to action after committee Chairman Wayne McCall cited what he said was a growing problem of firefighters and law enforcement officers across the nation having steroid-induced health problems as well as psychological problems leading to such things as violent rages.
“You’ll have a little scrawny firefighter or deputy, and you look again and he’ll be Magilla Gorilla” McCall said, referring to a 1960s cartoon character. “They either hurt themselves or they go coo-coo and kill somebody.”
Either way, he said, the financial liability would be on the county, either through the employee health insurance funding or liability for an employee’s actions.
This probably represents the first time that Magilla Gorilla, the star of the animated 1960s Hannah-Barbera series, has ever been implicated in the use of anabolic steroids. “How much is that gorilla in the window?” Not very much. How much does steroid testing cost for a cash-strapped South Carolina county? Too much. Ironically, the use of taxpayer funds on the very expensive steroid testing proposal was justified as a way to save money!
About Millard Baker